How do I tell SSIS where my child packages are when executing a parent package?

Question

I have a 'meta' SSIS package, which executes several child packages via the "Execute package task" from the SSIS toolbox.

Visual Studio 2012 will run the meta package OK and execute the connected child packages as expected, in turn - but if I add them from the file system into Sql Server Integration Services via SSMS 2012, the child packages all fail with "There is no project to reference"

If I add the child packages from the file system into the Integration services stored packages list, the same issue occurs when executing the parent, so it's not as simple as adding them into the list.

How can I resolve this? I want them to be on the file system to ease maintenance and deployment - I do not really want to have to invoke it programatically.

Any clues as to how Visual Studio 2012 manages to invoke the parent package without this error?

Answer 1

For anyone remotely interested in the solution, here it is:

Do not use file system packages. Load them into an SSIS catalog on an SSIS-enabled SQL Server instance. It's just so much easier. It may cause a few annoyances if you want to deploy, source control or use automation of any kind, but this is the lesser of 17 evils.