Log entries created during the execution of an SSIS package help in monitoring, analysis, and issue resolution. In addition to logging events, you might want to capture the run-time values of variables in the package. I couldn’t find a native feature to log SSIS variable values so the following post shows how I did it.

The Setup

For this demo, I’ll do an INSERT operation on a table named TableA and use variables to save the before and after INSERT row count. The TableA is always blank at the beginning of the package i.e. the row count is zero. The Execute SQL Task named ESQLT-InsertRowsInTableA inserts 502 rows in TableA. The simple package looks like the image below. If you are wondering about the funny prefixes in the object names then you can read about my naming conventions mentioned in my other blog post.

I have two integer variables named rcTableA_PreRefresh and rcTableA_PostRefresh scoped at the package level.

Enable the Event

A log entry is generated when an event is triggered. Each object in SSIS has its own events that can be logged. I’ll use the event called OnVariableValueChanged, which as the name denotes, is triggered whenever the value of the variable changes. This event is disabled by default. To enable it, go to the Properties window of the variable and make the RaiseChangedEvent property to True. It must be enabled for each variable individually.

Next, I include the OnVariableValueChanged event in the logging configuration. It has to be included at the container level where the variables are scoped to. In my case, at the package level. I’m using the SSIS Log Provider for SQL Server in this package.

Then I execute the package and look at the [dbo].[sysssislog] table for the log entries.

There are some log entries but something is missing. I see the OnVariableValueChanged event logged for the Post Refresh variable but not the Pre Refresh variable.

The reason is that the initial value of the variable is set to zero in the package. The row count of a brand new empty table is also zero. So there was no change in variable value. The OnVariableValueChanged event fires only when the value actually changes! Overwriting with the same value doesn’t fulfill this condition.

To resolve that, I change the initial values in the package to -1. Now even if the row count turns out to be zero, the variable value will still change from -1 to zero. The COUNT function can’t count below zero, can it?

I run the package again and check out the [dbo].[sysssislog] table.

Things are better. The OnVariableValueChanged event for both the variables show up in the log. But the variable values are still not there.

Log SSIS Variable

The reason for missing values is that the event logging just captures the fact that the variable value changed. It doesn’t capture the value by itself. I’ll make an addition to the event handler to get the variable values too. I add an Execute SQL Task to the package level event handler for OnVariableValueChanged event.

The General tab of the Execute SQL Task has the following properties and SQL command –

INSERT INTO [dbo].[sysssislog]
([event]
,[computer]
,[operator]
,[ source]
,[sourceid]
,[executionid]
,[starttime]
,[endtime]
,[datacode]
,[databytes]
,[message])
VALUES
('*SSIS-OnVariableValueChanged' -- Custom event name
,? -- param 0
,? -- param 1
,? -- param 2
,? -- param 3
,? -- param 4
,? -- param 5
,? -- param 6
,0 -- Zero
,'' -- Blank string
,?) -- param 7

Notice that I precede the custom event name with an asterisk to differentiate it from the log entries created by the system.

The Parameter Mapping tab of the Execute SQL Task has the following properties –

Pay attention to the System::VariableValue (last variable) in this screen. Its data type is LONG, which is appropriate for the numeric row counts in my example. You may have different data types for your variables. Do adjust the data type and length appropriately. Using a wrong type could lead to no value logged at all.

I run the package again and this time, the variable values are also logged in the table.

Summary

A single event handler will take care of all variables in that scope. In my case, two package scoped variables are handled by a single package level event handler.

The variable value really has to change to fire the event.

The OnVariableValueChanged event is triggered for the container that has the variable in its scope. The container triggering the change in variable value could be different than the container that has the variable in its scope. In my demo, the variables were scoped to the package. Even though an Execute SQL Task is changing the variable values, I still put the event handler at the package level. As another example, assume there is a variable declared in the scope of a ForEachLoop container and there is a Script Task in the ForEachLoop. The Script Task changes the variable value. The OnVariableValueChanged event will be triggered for the ForEachLoop task.

I have used the default [sysssislog] logging table to log my variable values. You can easily use a different custom table by changing the OLEDB connection and making appropriate changes to the INSERT statement.

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