One of the downfalls to SSIS package configurations is that it does not natively allow you to encrypt your sensitive information, such as a connection string or a variable, that you may be configuring with an outside package configuration. There are some work-arounds that you can impliment that will allow you to automatically encrypt and decrypt stored passwords, but its not pretty. The good news is that now, with BI xPress, SSIS developers can easily and automatically encrypt any configured property of an SSIS package. So lets walk through using the BI xPress Package Configuration Organizer and look at a couple of the different options we have when encrypting an SSIS package configurations.

There’s a couple ways you can access the BI xPress Package Configuration Organizer. Just right-click on some empty space in your Control Flow design area and select Package Configurations (BI xPress).

You can also click the BI xPress menu at the top of BIDS and then select Package Configurations (BI xPress).

This should open the BI xPress SSIS Configuration Wizard. This is the wizard that will allow you to select which package properties you would like to configure and encrypt. Make sure you check the box to Enable package configurations.

On the next screen of the wizard, you’ll need to set a few options. The first is to decide what type of Configuration you want to use. You can choose from several options seen below, but I’ll be using an XML configuration file.

 

After you specify the Configuration Name, click Next.

On the next screen specify which property you want to configure/encrypt. At the top of the window, I can select an encryption mode, I can choose to encrypt only the sensitive data or the full value of the property. In this example, I’m encrypting the connection string for the connection manager OLEDB_SSISOPS_1, so I’ve checked the check box next to the ConnectionString property under OLEDB_SSISOPS_1. We can also select an algorithm type. I’m using the Advanced algorithm to encrypt the connection string. Using these settings, the entire connection string for this connection will be stored in the configuration file in an encrypted format.

 

Click Next and on the next screen click Start to generate the configuration file. Once the wizard is finished a summary screen will appear. Click Finish to close the wizard.

And you’re done! Here is a screen shot of the configuration file. You can clearly see that connection string is encrypted and unreadable.

Finally, it’s a piece of cake to encrypt sensitive information stored in package configurations!