Can SSMA for migrating Access databases to SQL Server 2005 be automated?

Question

I need to migrate Access databases to SQL Server 2005. Since this needs to be done from within a setup so that a customers' installation is transparently migrated to SQL Server 2005, I wonder if it is possible to automate the SSMA toolkit from Microsoft.

Answer 1

To my own knowledge, such an automation is not available. But it is still possible for you to generate the SQL code that creates the database (the one that will begin with the "CREATE DATABASE" sentence) and launch it through your user interface on your SQL server.

To generate this code, you can

1. Create the access database with the Access toolkit
2. Generate the corresponing "CREATE DATABASE" SQL code with (for example) SQL Server Management Studio (right-click on database, choose "script database as CREATE". EMS SQL Studio offers a very nice alternative to SQL Server Management Studio
3. Save the code for further use

With EMS Studio, You can even decide if this code also updates the data. But I'd prefer to automate data transfer through code: you can for example browse the tables (in the right order, depending on relationships), open recordsets (one local, one SQL), and transfer data by browsing the fields (you do not even need to name them) with code like:

(localRecordset links to local table. can be DAO or ADODB; Adjust code accordingly)
(sqlRecordset links to the SQL server. can be DAO or ADODB; Adjust code accordingly)

localRecordset.moveFirst

Do while not localRecordset.EOF
    sqlRecordset.addnew
    For each field in localrecordset.fields
        sqlRecordset.fields(field.name).value = field.value
    Next field
    sqlRecordset.update
    localRecordset.moveNext
Loop

Answer 2

Actually SSMA had command-line interface (special console executable in the SSMA installation folder). It was available at some time but I'm not sure whether it made its way to last release. You should ping SSMA support about what versions had it and what examples of its usages are available. I hope this will help you.