Stairway to SQL Server Agent - Level 8: Using External programs with SQL Server Agent

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mario.granzella SSC Enthusiast Points: 103 More actions · Answer 1

Hi Richard,

I'm new with PowerShell. I'm doing some test and I have a question about the step 2 of this job. Where is the output of the PowerShell script?

Best regards and happy new year!

MARIO

pkrudysz Right there with Babe Points: 772 More actions · Answer 2

Agree and disagree: 🙂 🙁

"repetitive tasks, or as in the case of CmdExec, any task that leaves the SQL Server environment is much simpler from the PowerShell subsystem.

Disagree:

Any repetitive SQL Server task can be easily done using t-sql inside SQL Server - that's what you have SQL Server Agent for!

Agree:

Tasks that leave the SQL Server environment - here PowerShell might be worth exploring.

Richard Waymire SSC Eights! Points: 919 More actions · Answer 3

By default the output in SQL Server Agent goes to the msdb.dbo.sysjobhistory table (that's what you see when you ask to view history from the job).

To get the output somewhere else, there are a number of possibilities, for example you could do this:

$server = new-object( 'Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server' ) “(local)”

foreach ($database in $server.databases)

{

$dbName = $database.Name

Write-Output "Database: $dbName" | Out-File c:\temp\temp.txt -append

}

Which will create and then append results to teh file c:\temp\temp.txt with the list of database names.

mario.granzella SSC Enthusiast Points: 103 More actions · Answer 4

SSC Enthusiast

Points: 103

January 3, 2012 at 10:07 am

Thanks Richar. I'll try it.