Okay. DB Maintenance plans are created as SSIS packages, so that explains the error format.

More questions & some suggestions.

Do you have any third party software installed for backing up your...

Kevin,

Can you give us the details of the job step that sends out the mail and is supposed to include the attachment? Things like Step Type, the database it's running...

BOL (Books Online) is also a good resource.

I'm pretty sure that backing up a standby database is not really any different from backing up a regular database.

I have rarely seen stored procedures that call other stored procedures. Mostly they call functions.

Have you tested your Exec statements yet? Your pseudo-code looks basically correct.

Another suggestion is to look at the DBA cert books. Not to study for an exam, but because some of the better cert books give you detail by detail how...

I can't count the number of times that a wrong phrase in Google had me chasing ghosts. @=)

Glad I could help. And thank you for posting your resolution. That should...

I'm going to reiterate what I said earlier.

Use DDL triggers to log changes to a table in an Admin database. Use a Datetime column to log the time the...

Glad we could help. @=)

And thanks for posting your solution.

We actually have this working with attachments, but it's been a while since we set it up.

However, just got a new Dev cluster, so I'll play with it in the...

As soon as I find some data and code I can post without having to sanitize it first, I'll put up an example.

RBarry,

Depends on the situation. You can't always fix the Group By. Sometimes it screws up your result set if you do.

Believe me, I've tried that. Sometimes fixing the Group By...

Wait a minute. I just looked at your data again. You're not doing a pivot. Not even close. Pivot is where you change your columns into rows and rows into...

Matt's correct. You have to have a PIVOT to aggregate your rows onto the column. Otherwise, what's the use of the pivot?

Of course, you can put a dummy aggregation in...

Oy, I wish!

However, there's a minor workaround.

Register all your servers in the "Registered Servers" sidebar. Keep that pinned open so every morning, all you have to do is doubleclick...

Aha! Remembered what it was. This is a poor example because I can't give you my real data and I had a much more complex query. Suffice to say, though,...