Azure SQL Database - something like sp_send_dbmail

 I needed the ability to send emails from Azure SQL DB, which doesn't support it. The long-term goal is to use LogicApps or SendGrid or something like that, but while I wait for permissions and the like, let me share this instead. It acts like sp_send_dbmail, and will even run queries in the database (or other databases on that server!) and send them from your on-prem server.

This is based on others. They had the awesome parts, my parts are the crappy glue making it work. : )

The emailqueue table looks like this:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[EmailQueue](
[Id] [INT] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[Recipients] [VARCHAR](250) NOT NULL,
[Cc_recipients] [VARCHAR](250) NULL,
[Email_Subject] [VARCHAR](250) NOT NULL,
[Email_body] [VARCHAR](MAX) NULL,
[Email_body_format] [VARCHAR](10) NULL,
[Query] [NVARCHAR](MAX) NULL,
[profile_name] [VARCHAR](250) NULL,
[QueueTime] [DATETIME2](7) NOT NULL,
[SentTime] [DATETIME2](7) NULL,
[Importance] [VARCHAR](10) NULL,
[attach_query_result_as_file] [BIT] NULL,
[query_attachment_filename] [VARCHAR](200) NULL,
[query_result_header] [BIT] NULL,
[query_result_width] [INT] NULL,
[query_result_separator] [VARCHAR](2) NULL,
[query_result_no_padding] [BIT] NULL,
[bcc_recipients] [VARCHAR](255) NULL,
[execute_query_database] [VARCHAR](255) NULL,
[from_address] [VARCHAR](MAX) NULL,
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
[Id] ASC
)WITH (STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY = OFF) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[EmailQueue] ADD  CONSTRAINT [Co_Importance]  DEFAULT ('Normal') FOR [Importance]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[EmailQueue] ADD  DEFAULT ((0)) FOR [attach_query_result_as_file]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[EmailQueue] ADD  DEFAULT ((1)) FOR [query_result_header]
GO
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[EmailQueue] ADD  DEFAULT ((0)) FOR [query_result_no_padding]
GO

And the SP: 

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[log_dbmail] 

   @profile_name               sysname    = NULL,        

   @recipients                 VARCHAR(MAX)  = NULL, 

   @copy_recipients            VARCHAR(MAX)  = NULL,

   @blind_copy_recipients      VARCHAR(MAX)  = NULL,

   @subject                    NVARCHAR(255) = NULL,

   @body                       NVARCHAR(MAX) = NULL, 

   @body_format                VARCHAR(20)   = NULL, 

   @importance                 VARCHAR(6)    = 'NORMAL',

   @sensitivity                VARCHAR(12)   = 'NORMAL',

   @file_attachments           NVARCHAR(MAX) = NULL,  

   @query                      NVARCHAR(MAX) = NULL,

   @execute_query_database     sysname       = NULL,  

   @attach_query_result_as_file BIT          = 0,

   @query_attachment_filename  NVARCHAR(260) = NULL,  

   @query_result_header        BIT           = 1,

   @query_result_width         INT           = 256,            

   @query_result_separator     VARCHAR(2)       = ' ',

   @exclude_query_output       BIT           = 0,

   @append_query_error         BIT           = 0,

   @query_no_truncate          BIT           = 0,

   @query_result_no_padding    BIT           = 0,

   @mailitem_id               INT            = NULL OUTPUT,

   @from_address               VARCHAR(MAX)  = NULL,

   @reply_to                   VARCHAR(MAX)  = NULL

AS 

INSERT INTO dbo.EmailQueue

(

    Recipients,

    Cc_recipients,

Bcc_recipients,

    Email_Subject,

    Email_body,

    Email_body_format,

Query,

Execute_Query_Database,

attach_query_result_as_file,

query_attachment_filename,

query_result_header,

query_result_width,

query_result_separator,

query_result_no_padding,

    profile_name,

    QueueTime,

    SentTime,

Importance

)

VALUES

(   @recipients,            -- Recipients - varchar(250)

    @copy_recipients,          -- Cc_recipients - varchar(250)

@blind_copy_recipients,

    @subject,            -- Email_Subject - varchar(250)

    @body,          -- Email_body - varchar(max)

    @body_format,          -- Email_body_format - varchar(10)

@query,

@execute_query_database,

@attach_query_result_as_file,

@query_attachment_filename,

@query_result_header,

@query_result_width,

@query_result_separator,

@query_result_no_padding,

@profile_name,          -- profile_name - varchar(250)

    CAST(SYSDATETIMEOFFSET() AT TIME ZONE 'Central Standard Time' AS DATETIME), -- QueueTime - datetime2

    NULL,           -- SentTime - datetime2

@importance

    )

The powershell that pulls it all together: 

Read your Microsoft Teams messages using Microsoft Graph and Powershell

 I suck at time cards. Part of it is that I'm jumping between 30 tasks at once - help this team, help that team, training, documentation, and my sprint work. At the end of the day I have a bare-ass notebook with a few cryptic lines about what I did today - if I'm lucky.  

