how to migrate data from spreadsheet to SQL server management

Question

I want to know how to migrate data from spreadsheet to SQL server

Answer 1

In SMSS you can right click a database and select Tasks -> Import data.

Answer 2

Unless the data you are importing is very simplistic using SSMS (Sql Server Management Studio) tends to produce a lot of errors and not a lot of actual data.

I find that if my spreadsheet (and/or csv, txt file) is very large or has large text fields, or date/time fields I almost always end up using SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).

The first time you use it, it can be very frustrating. But once you get the hang of it, it's actually quite powerful.

Here is a good tutorial to get you started: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms169917.aspx

Answer 3

Things you are likely to need to do include, preferably before you move any data:

• Normalize
• Add constraints (keys, domain checking, referential integrity, validation, etc).

Both are fairly huge topics :)

Answer 4

For real simple spreadsheets I manually create the table and then convert the spreadsheet into insert statements. I then paste those insert statements directly into SQL Query Analyzer.