How to run a stored procedure every day in SQL Server Express Edition? - sql

Question

How is it possible to run a stored procedure at a particular time every day in SQL Server Express Edition?
Notes:
This is needed to truncate an audit table
An alternative would be to modify the insert query but this is probably less efficient
SQL Server Express Edition does not have the SQL Server Agent
Related Questions:
How can I schedule a daily backup with SQl Server Express?
Scheduled run of stored procedure on SQL Server

Answer 1

Since SQL Server express does not come with SQL Agent, you can use the Windows scheduler to run a SQLCMD with a stored proc or a SQL script.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162773.aspx

Answer 2

I found the following mechanism worked for me.
USE Master
GO
IF EXISTS( SELECT *
FROM sys.objects
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[MyBackgroundTask]')
AND type in (N'P', N'PC'))
DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[MyBackgroundTask]
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE MyBackgroundTask
AS
BEGIN
-- SET NOCOUNT ON added to prevent extra result sets from
-- interfering with SELECT statements.
SET NOCOUNT ON;
-- The interval between cleanup attempts
declare #timeToRun nvarchar(50)
set #timeToRun = '03:33:33'
while 1 = 1
begin
waitfor time #timeToRun
begin
execute [MyDatabaseName].[dbo].[MyDatabaseStoredProcedure];
end
end
END
GO
-- Run the procedure when the master database starts.
sp_procoption #ProcName = 'MyBackgroundTask',
#OptionName = 'startup',
#OptionValue = 'on'
GO
Some notes:
It is worth writing an audit entry somewhere so that you can see that the query actually ran.
The server needs rebooting once to ensure that the script runs the first time.

Answer 3

Create a scheduled task that calls "C:\YourDirNameHere\TaskScript.vbs" on startup. VBScript should perform repeated task execution (in this example, it's a 15 minute loop)
Via command line (must run cmd.exe as administrator):
schtasks.exe /create /tn "TaskNameHere" /tr "\"C:\YourDirNameHere\TaskScript.vbs\" " /sc ONSTARTUP
Example TaskScript.vbs: This executes your custom SQL script silently using RunSQLScript.bat
Do While 1
WScript.Sleep(60000*15)
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.RUN "cmd /c C:\YourDirNameHere\RunSQLScript.bat C:\YourDirNameHere\Some_TSQL_Script.sql", 0
Loop
RunSQLScript.bat: This uses sqlcmd to call the database instance and execute the SQL script
#echo off
sqlcmd -S .\SQLEXPRESS -i %1

Answer 4

If you are using Express Edition, you will need to use the Windows Scheduler or the application connecting to the server in some way.
You would use the scheduler to run sqlcmd. Here are some instructions for getting the sqlcmd working with express edition.

Answer 5

SQL Scheduler from http://www.lazycoding.com/products.aspx
Free and simple
Supports all versions of SQL Server 2000, 2005, and 2008
Supports unlimited SQL Server instances with an unlimited number of jobs.
Allows to easily schedule SQL Server maintenance tasks: backups, index rebuilds, integrity checks, etc.
Runs as Windows Service
Email notifications on job success and failure

Answer 6

Since another similar question was asked, and will likely be closed as a duplicate of this one, and there are many options not mentioned in the answers already present here...
Since you are using SQL Express you can't use SQL Server Agent. However there are many alternatives, all of which you can schedule using AT or Windows Task Scheduler depending on your operating system:
VBScript
C# command line app
batch file with SQLCMD
PowerShell
All of these languages/tools (and many others) have the capacity to connect to SQL Server and execute a stored procedure. You can also try these Agent replacements:
SQLScheduler
Express Agent
Standalone SQL Agent (beta)

Answer 7

The easiest way I have found to tackle this issue is to create a query that executes the stored procedure then save it. The query should look similar to this one below.
use [database name]
exec storedproc.sql
Then create a batch file with something similar to the code below in it.
sqlcmd -S servername\SQLExpress -i c:\expressmaint.sql
Then have the task scheduler execute the batch as often as you like

Answer 8

Another approach to scheduling in SQL Express is to use Service Broker Conversation Timers. To run a stored procedure periodically, which you can use to bootstrap a custom scheduler.
See eg Scheduling Jobs in SQL Server Express

Answer 9

You could use Task Scheduler to fire a simple console app that would execute the Sql statement.

Answer 10

As you have correctly noted, without the agent process, you will need something else external to the server, perhaps a service you write and install or Windows scheduler.
Note that with an Express installation for a local application, it is possible that the machine may not be on at the time you want to truncate the table (say you set it to truncate every night at midnight, but the user never has his machine on).
So your scheduled task is never run and your audit log gets out of control (this is a problem with SQL Server Agent as well, but one would assume that a real server would be running non-stop). A better strategy if this situation fits yours might be to have the application do it on demand when it detects that it has been more than X days since truncation or whatever your operation is.
Another thing to look at is if you are talking about a Web Application, there might be time when the application is loaded, and the operation could be done when that event fires.
As mentioned in the comment, there is sp_procoption - this could allow your SP to run each time the engine is started - the drawbacks with this method are that for long-running instances, there might be a long time between calls, and it still has issues if the engine is not running at the times you need the operation to be done.

Answer 11

Our company also use SQLEXPRESS and there is no SQL Agent.
Since there is no marked answer as "right" and all the solutions are quite complex I'll share what I did there. May be its really bad, but it worked great to me.
I've chosen operations of Insertion (people do) to a table that got closely the same time range i needed and made a trigger "ON INSERT" that applies needed function.