Tips

This topic provides some information that may help you to use SQL Dependency Tracker.

Tracking dependencies

When you create a dependency diagram in order to analyze the impact of a change, you are recommended to use the "bottom up" approach: when you choose the objects to add to the project, select only the objects that you intend to change. SQL Dependency Tracker then finds their dependencies for you, and you can explore other objects by following their connections from the original selected objects.

Sometimes, you may want to see the relationships between all objects in the database; in this case, you could select all of the objects in the database or databases of interest. This "top down" approach can give you a good overview of your databases, but the volume of data can be overwhelming.

Coloring objects by type

You may want to change the color in which objects are displayed in the diagram so that a different color is used for each object type. This can be particularly useful when you are working with large diagrams and you are zoomed out.

For example, to change the color of all tables to the same color:

Right-click a table in the diagram, click Select, and then click Same Type.
Right-click a selected object, and click Properties.
The General dialog box is displayed.
Select the colors you require for the Fill Color and the Text Color, and click Close.
Click None to deselect the objects and see them displayed in the chosen colors.

Finding the 'most important' objects

SQL Dependency Tracker displays Relative importance bars on the objects to indicate how many other objects use the object. The relative importance takes into account dependencies at all levels. If the relative importance bars are not displayed, on the View menu, click Relative Importance Bars.

If you want to identify the most important objects based on this criterion quickly, apply the hierarchic layout to your diagram. The objects with the most connections are placed at the bottom of the diagram.

Finding independent objects

You may want to find objects that are not referenced by any other objects ('orphan' objects), for example to identify tables that may not be used. To do this, you add all of the objects from all of the databases under consideration to your diagram, and then you find the objects that do not have any connections:

Add to the project all objects to be considered.
Ensure that there are no hidden objects.
Ensure Filegroup and System Object Dependencies is selected
Ensure Constraints as Objects is selected
In the diagram, right-click an object, click Select, and then click Independent Objects

The independent objects are selected. You may now wish to hide all other objects, so that your diagram shows only the independent objects:

With the independent objects still selected, on the toolbar click Invert.
The independent objects are deselected, and all other objects on the diagram are selected.
To hide all the objects that are not independent, click Hide; to remove all the objects that are not independent from the project, click Remove from Project.

Printing part of a diagram

You can print a section of a diagram by using the copy features:

to copy the extent of the diagram that is currently shown, use the navigation tools to display the area you want to print, then on the toolbar, click Copy (or press Ctrl+C).
to copy only the selected objects, select the objects that you want to print, then on the Edit menu, click Copy, and then click Selection (or press Ctrl+Shift+C)

When you have copied the diagram, you can paste it into the program of your choice for printing.

Alternatively, you can hide the objects that you do not want to print, and export the diagram.

Printing a list of dependencies

You can print a list of dependencies in a project by exporting the list to PDF, then printing the PDF.

To do this, on the File menu, click Export, and then click PDF, then Dependency List.