SSIS - Changing Variable Scope

If you read my last blog post about SnagIt, you already know that when I was creating the package for my "putting dates in file names" blog post, I inadvertently created the variables at the data flow scope, when I needed to create them at the package scope instead. And if you've spent much time working with SSIS, you know that this means I had to delete all of the variables and re-create them, setting all of their properties and expressions all over again.

What a pain. The SSIS tools in Visual Studio will let you change just about any property of a variable, but not the variable scope. There should be some tool to do this, right?

Right!

Well, this is a new feature that is being added to the BIDS Helper Visual Studio Add-In project on CodePlex. Check out the details here: http://www.codeplex.com/bidshelper/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Variables%20Window%20Extensions&version=2

As with quite a few interesting recent additions to BIDS Helper, this feature is not yet part of a major release, so you'll need to download the source code and build it yourself, but this is relatively simple. Hopefully the project team will have version 1.3 locked down and ready for public release soon, but in the meantime you can get it if you want it. I just wish I'd had it when I was building that sample package...