Getting Started with SQL Job Schedules

Getting Started with SQL Job Schedules, I recently suggested to a friend that they use Ola Hallengren’s SQL Server Maintenance Solution for their Config Manager database. I first heard of Ola’s scripts at the Midwest Management Summit. If you are not familiar with his scripts, you can find them here, https://ola.hallengren.com/. Ola’s scripts automatically create several jobs for backup and other maintenance tasks but does not create or assign those jobs to a schedule.

Since my friend did not have much SQL experience, I created a quick overview of the scheduling process for them. If you are not familiar with SQL (which if you are still reading, is probably a fair assumption) scheduling jobs is a 2-step process. First, you need to create a schedule. Then you need to assign a job to the schedule that you created.

Assumptions

At this point, I will assume that you have configured and installed Ola’s scripts or have another SQL job that you need to schedule. Run SQL Server Management Studio, expand SQL Server Agent and then expand Jobs.

Getting Started

1. Right click on Jobs and then click Manage Schedules.

2. Left click on New… in Manage Schedules

3. Type a name for the New Job Schedule. Since I am creating a schedule for a specific job on a single server, I am using the job’s name for the schedule. In a larger environment, you may consider using names that are more descriptive of the schedule since multiple jobs can be attached to each schedule.

4. Configure the schedule. In this example, I am setting the schedule to every Sunday morning at 12:15am.

5. When you have completed editing the schedule, click OK to save it.

6. Find the schedule that you just created and click on the ‘0’ in the right-most column.

7. Select the job or jobs that you would like to assign to the schedule.

8. Click OK in Jobs Referencing a Schedule. Click OK in Manage Schedules.

9. Right click on Job Activity Monitor. Click on View Job Activity.

10. Verify that the job is scheduled to run. In this case the Next Run for the Full Backup is Sunday at 12:15am. Click Close ad exit SQL Server Management Studio.

I hope this points you in the right direction for scheduling jobs in SQL Server. For more information on SQL Server scheduling, see Microsoft’s documentation at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/agent/schedule-a-job?view=sql-server-2017#SSMS

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