Skip to content

SQL Data Compare

Welcome to the SQL Data Compare feature suggestion list. Find out more information about SQL Data Compare at http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-data-compare/

If you have any questions, need help or have found a bug in SQL Data Compare, please visit the forums at https://forums.red-gate.com/viewforum.php?f=201 or our support portal.

SQL Data Compare

Categories

JUMP TO ANOTHER FORUM

(thinking…)

How can we improve SQL Data Compare?

You've used all your votes and won't be able to post a new idea, but you can still search and comment on existing ideas.

There are two ways to get more votes:

  • When an admin closes an idea you've voted on, you'll get your votes back from that idea.
  • You can remove your votes from an open idea you support.
  • To see ideas you have already voted on, select the "My feedback" filter and select "My open ideas".
(thinking…)

Enter your idea and we'll search to see if someone has already suggested it.

If a similar idea already exists, you can support and comment on it.

If it doesn't exist, you can post your idea so others can support it.

Enter your idea and we'll search to see if someone has already suggested it.

  • or

75 results found

  1. I should be able to import an SQL Compare project into an SQL Data Compare project

    I should be able to import an SQL Compare project into an SQL Data Compare project to get db names and such, plus table and owner mappings.
    It seems like it would be a frequent thing that a compare and build would be followed by a data migration too.

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  2. Move "automatically add new tables" to "data sources" tab

    If I'm working from an old file, sometimes I need to add to the definition in there. But there are new tables, so I need to turn off "automatically add new tables".

    However, the only way to turn it off is to change to the tables & views tab... which then adds all the tables you didn't want before you have a chance to turn it off.

    It save a lot of time to move this option to "data sources", so I could set it before changing to the tables tab and I now have to find all the…

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  3. Add a project setting that NOT automatically data compares new tables

    When in the xml project file a new table is not available and the table exists in the database sql datacompare now automatically compares this table.

    For a lot of user tables this is not the expected behaviour.
    It would be nicer, if the user can configure if 'unknown' tables will be automatically compared or not.

    So please add a setting that new tables are not included in the compare automatically.

    14 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    4 comments  ·  Admin →

  4. Data Compare - option to change behaviour of arrow keys in grids

    The current behaviour is to jump between rows to the next change of the currently selected field. While I understand that can be very useful, I've never actually needed that function. In fact, in comparing quite large data sets (over 100 rows) where any of the fields can change (and frequently not the same one) it's actually quite counterproductive (especially for someone like me who's not a big mouse user)

    Would it be possible to have an option to enable that feature somewhere in the application options so that I can turn it off?

    3 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  5. Provide support for custom comparison queries

    While browsing the improvements, I notice a whole set of ideas centered around the ability to filter data, providing support for data types that may have changed between stages in the database lifecycle (development to QA to production for instance), and the ability to filter columns, changing column names, etc.

    All of this could be supported by providing custom SQL query support in SQL Data Compare.

    The tool should provide for a custom comparison query for the source and destination table.

    24 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  6. Export Comparision Results to a SQL table

    We would like the option to generate the comparison result sets from SQL Data Compare to an actual SQL table for further processing. Currently our only option is to export to a CSV file.

    54 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  7. Create an option to use MERGE INTO versus insert, update, delete

    It would be nice to have an option to have the results scripted for MERGE INTO instead of the insert, update, delete. This makes it more friendly to have successful "re-deploy" situations if someone has already deployed the data and the merge into script could handle it.

    35 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  8. SQL Data Compare does not play well with source control repositories such as SVN because of strange sorting behavior

    SQL Data Compare resorts the files during every check in preventing source control from correctly reporting changes.

    1) It prevents us from performing code reviews on data checked in.
    2) It prevents us from figuring out who made a change and when without huge efforts.

    We have tried to live with this behavior but are finding it extremely frustrating.

    When users add a new record, SQL Data Compare first sorts the existing file and then adds the new record to the top of the file. This makes it look like the user is performing multiple actions in source control causing…

    1 vote
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  9. Compare Sys tables - I want to compare SQL Jobs

    Please add an option to make the Sys tables available for comparison. I want to compare SQL Agent Job definitions in the MSDB database. At this time, SQL Data Compare and SQL Compare cannot do this. Everytime I have to promote jobs to a new environment, I have to do a manual comparison of the SQL Job defintion. Very tedious.

