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Set Job Step Success or Failure Flow

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When creating Microsoft SQL Server Agent jobs, you can specify what action SQL Server should take if a failure occurs during job execution. Determine the action that SQL Server should take upon the success or failure of each job step. Then use the following procedure to configure the job step action flow logic by using SQL Server Agent.

Before You Begin

Security

For detailed information, see Implement SQL Server Agent Security.

Using SQL Server Management Studio

To set job step success or failure flow

  1. In Object Explorer, expand SQL Server Agent, and then expand Jobs.

  2. Right-click the job you want to edit, and then click Properties.

  3. Select the Steps page, click a step, and then click Edit.

  4. In the Job Step Properties dialog box, select the Advanced page.

  5. In the On success actionlist, click the action to perform if the job step completes successfully.

  6. In the Retry attempts box, enter the number of times from 0 through 9999 that the job step should be repeated before it is considered to have failed. If you entered a value greater than 0 in the Retry attempts box, enter in the Retry interval (minutes) box the number of minutes from 1 through 9999 that must pass before the job step is retried.

  7. In the On failure action list, click the action to perform if the job step fails.

  8. If the job is a Transact-SQL script, you can choose from the following options:

    • In the Output file box, enter the name of an output file to which the script output will be written. By default the file is overwritten each time the job step executes. If you do not want the output file overwritten, check Append output to existing file.

    • Check Log to table if you want to log the job step to a database table. By default the table contents are overwritten each time the job step executes. If you do not want the table contents overwritten, check Append output to existing entry in table. After the job step executes, you can view the contents of this table by clicking View.

    • Check Include step output in history if you want the output included in the step's history. Output will only be shown if there were no errors. Also, output may be truncated.

  9. If the Run as user list is available, select the proxy account with the credentials that the job will use.

Using Transact-SQL

To set job step success or failure flow

  1. In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of Database Engine.

  2. On the Standard bar, click New Query.

  3. Copy and paste the following example into the query window and click Execute.

    USE msdb;  
GO  
EXEC sp_add_jobstep  
    @job_name = N'Weekly Sales Data Backup',  
    @step_name = N'Set database to read only',  
    @subsystem = N'TSQL',  
    @command = N'ALTER DATABASE SALES SET READ_ONLY',   
    @on_success_action = 1;  
GO

For more information, see sp_add_jobstep (Transact-SQL).

Using SQL Server Management Objects

To set job step success or failure flow

Use the JobStep class by using a programming language that you choose, such as Visual Basic, Visual C#, or PowerShell. For more information, see SQL Server Management Objects (SMO).