But a lot of it is available elsewhere. We're all virtual now, so all my interactions are either voice calls, meetings, or chats.  I want to list out what I did in a given day so I can reconstruct it - how much time I spent helping whom.

Enter Microsoft Graph. It's an API that selects from it. There's a set of cmdlets that let you do quite a bit.  I really do wish the get-mgchatmessagedelta properly handled "-filter" to make this faster, but I'll cope.

This will rip through ALL your chats, then for each one get the most recent 200 messages, filter it down to the past day or two, then toss it out on a format-table. 

My pain, your gain.  It's always fun when there's 2 google results for something. 

Install-Module Microsoft.Graph
Import-Module Microsoft.Graph.Teams
$RequiredScopes = @("Chat.ReadBasic", "Chat.ReadWrite")
Connect-MgGraph -Scopes $RequiredScopes
#at this point a browser window should appear - allow it.
#I had to find my user id in graph explorer UI by running GET   V1.0    https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me
#unsure how to get it otherwise - but you don't need it with get-mgchat
get-mgchat
#take one of those IDs
#let's look at this chat:
get-mgchat  -ChatId 19:deadbeefb2d949d88d4455f5279e5d8b@thread.v2
get-mgchatmessage -ChatId 19:deadbeefb2d949d88d4455f5279e5d8b@thread.v2 

#this nests and walks through properly, strips HTML, but lord this will be slow.  And shows more than one line per message, even when I try now to.
#By default you can get all your chats by running get-mgchat.  -all and -pagesize 50 is required for the module to paginate the request and get you everything. But in my case it grabbed all 2000 chats. The -first 5 is for testing.
$tzone = Get-TimeZone  # conversion from GMT to local time. https://jdhitsolutions.com/blog/powershell/7962/convert-to-local-time-with-powershell/
$mychats = get-mgchat -all -PageSize 50  |select -first 5
$all_chat_info = @() #force-setting to an array
$all_chat_info = foreach ($chat in $mychats) { 
    $chatinfo = get-mgchat -ChatId $chat.id #get base details about the CHAT itself
    #set some details about the chat itself for the later query
    $chatname = $chat.Topic
    $members = $chat.Members
    $chattype = $chat.chattype
    #now get every message from that chat since midnight yesterday.  Note LastModifiedDateTime is GMT.    The jdhit page says -($tzone...), but all I had to do was .tolocaltime() ... I think.
    #the -top 200 -pagesize 50 is to get the most recent 200 messages, and again you have to paginate.   
    $recentchatmessages = get-mgchatmessage -ChatId $chat.id -top 200 -pagesize 50 |where {$_.LastModifiedDateTime.tolocaltime() -gt (get-date).date.AddDays(-1)} # all from after midnight yesterday |select -first 5
    #and now use select expression to add the above fields and parse the below fields, stripping out HTML (but I can't seem to only get the first line in OGV)
    $recentchatmessages | select @{Label='LastModified';Expression={($_.LastModifiedDateTime.tolocaltime())}}, @{Label='ChatName';Expression={($chatname)}}, @{Label='members';Expression={($members)}}, @{Label='ChatType';Expression={($chattype)}}, 
    @{Label='From';Expression={($_.from.user.displayname)}}, @{Label='Body';Expression={ ($_.Body.content -split '\n')[0] -replace '<[^>]+>',''}}
    #@{Label='From';Expression={($_.from.user.displayname)}}, @{Label='Body';Expression={( ($_.Body.content -replace '<[^>]+>','').split([Environment]::NewLine)|select -first 1)}}
}
$all_chat_info|format-table 
#and now close/disconnect
Disconnect-MgGraph

Xquery - a surprising difference between Azure SQL Database and Azure Managed Instance with Quotes

I'm moving processes into Azure.  Given that it's me, probably poorly. But I'm using this as an opportunity to improve things where possible, specifically looking at moving some processes to Azure SQL Database. 

Why? I love them for several reasons: 

• Simpler
• Cheaper
• Quick to create
• Quick to modify the instance (seconds, not hours)

Yes, there are still gotchas (Elastic Jobs, no cross-db queries, no CLR, can't replicate from it), but overall? Soooo nice.

