SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.1 is now generally available

We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 18.1. It’s been just over a month since we released SSMS 18.0. While we brought in many fantastic capabilities, we also regressed some functionality for some of our users. We are happy to share that we’ve fixed those and are also bringing in some new features along with bug fixes.

As many of you may know, we have already enabled certain Azure Data Studio capabilities such as launching Notebooks, ADS, etc. from SSMS.

In our June release of Azure Data Studio, we also enabled launching SSMS functionality from Azure Data Studio. You can check Alan’s blog post describing these features to learn more.

You can download SQL Server Management Studio 18.1 today and review the SSMS release notes for further details. Some of the recent updates include:

SSMS

  • Yes, we’ve heard the feedback; Database Diagrams is back.
  • And, so is ssbdiagnose utility.
  • Is SSMS ignoring Intellisense settings? Not anymore!

SSIS

  • Support for scheduling the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package is now available, located in the SSIS catalog in Azure or the file system in Azure. There are three ways to launch the New Schedule dialog; the first is from the New Schedule menu item shown when you right click the SSIS package in the SSIS catalog in Azure, the second is from the Schedule SSIS Package in Azure menu item under the Migrate to Azure menu in Tools, and the third is under Schedule SSIS in Azure that displays when you right click on the Jobs folder under SQL Server agent of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.

SSMS setup

We have also resolved a number of other issues in areas such as Object Explorer, SQL Agent, accessibility, Intellisense, SMO scripting, data classification, etc.

Please see the release notes for a comprehensive list of bug fixes.

As always, we are always listening and would love to hear your feedback with any questions, comments, or feature suggestions.