Thanks for replies,

I don't use SSIS.

Not sure if it makes sense, but I was hoping to place the check for number of rows in table A (function call below) at the beginning of the second step, but it fails:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[num_rows_in_A_fn] ()

RETURNS int

BEGIN

DECLARE @num_rows int

SET @num_rows = (select COUNT(*) from A)

if @num_rows = 0

begin

WAITFOR DELAY '00:00:10';

-- call itself

exec [dbo].[num_rows_in_A_fn]

end

RETURN @num_rows

END

------

Msg 443, Level 16, State 14, Procedure num_rows_in_queue_fn, Line 11

Invalid use of a side-effecting operator 'WAITFOR' within a function.

------

Thanks,

Eugene