SQL Server

Do you have a comment or suggestion to improve SQL Server? We’d love to hear it!

1. 1,879 votes

   Unfortunately the complexity to implement dark mode into SSMS v18 is prohibitive and this item remains unplanned. Regular updates and improvements to SQL Server Management Studio are continuing, but most of the net new innovations in the graphical tooling space can be expected to be seen in Azure Data Studio.

   -Drew

2. Put Debugger back into SSMS 18

   The SSMS Debugger is critical for debugging complex T-SQL Queries, please return it to SSMS 18

   •   TSQL debug.png 174 KB
   1,837 votes

3. Restore a table from a backup

   Hi Msft team!
   I'm writing to reccomending a new feature that will help us a lot! Every time that we have data issues (truncate or DML by accident) we need to restore the entire database or filegroup and that takes a lot of time! it will be awesome if you can add the posibility to restore a table from a backup or restore to a point in time directly from SSMS instead off the whole process.
   I hope this helps!
   Thank you!

   1,259 votes

   This is something that we’ve had on our radar for some time, but haven’t been able to get it prioritized. Will definitely consider for future releases.

4. develop a SSRS ReportViewer for ASP.NET Core

   Develop a SSRS ReportViewer for ASP.NET Core

   1,172 votes

5. Add row position column to STRING_SPLIT

   The new string splitter function in SQL Server 2016 is a good addition but it needs an extra column, a ListOrder column which denotes the order of the splitted values.

   689 votes

   Upvotes: 72

   <=-=Mar 10 2016 11:26AM=-=>

   It’s a shame that this was submitted as just a “suggestion”. It should actually be listed as a “bug” because there’s only a comparatively small set of use cases where enumeration of the result set of elements is not important.

   <=-=Mar 11 2016 12:47PM=-=>

   I agree that an order column is required; one example use case is where two lists are passed in, and ordinal positions in one list correspond to positions in the other.

   <=-=Mar 11 2016 3:12PM=-=>

   Please see the related suggestion: STRING_SPLIT needs “RemoveEmptyEntries” option, like String.Split in .NET ( https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/2462002/ ).

   <=-=Mar 12 2016 12:02PM=-=>

   This kind of function is primarily needed for de-serializing previously serialized arrays of values of any type format-able as text.
   I therefore recommend to have the result set of this function work excellent with this use-case.

   With de-serialized arrays there is a need to…

6. Support DISTINCT for STRING_AGG

   Currently STRING_AGG aggregates all strings passed as an input. It would be very useful to support DISTINCT, so it would concatenate unique strings only.

   Example:
   CREATE TABLE dbo.Test (a VARCHAR(255))
   INSERT INTO dbo.Test (a)
   VALUES('Str1')
   ,('Str2')
   ,('Str1')

   SELECT STRING_AGG(a, ',') FROM dbo.Test t

   It returns: 'Str1,Str2,Str1'

   SELECT STRING_AGG(DISTINCT a, ',') FROM dbo.Test t

   It would return: 'Str1,Str2'

   627 votes

7. Run DBCC CHECKDB WITH PHYSICAL_ONLY automatically in the background

   When RAID controllers are idle, they automatically check the storage to make sure it's still okay. Why not SQL Server too?

   Some of the pieces are there – for example, SQL Server already has the ability to watch for idle CPU times and run Agent jobs when it’s bored. For starters, that’d probably be good enough to save a lot of small businesses from heartache. For the databases over, say, 100GB, it’d be really awesome to have resumable physical_only corruption checking – tracking which pages have been checked (just like how the differential bitmap tracks page changes), with page activity…

   613 votes

   This aligns with our vision for improved manageability, particularly for VLDBs. Will consider for future development.

8. SQL Server vNext (post 2019) and NoSQL functionality

   Hello,

   This is an invitation for discussion to the SQL Server engine team and the community.

   IMHO, SQL Server vNext (post 2019) should beef up its NoSQL functionality.
   Specifically, its XML APIs.
   This area is dormant since 2005/2008 release.

   SQL Server currently supports the following:
   - a subset of XQuery 1.0, circa 2007
   - a subset of XPath 2.0, circa 2007
   - XSD 1.0 circa 2001

   The current w3c standards:
   - XQuery 3.1
   - XPath 3.1
   - XSD 1.1 circa 2012

   Everything is in place, even current support for the UTF-8 encoding in 2019.