---

I was trying to get some Xquery parsing working, and ran into a weird error:

"CONDITIONAL failed because the following SET options have incorrect settings: 'QUOTED_IDENTIFIER'"

Weird.  Doubly so because this code has worked on-prem for a decade, and the Managed Instance is running it now.  And because the SP specifically has a SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON; 

Okay, let's take alook online.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47091181/jobs-failing-due-to-incorrect-settings-quoted-identifier

Yeah, that's the problem.  And indeed, my code has similar xquery to the example:

set @myval = @xml.[value]('(*/A[B="C"]/D[E="F" or G="H"]/I)[1]', 'varchar (35)');

What's the fix? Use two single-quotes instead of the double quote.

set @myval = @xml.[value]('(*/A[B=''C'']/D[E=''F'' or G=''H'']/I)[1]', 'varchar (35)');

We stand with Ukraine

growing up, my Baba always pronounced it weirdly to me - you-craw-een. Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be the right way. watching the footage,i cant help but feel for them. I don't know how this is going to shake out, but they're in the right and russia is wrong.

SSRS - getting the ACTUAL connection strings for ALL your datasources in SSRS

File under "and this is why I'm not an MVP"...

Yeah, it's been a few months. Azure, Powershell, Python, Parquet, and the entire team turning over. 

However, now I get to deal with... SSRS?  Really?  Yeah, until we figure out how to convert them to PowerBI or something Azure-centric that requires no effort.  Seriously, I can't believe Microsoft doesn't have this.  It's DUM. D-U-M-B, dum.

But I digress.

Today: comparing your old SSRS Datasource connection strings to the new server, since they don't match and you don't think you can just backup/restore over ReportServer.

<script src="https://gist.github.com/mbourgon/b0fb93736354040ce7242673f8e90107.js"></script>

and , in case THAT doesn't work.

----------------------------------------------------------

#to install the MS module you need:

#Invoke-Expression (Invoke-WebRequest https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Microsoft/ReportingServicesTools/master/Install.ps1)

$SSRS_Servername = "yourservernamehere"

#query cribbed from https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/138236/get-ssrs-datasources-from-reportserver

$SSRS_list_datasources = @"

/*

Let's say you want to move a database to an other SQL Server, but which of the SSRS Shared Datasources uses this database and must be changed afterwards?

With this Transact-SQL query for ReportServer database you get the connection string of all Shared Datasources,

to document the usage or to search for a specific server/database.

Please remark: Querying the ReportServer database directly is not a supported way.

Works with SSRS 2005 and higher version ReportServer databases.

Requieres select rights on the "Catalog" table in ReportServer database.

*/

-- Connection strings of all SSRS Shared Datasources

;WITH XMLNAMESPACES  -- XML namespace def must be the first in with clause.

    (DEFAULT 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2006/03/reportdatasource'

            ,'http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLServer/reporting/reportdesigner'

     AS rd)

,SDS AS

    (SELECT SDS.name AS SharedDsName

           ,SDS.[Path]

           ,CONVERT(xml, CONVERT(varbinary(max), content)) AS DEF

     FROM dbo.[Catalog] AS SDS

     WHERE SDS.Type = 5)     -- 5 = Shared Datasource

SELECT CON.[Path]

      ,CON.SharedDsName

      ,CON.ConnString

FROM

    (SELECT SDS.[Path]

           ,SDS.SharedDsName

           ,DSN.value('ConnectString[1]', 'varchar(150)') AS ConnString

     FROM SDS

          CROSS APPLY 

          SDS.DEF.nodes('/DataSourceDefinition') AS R(DSN)

     ) AS CON

-- Optional filter:

-- WHERE CON.ConnString LIKE '%Initial Catalog%=%TFS%'

ORDER BY CON.[Path]

        ,CON.SharedDsName;

"@

. C:\Powershell_Scripts\invoke-sqlcmd2a.ps1

$datasource_list = invoke-sqlcmd2 -query $SSRS_list_datasources -ServerInstance $SSRS_Servername -Database ReportServer

$DataSource_Details = @()

$DataSource_Details += foreach ($datasource in $datasource_list) {

$ConnectString = Get-RsDataSource -ReportServerUri "http://$SSRS_Servername/ReportServer" -Path $datasource.Path

$connectstring|select @{Label='SharedDsName';Expression={$datasource.SharedDsName}} ,@{Label='Path';Expression={$datasource.path}}, @{Label='ConnectionString';Expression={$_.ConnectString}} , @{Label='Username';Expression={$_.UserName}} 

}

$DataSource_Details|format-table