SQL Server Event Calendar

SQL Sentry^® Event Calendar is a capability designed to combine historical and future SQL Server and Windows event data in a visual, Outlook-style display. With the Event Calendar, you can identify and fix potential conflicts between multiple events—such as SQL Server jobs or Windows scheduled tasks—competing for the same resources, which can slow database performance.

• Manage SQL Server and Windows events with a centralized, graphical Outlook-style Event Calendar
• View historical and future event data
• Automatically reschedule future SQL Server tasks
• View contention issues in a graphical format
• Drill down on events and troubleshoot them within the SQL Sentry Performance Analysis Dashboard
• Filter the events display on your calendar by events for a particular server
• Filter events by event type (deadlocks, for example) or event source
• Use the Event Calendar for SQL Server Agent Job, Alert, and Log events; Windows tasks and Event Log events; and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) events

Keeping track of your many jobs in SQL Server is no easy feat, but the SQL Sentry’s Event Calendar simplifies everything. Not only can it help you visualize jobs across an instance, but it can provide insights into jobs occurring across your entire enterprise.

With Event Calendar, you’ll be able to see SQL Server job schedules, average runtime, and even actual runtime and success or failure for historical SQL events. SQL Server Event Calendar will also allow you to see the step-level status for any multi-step SQL Server Agent jobs.

Additionally, SQL Sentry’s Event Calendar will allow you to filter your view, meaning you can quickly find the information you need and turn that broad overview into specific insights. For example, you can filter SQL events so that you only see jobs in SQL Server that have failed in the last 24 hours—and you can save your preferences as custom event views, meaning you can save time. Plus, you can drill down to a four-hour or even one-hour view by highlighting your chosen time range on the timeline and double-clicking it.

What’s more, you can create event chains within Event Calendar to control what happens after each job reaches completion. Essentially, you can design workflows for jobs across multiple servers, whether they fail or succeed.

Yes, you can see a multi-day comparison in the Event Calendar. After opening the Event Calendar for a target by heading to the Navigator pane and clicking on the target node or selecting Open, Event Calendar, you can see multiple days side-by-side to better understand any anomalies or performance issues. For example, if everything is running smoothly one day and riddled with problems the next, you can compare the two days side-by-side in the SQL Server Event Calendar to pinpoint which job, query, or other event may be responsible.

To do this, you’ll want to select a historical day/time. Then, increase the Days count to 2. You can also view three days, but selecting four or more can cause the Calendar view to become increasingly busy, making it more difficult to correctly identify a problem source.

In addition to the multi-day comparison view, Event Calendar supports list view. This view will give you a list of SQL events, which you can then export for sharing or storage. Event Calendar also offers split view. If you click on an event in one section, SQL Server Event Calendar will automatically highlight that event in the other section, saving you valuable time and energy.

Event Calendar also features event-specific views—and if that isn’t enough, you can create a custom event view. If you create your custom event view under Local, you’ll be the only one able to see it. On the other hand, all SQL Sentry users will be able to see views created under Shared.

Yes, Event Calendar supports SQL Agent Jobs in AWS RDS for SQL Server databases.

Event Calendar also supports many other event objects, including SQL Server Agent Alert, SQL Server Agent Log Record, Maintenance Plan, Reporting Services Report, Windows Task, and Windows Event Logs Event.

SQL Server Agent Job, Reporting Services Report, and Windows Task are active event objects, meaning they contain all the information required to perform measurable work, are schedulable, and have runtime and performance graphs. On the other hand, SQL Server Agent Log Record and Windows Event Logs Event are status event objects, so they don’t have runtime, duration, or performance graphs, don’t perform measurable work, and aren’t schedulable, while SQL Server Agent Alert is a status (hybrid) event object and Maintenance Plan is an active (hybrid) event object.

Yes, you can create custom event views in SQL Sentry—and you won’t need to recreate these views every time you want to view SQL events.

If you want to create a new view, you’ll need to double-click the local or shared node. Or, you can right-click and select New. This will open the Add a Custom Event View tab regardless of your chosen method. Here, you can name your view and add a description to make differentiating your various views easier in the future.

Next, you can define everything included in your view in the Define View section. Options include:

• Select Instances: This button will allow you to select the event sources you want to include in your view. SQL Sentry will allow you to choose individual instances or all instances of a specific type. Once you’ve made your selection, click OK to ensure your changes are saved.
• Select Objects: You can add individual object types to your view by filling out the Select Objects section. The top portion will enable you to search for objects by name, type, or step text. After entering information into the search fields and hitting the Search button, SQL Sentry will populate the Search Results area. You can review the results, select the objects you’d like to add to your view, and hit Add. These objects will now appear in the Selected Objects portion of the window.
• Event Sources: You can also tie event sources to your view, such as deadlock events, blocking processes, Advisory Conditions, and SQL Server Agent Jobs. With certain event sources, you’ll also be able to choose specific objects or categories.
• Filtering Options: After selecting the instances, objects, and event sources to include in your view, hit Set Filters. Then hit OK to apply your filters to the view and Save to make sure SQL Sentry saves your custom view.

You can also create a custom event view by simply saving your current calendar view. All you have to do is click File and Save View As. Then, you can name your view and add a description.

To find custom event views you’ve already created, go to the Navigator pane and look under the Event Calendars object. Then, you can expand the Event Calendars object to access calendars that are split between local and shared nodes.

You can also organize your custom views into folders to make locating them easier in the future. You should right-click the local or shared node under the Event Calendars object. Then, hit New Folder and drag views into your folder to add them.