   Famous Obamacare is implemented by using…

   579 votes

9. SSMS:Add a Keyboard Shortcut that Executes the Statement where the Cursor is placed

   Having to select statements by clicking and holding the mouse is just bad ergonomics. Request to have a keyboard shortcut which runs the current sql statement. The current sql statement is defined based on where the cursor is placed. For example, proposed shortcut runs only runs a single sql statement to the next semicolon. This shortcut would be an equivalent to Oracle's SQL developer's ctrl + enter shortcut. Note that this is probably the most used shortcut in SQL Developer and not having an equivalent on SQL Server Management Studio is disappointing. I know that not everyone ends their statements…

   555 votes

   We’ll look at this for future release.

10. Enable Query Store for collection on a read-only replica in an Availability Group

    Currently, Query Store can only be enabled for the read-write database in Availability Group. As many customers issue queries against the read-only replicas, capturing query and performance metrics for those queries would be beneficial for understanding the workload, troubleshooting performance issues, etc.

    523 votes

    Upvotes: 42

11. Unable to deploy SSIS packages from Visual Studio 2017 (15.8.0)

    The latest version of Visual Studio 2017 (15.8.0) appears to have introduced a bug preventing deployment of SSIS project files.

    When attempting to connect to a server the deployment wizard returns the following error:

    TITLE: SQL Server Integration Services

    Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.IntegrationServicesEnum, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' or one of its dependencies. The parameter is incorrect. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070057 (E_INVALIDARG)) (mscorlib)

    ---

    ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

    The parameter is incorrect. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070057 (E_INVALIDARG)) (mscorlib)

    ---

    BUTTONS:

    478 votes

12. Add FOR CSV to facilitate CSV export

    We have FOR XML and FOR JSON. But it is not uncommon that people want to produce CSV files. This can be done with BCP, but it is not straightforward not the least if you want to add headers. And if you only want fields to be quoted when needed, BCP is not really what you are looking for. SSIS is also an alternative, but SSIS does not always fit in.
    Thus, it would be handy if there was a an option like FOR CSV, with a syntax like:
    FOR CSV [, HEADERS] [,DELIMITER(',')] [, QUOTE('"')]

    HEADERS would mean that…

    469 votes

13. Add support for Row Pattern Recognition in T-SQL (SQL:2016 features R010 and R020)

    The ISO/IEC 9075:2016 standard (aka SQL:2016) introduces support for Row Pattern Recognition (RPR) in SQL. Similar to using regular expressions to identify patterns in a string, RPR allows you to use regular expressions to identify patterns in a sequence of rows.
    To me, it's the next step in the evolution of window functions. If you think that window functions are profound and useful, RPR is really going to bake your noodle.
    RPR has limitless practical applications, including identifying patterns in stock market activity, handling time series, fraud detection, material handling, shipping applications, DNA sequencing, gaps and islands, top N per…

    399 votes

14. Restore multiple instance support for Reporting services in SQL 2017

    Please restore the multiple instance support per server for Reporting Services 2017. SQL Server reporting Services has supported multiple instances on one server in versions SQL 2000 thru 2016 and it was removed by design with the release of SQL 2017. This was a bad move as it will force my company to deploy 6X as many servers to deploy what is a lightweight application server.

    I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the PowerBI integration with SSRS, but it also suffers from this bad decision as well.

    Best Regards,
    James Fuller
    [email protected]

    379 votes

15. Provide a mechanism for columns to automatically update themselves

    It is extremely common for databases to contain columns like "UpdatedDate," "UpdatedBy," etc. These columns work based on a trust model: As a database designer, I must trust that all of my downstream consumers will follow the intended rules, remembering to update the columns every single time any transaction occurs. And of course I have to trust that they'll put in the correct values. The only alternative to trust is to put ugly and potentially slow triggers in place to make sure everything happened the right way.

    This situation needs to change, and this is especially prevalent now, thanks to…

    378 votes

    Upvotes: 249

    <=-=Oct 4 2016 2:15PM=-=>

    This is similar to my feedback located here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/2769130/sql-2016-temporal-tables-with-triggers. The solution I suggest is similar to this, and could be used in many different cases developing using SQL server.

    <=-=Jan 10 2017 9:43AM=-=>

    I would love this too. The issue is that many/most applications don’t use Windows Auth in the connection to SQL Server (connection pooling issues, etc), so SQL can’t get the User information

    <=-=Jan 10 2017 9:51AM=-=>

    @Sanford

    Just to clarify, I am not asking for an “automatically store user name” feature. I’m asking for “automatically store whatever I want, based on whatever expression I provide.” So the fact that the user name may or may not be available is not really relevant.

