I've used the DTS wizard a million times, and I thought I knew DTS's capabilities. I had no idea it was as powerful as it is. Due to the usual downtime the first week of a new job, I was able to run through every example in the first four chapters. All worked flawlessly and were extremely enlightening.

The first 4 chapters essentially explain the DTS Designer (very different and more powerful than the wizard) and the 17 built in tasks that DTS can perform. By the end of the week, I was importing data from all over the place, scrubbing it with VBScript built into the job, and capturing any errors in logs.

The remaining chapters deal with more specialized topics, and I expect to refer to them as needed. There is a very good introduction to VBScripting for those that might need the basics or just a syntax reference. Other topics include creating custom tasks, error handling, and data warehouse loading.

However, if you are looking for a guide to using the DTS object model, this is not the text for you. The book limits its scope to the GUI. It provides an excellent introduction to using DTS, and I know that the jobs I have been able to create have saved me a ton of time at work, even if they are heavily dependant on embedded VBScript.

Four Stars

-HawkeyeGK