Today I had to schedule a package stored in the shiny new SSIS Catalog store that can be enabled with SQL Server 2012. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh479588(v=SQL.110).aspx)

Once your packages are stored here, they will be executed using the new stored procedures created for this purpose. This is the script that will get executed if you try to execute your packages right from management studio or through a SQL Server Agent job, will be similar to the following:

Declare @execution_id bigint

EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[create_execution] @package_name='my_package.dtsx', @execution_id=@execution_id OUTPUT, @folder_name=N'BI', @project_name=N'DWH', @use32bitruntime=False, @reference_id=Null

Select @execution_id
DECLARE @var0 smallint = 1
EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id,  @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'LOGGING_LEVEL', @parameter_value=@var0

DECLARE @var1 bit = 0
EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id,  @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'DUMP_ON_ERROR', @parameter_value=@var1

EXEC [SSISDB].[catalog].[start_execution] @execution_id
GO

The problem here is that the procedure will simply start the execution of the package and will return as soon as the package as been started…thus giving you the opportunity to execute packages asynchrously from your T-SQL code. This is just *great*, but what happens if I what to execute a package and WAIT for it to finish (and thus having a synchronous execution of it)?

You have to be sure that you add the “SYNCHRONIZED” parameter to the package execution. Before the start_execution procedure:

exec [SSISDB].[catalog].[set_execution_parameter_value] @execution_id,  @object_type=50, @parameter_name=N'SYNCHRONIZED', @parameter_value=1

And that’s it .

PS

From the RC0, the SYNCHRONIZED parameter is automatically added each time you schedule a package execution through the SQL Server Agent. If you’re using an external scheduler, just keep this post in mind .