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This blog shows a clever way to annotate expression constraints in SSIS
If you've added an expression constraint to control flow in a package in Integration Services, this blog will show you how to display what the constraint does automatically.

Posted by Andy Brown on 27 April 2017

In this blog

Automatically Annotating Expression Constraints in SSIS

So thanks to Nick from my course this week for this tip!

Suppose that you have an expression constraint, which will only let SSIS proceed to archive a file if you've imported at least ten rows from it:

The expression constraint shows up as fx.

Here's what this expression constraint looks like:

Assume that NumberRows is a variable which holds ... the number of rows imported.

So until this week, I'd thought that this was about the only case in SSIS where it's worth creating an annotation:

You can right-click to add annotations to control flow diagrams, but the annotation won't move as you drag tasks around.

A better idea is to right-click on the line joining the tasks, to change its properties:

Right-click on the joining line, and choose Properties as shown.

Choose one of these options:

See below for the annotation options.

Your choices are:

Option	What it will show
AsNeeded	Show the fx symbol only.
ConstraintName	The Name property (Must have at least 10 rows in the above example).
ConstraintDescription	The Description property (hidden in the above diagram).
ConstraintOptions	The full expression entered (see example below).
Never	Nothing at all.