BI xPress Getting Started

EOL: Bi xPress reached its end of life date on June 15, 2022. See the Solarwinds End of Life Policy for more information.

Overview

BI xPress is an SSIS and SSAS tool that integrates directly into Visual Studio for developers, and can be launched within the SentryOne Workbench for DBAs who prefer to not work in BIDS. BI xPress allows you to quickly build packages, install robust auditing frameworks, and helps you to deploy packages. BI xPress offers an easy way to add rich auditing features in SSIS packages using custom auditing framework. Auditing Framework uses all Native SSIS features and tracks packages in real-time.

BI xPress Architecture Framework

BI xPress Database

The following information is saved within the BI xPress Database:

Best Practice Analysis Results	Information regarding a connection manager
Which packages are currently running and which tasks are running inside the package	Extracted and loaded records along with their source and target information (Table/View, SQL Query, File Name, Component Name, Data Flow Name, Connection String etc.)
Historical package execution detail for selected date range (Run time, Errors, Warnings etc.)	Run time Trend for several days/weeks/years by Packages and Tasks
Errors and Warnings by Tasks and Packages	Error / Warning Trend by Packages and Tasks
Run time by Tasks and Packages	Extract / Load Trend by Packages and Data Flows
Variable values before and after execution	Extract / Load Trend by Data Object (File, Table/View or SQL Query)
Variable change history (every change to a variable value can be tracked)

Note: Starting with version 2015.3.7, the BI xPress database employs versioned views and stored procedures when interacting with the repository. Multiple users can access the BI xPress database using different versions of BI xPress as long as they're all 2015.3.7 and later. If any required objects are missing, the database can be updated without impacting the other users.

Get Started with BI xPress

Get started with BI xPress by activating the Workbench and checking out the Workbench features:

Activating the Workbench

See the Activating the Workbench article.

Workbench Features

See the Workbench article.

Workbench Path Language

See the Workbench Path Language article.