    51 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    7 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  10. Make INSERT statements more efficient using shorter SQL

    The INSERT statements that Data Compare should take advantage of the shorten INSERT syntax. For example.

    --USE THIS
    INSERT INTO dbo.AgiisErrorCode
    ( Error_Code, Description )
    VALUES ( '1', 'Test' ),
    ( '2', 'test2' ),
    ( '3', 'test3' )

    I--nstead of.....
    INSERT INTO dbo.AgiisErrorCode
    ( Error_Code, Description )
    VALUES ( '1', 'Test' )

    INSERT INTO dbo.AgiisErrorCode
    ( Error_Code, Description )
    VALUES ( '2', 'test2' )

    INSERT INTO dbo.AgiisErrorCode
    ( Error_Code, Description )
    VALUES ( '3', 'test3' )

    The .SQL files will be smaller, use less network bandwidth, and arguably, insert faster.

    Thanks!

    75 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    4 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  11. Add "ignore inconsistent line endings" project option

    We have a lot of data in character-based columns that is essentially the same, but because of inconsistent line endings (CR vs CR+LF) cannot be easily confirmed as "identical". For each cell we have to open the viewer and visually inspect whether we only have line ending differences or there are other (meaningful) differences.

    31 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    5 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  12. Show how many records have been processed in a table (useful for large tables)

    It would be real nice to have a counter displayed on the "SQL Data Compare - Running" screen that shows which record number is being processed for a given table, for example "Processing record X of Y total records". This would be useful for large tables that have lots of binary data (images, files, etc.). This would help us determine whether or not SQL Data Compare is stuck in a loop. Right now the tool does show which table is being compared, which is useful, however, we have one table that has 25 GB of data in it (mostly PDF…

    11 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  13. Read from SQL Native Compressed Backups

    Compare does not read from SQL backups that have used the native compression, although they can read from Redgate Backup files that have been compressed. I think that it should also be able to read from SQL compressed backups, as not all users will have Redgate Backup software.
    This would be beneficial to all, because it would create a way of restoring lost data without using a partial restore, to any user that has this Compare software.

    52 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    3 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  14. Preview XML Datatype

    Can you plead add feature to view/compare XML datatype. Current Viewer is not good enough to compare XML data

    10 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  15. Provide option to include USE statement in deployment script (just like SQL Compare)

    Currently, we have to manually edit every SQL Data Compare deployment script to add a USE <DB> statement at the top. We would like to see an option in the tool like SQL Compare has.

    14 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  16. Filters for the "Tables & Views" tab

    Filters for the "Tables & Views" tab

    When working with databases that contain thousands of table, it takes so long to generate the list of tables and views that data compare is practically useless. It would be great if when you click the "Tables and Views" tab, it would not automatically try to retrieve the entire schema list, but rather give you the option to specify a filter for schema and/or object name and then click a button to build the list on demand. So when you only nee to sync one, or a few tables, it could retrieve…

    76 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    6 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  17. plz add support for datetime/timestamp values to sql data compare

    Yes its difficult to implement. And maybe not possible in all ways. But we have here really simple SQL 2 SQL Server Comparsions and enable the sync of timestamps would really helpful.

    4 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →

  18. Add support to export comparison results to MS Excel

    Can we please get the ability to export the contents of the SQL Data Compare results window (containing the rows with differences) to Excel, complete with the cell formatting seen in the application? I.e. headers for fields with differences in bold, cells with differences highlighted a different colour, etc.

    This functionality exists in SQL Prompt (exporting from SSMS, admittedly without the formatting) so surely should be possible from Data Compare also?

    Even better would be to be able to do this for all tables/subsets selected in the list of tables above the results window (i.e. all the data included by…

    11 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  19. Use the same"Where Clauses"

    Ability to use the same "where clauses" that has been set up for one server and when we change the data source to another server with same dbase schema it has to use the same where clauses that I've already been set up.

    13 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close

  20. Have an application or project option that will allow you to turn off automatically checking differences

    Have a SQL DATA Compare application or project option that will allow you to turn off automatically checking differences. In Sql Compare this seems to work a little better in that only a few or no items are automatically selected when comparison results are displayed. Right now, all differences are selected in SQL Data Compare.

    6 votes
    Vote

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Admin →
    How important is this to you?

    We're glad you're here

    Please sign in to leave feedback
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    Close
    Close
2 4
  • Don't see your idea?