Create a PowerShell Script Job Step

This topic describes how to create and define a SQL Server Agent job step that executes a PowerShell script in SQL Server 2012 by using SQL Server Management Studio or Transact-SQL.

In This Topic

• Before you begin:  

  Security

• To create a PowerShell Script job step, using:

  SQL Server Management Studio

  Transact-SQL

  SQL Server Management Objects

Before You Begin

Security

For detailed information, see Implement SQL Server Agent Security.

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Using SQL Server Management Studio

To create a PowerShell Script job step

1. In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine, and then expand that instance.

2. Expand SQL Server Agent, create a new job or right-click an existing job, and then click Properties. For more information on creating a job, see Creating Jobs.

3. In the Job Properties dialog, click the Steps page, and then click New.

4. In the New Job Step dialog, type a job Step name.

5. In the Type list, click PowerShell.

6. In the Run as list, select the proxy account with the credentials that the job will use.

7. In the Command box, enter the PowerShell script syntax that will be executed for the job step. Alternately, click Open and select a file containing the script syntax. For an example of a PowerShell script, see Using Transact-SQL below.

8. Click the Advanced page to set the following job step options: what action to take if the job step succeeds or fails, how many times SQL Server Agent should try to execute the job step, and how often retry attempts should be made.

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Using Transact-SQL

To create a PowerShell Script job step

1. In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of Database Engine.

2. On the Standard bar, click New Query.

3. Copy and paste the following example into the query window and click Execute.

   -- creates a PowerShell job step that finds the processes that use more than 1000 MB of memory and kills them
   USE msdb;
   GO
   EXEC sp_add_jobstep
       @job_name = N'Weekly Sales Data Backup',
       @step_name = N'Kills all processes that use more than 1000 MB of memory',
       @subsystem = N'PowerShell',
       @command = N'Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.WS -gt 1000MB } | Stop-Process', 
       @retry_attempts = 5,
       @retry_interval = 5 ;
   GO
   

For more information, see sp_add_jobstep (Transact-SQL).

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Using SQL Server Management Objects

To create a PowerShell Script job step

Use the JobStep class by using a programming language that you choose, such as Visual Basic, Visual C#, or PowerShell. For more information, see SQL Server Management Objects (SMO).

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