Hello,

I want to point out a big limitation in SSIS. One cannot reference unmanaged code. It cannot be done from Script Task, Script Components or even from Custom Components.

Why would I want to reference unmanaged code? One popular application is to generate bill documents through Word Collaboration. One reads an input file and populates insert fields in a word template (.dot).

At first, one would think merging the records from the input file with a word template could be done through a Script Task or a component. However, Word collaboration requires referencing Interop.Office.dll and Interop.Word.dll but SSIS requires assemblies to be signed meaning you cannot reference unmanaged code. In fact, you would get this error:

Error: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Interop.Word, Version=8.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=f764e21644c86955' or one of its dependencies.

The only solution I found is to use an Execute Process Task and wrap your unmanaged code in an exe. However, that is cumbersome. It would be nice to be able to use a Script Task, Script Component or a Custom Component.