    That said, there are plenty of workarounds for various situations. I imagine that if you’re using a shared connection, you can get some notion of “user” some other…

16. Unlogged tables

    For data warehouse staging tables or session state tables, when I don't want to change my application, I want to just specify CREATE TABLE AS UNLOGGED similar to how PostgreSQL does it. This way, my transaction logs aren't bloated, the data doesn't get copied around, and my inserts/updates/deletes are faster.

    347 votes

    Upvotes: 127

    <=-=Jun 23 2015 8:37AM=-=>

    I’m the first to post a useful comment. This must make me special.

    Seriously though, this would be an excellent solution to having to create a new “scratchdb” to hold my interim ETL data. This would be a major plus in simplifying design of a high performance app.

    <=-=Jul 3 2015 5:04AM=-=>

    In 2014, memory optimized tables, and delayed durability can be used help mitigate these Issues. However neither of this are always completely viable solutions. Brent’s proposed solution is likely the simplest way to achieve this with the least amount of unwanted impact. It is important to note that other platforms implement similar functionality as well. Notably Oracle.

    <=-=Nov 29 2016 3:58PM=-=>

    There are so many good things about this suggestion. I am amazed that SQL does not have the capability to turn off logging for certain tables that you define as no…

17. Make ADS An Optional Install Alongside SSMS

    Starting with SSMS 18.7, Azure Data Studio is being automatically installed alongside SSMS with no option to not install it. ADS is still available as a standalone install, though.

    I'd like a way to make the install optional for people who don't need any ADS functionality.

    Particularly for admins putting SSMS on their SQL Server for whom additional unknown dependencies might not be tolerable to security teams, not having to remember to uninstall additional items every time they update SSMS would be helpful. Even with an automated deployment, it requires an installation and then multiple uninstaller runs.

    On top of…

    336 votes
    responded

    From Apr 24, 2019 (https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2019/04/24/sql-server-management-studio-ssms-18-0-released-for-general-availability/):
    Think of these two tools not as separate tools doing different things, but as one integrated tool. Each tool has different experiences built into it and can be launched from the other seamlessly.

    From Oct 20,2020 (https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2020/10/20/sql-server-management-studio-18-7-now-generally-available/):
    SQL Server Management Studio is a foundational tool for many working with Microsoft data solutions. First released in 2018, Azure Data Studio is a cross-platform and open source desktop environment for data professionals using the Azure Data family of on-premises and cloud data platform solutions. Architecturally, SQL Server Management Studio has long been combined with additional tools, including Profiler, Database Engine Tuning Advisor (DTA), and Database Mail. As Azure Data Studio continues to mature, the Microsoft data tools experience on Windows has become a combination of SSMS and Azure Data Studio. Beginning in the 18.7 release of SQL Server Management Studio, Azure Data Studio…

18. Trace Flag/sp_configure Option to Allow Developer or Evaluation Editions to "Act" like Standard Edition

    One of the challenges for many customers who need to use Standard Edition is that both Developer and Evaluation Editions of SQL Server are the same functionally as Enterprise Edition. This means that in non-production scenarios/environments, without buying a full license of Standard Edition (or having MSDN), you are potentially using (or able to use) features not available in Standard. Dev and Eval should have a way to allow those who will ultimately be using Standard to constrain what features are used as well as any performance limitations in Standard so their eval/dev/testing efforts are accurate.

    323 votes

    Thank you for filing this feedback item. We will evaluate this for the next major release of SQL Server.

19. Database Level Option For Storing Wait Stats

    SQL Server 2016 introduced Query Store, and SQL Server 2017 CU3 brought us aggregated wait stats at the query level. This is great information for data driven DBAs who need to be able to track plan changes over time, etc.

    With that in mind, an additional data collector for wait stats per database would be a great product feature, independent from Query Store data collection.

    We all know the limitations of the wait stats DMVs now:

    • They're cumulative over time
    • They're instance-wide
    • There's a lot of potential noise from wait types that aren't registered

    If you wanna figure out what's…

    309 votes

20. Command 'Kill with statusonly ' do not show any progress.

    Hi All - We're having a SQL Server EE 2012 SP1 + CU5 version (11.00.3373) and Windows 2008 R2 SP1 EE (x64). Its a physical machine.

    we tried to kill a 'Alter Index command with offline' SPID status show as KILLED/ROLLBACK. We tried to get estimated time for rollback by using command 'Kill with statusonly ' but it don't show any progress.

    We couldn't recycle SQL Server services because it will take whole database into recovery mode and other tables also won't be accessible.

    Is already a bug created for this issue ?

    259 votes

    Upvotes: 1