How to: View Job Step Information (SQL Server Management Studio)

This topic describes how to view job step details in the Job Step Properties dialog. It includes information about viewing job step output. You can view only those jobs that you own, unless you are a member of the sysadmin fixed server role. Members of this role can view all jobs and job step details.

To view job step information

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

  2. Expand SQL Server Agent, expand Jobs, right-click the job that contains the job step to be viewed, and click Properties.

  3. In the Job Properties dialog, click the Steps page.

  4. Click the job step to be viewed, and click Edit.

  5. On the General page of the Job Step Properties dialog, you can view the type of job step and what it does.

  6. Click the Advanced page to view the actions SQL Server Agent takes if the job step succeeds or fails, how many times the job step should be attempted, where the job step output is written, and the user the job step runs as.

Viewing Job Step Output

If the job step has been configured to write its output to a table or file and the job has run at least once, you can view its output on the Advanced page of the Job Step Properties dialog. When a job or job step is deleted, the output log is automatically deleted.

To view job step output

  1. In the Job Step Properties dialog, click the Advanced page.

  2. Depending on the version of SQL Server you are connected to, you can view either the job step output file or table as follows:

    • When you are connected to Microsoft SQL Server 2000, you can click View to view the output file in Notepad. Job steps cannot be logged to a table in SQL Server 2000.

    • When you are connected to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later, you can click View only when Log to table is checked. In this case, the job step output is written to the sysjobstepslogs table in the msdb database.

      In SQL Server 2005 or later, the View button is disabled when job step output is written to a file. To view a job step output file, use Notepad.

See Also

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