Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans- P18: SQL Server has a reputation as being a simple database application to install, configure, and maintain. This is a little misleading. SQL Server is a powerful relational database that can handle the needs of the largest organizations and, as such, its proper maintenance almost certainly requires the attention of an experienced DBA. | Chapter 4 Task Scheduling task will not be created. This means the task will not run automatically and we ll need to run it manually instead. Scheduling using the Maintenance Plan Designer If you create an on demand task you can always add a schedule at a later time using the Maintenance Plan Designer. Since our goal generally is to automate our maintenance tasks not to perform them manually we ll be creating a schedule for the tasks covered in this book. Job Schedule Properties When a task is assigned to a schedule that task is referred to as a job in light of the fact that the task will be executed as a job from within the SQL Server Agent. In this section we ll discuss the logistics of creating a job schedule. In order to begin this process click on the Change button shown in Figure and the Job Schedule Properties screen shown in Figure will appear. Let s take a closer look at each section of this screen starting at the top. 86 Chapter 4 Task Scheduling Figure The Job Schedule Properties screen can be a little overwhelming. Job Schedule Name and Type The first thing you will notice is that the name of this job schedule has been filled out for you using a combination of the Maintenance Plan name and the name of the task being scheduled. In this example it is User Database Maintenance Database Integrity as shown in Figure . Name User Database Maintenance Database Integrity Figure Notice that this schedule has been given a default name. I don t see any reason to change this name as the naming scheme makes a lot of sense. Next to the schedule name is a grayed out box titled Jobs in Schedule. This feature is not relevant to Maintenance Plan scheduling and you can ignore it. 87 Chapter 4 Task Scheduling The redundant Jobs in Schedule button You re probably wondering why if the button is not used it appears on the screen. This particular screen is shared code that is used by other parts of SSMS. The developers of SSMS decided to
