Implementing Jobs

You can use SQL Server Agent jobs to automate routine administrative tasks and run them on a recurring basis, making administration more efficient.

A job is a specified series of operations performed sequentially by SQL Server Agent. A job can perform a wide range of activities, including running Transact-SQL scripts, command-line applications, Microsoft ActiveX scripts, Integration Services packages, Analysis Services commands and queries, or Replication tasks. Jobs can run repetitive tasks or those that can be scheduled, and they can automatically notify users of job status by generating alerts, thereby greatly simplifying SQL Server administration.

You can run a job manually, or you can configure it to run according to a schedule or in response to alerts.

In This Section

  • Creating Jobs
    Contains information about creating jobs and organizing them into categories.

  • Creating Job Steps
    Contains information about the different kinds of job steps you can create and how to create them.

  • Creating and Attaching Schedules to Jobs
    Contains information about how to define when jobs start running and how often they should run.

  • Running Jobs
    Contains information about manually running jobs (without a schedule).

  • Specifying Job Responses
    Contains information about how you can configure SQL Server Agent to respond to jobs. For example, you can configure SQL Server Agent to notify administrators when jobs are finished.

  • Viewing and Modifying Jobs
    Contains information about how to view existing jobs, their history once executes, and how to modify them.

  • Scripting Jobs Using Transact-SQL
    Contains information about how to generate Transact-SQL scripts for existing jobs.

  • Monitoring Job Activity
    Contains information about the jobs that exist on an instance of SQL Server instance by using Job Activity Monitor. You can view the current job properties, last run status, and future run time. You can also use Job Activity Monitor to link to the job history.