On the Advanced settings for a step you can specify the following fields:

  • On success action - the action to be executed when the step succeeds. You can choose from the following options:
    • Go to the next step
    • Quit the job reporting success
    • Quit the job reporting failure
  • Retry attempts - how many times the SQL Server Agent retries a step when it fails
  • Retry interval (minutes) - the interval in minutes between each retry
  • On failure action - the action to be executed when the step fails. You can choose from the following options:
    • Quit the job reporting failure
    • Go to next step
    • Quit the job reporting success
  • Specific options according to the step type you chose before

Options for Operating System (CmdExec) job steps

When you select an Operating System step type you can specify the additional settings:

  • Output file - type an existing file path of the computer where the instance is hosted to be used for the job step. For example D:\Job\outputfile.txt. Then click  check  to verify the path entered is correct.
  • Append output to existing file - e nable this option if you want the output to be appended to the output file. If you do not enable this option, the selected file content is overwritten each time the job step runs. 
  • Log to table - if you select this option, the job step output is logged to the sysjobstepslogs table in the msdb database. 
  • Append output to existing entry in table - select this option if you want to append the output to the contents of the table. If you do not select this option, the table contents are overwritten each time the job step runs. 
  • Include step output history - this option lets you include the output of your job step in the job history

Options for PowerShell job steps

  When you select a PowerShell step type you can specify the additional settings:  

  • Output file - type an existing file path of the computer where the instance is hosted to be used for the job step. For example D:\Job\outputfile.txt. Then click  check  to verify the path entered is correct.
  • Append output to existing file  enable this option if you want the output to be appended to the output file. If you do not enable this option, the selected file content is overwritten each time the job step runs. 
  • Log to table -  if you select this option, the job step output is logged to the sysjobstepslogs  table in the  msdb  database .    
  • Append output to existing entry in table - select this option if you want to append the output to the contents of the table. If you do not select this option, the table contents are overwritten each time the job step runs. 
  • Include step output history - this option lets you include the output of your job step in the job history

Options for Replication Queue Reader job steps

The Replication Queue Reader step type is the only Replication type step that has additional advanced options besides the ones at the beginning of this section. These additional options are:

  • Server - allows you to specify the server to use for the Replication Queue Reader step
  • Database - lets you specify the database to use for the Replication Queue Reader step

Options for Transact-SQL script job steps

When you select a Transact-SQL script step type you can specify the additional settings:

  • Output file - type an existing file path of the computer where the instance is hosted to be used for the job step. For example D:\Job\outputfile.txt. Then click  check  to verify the path entered is correct.
  • Append output to existing file - enable this option if you want the output to be appended to the output file. If you do not enable this option, the selected file content is overwritten each time the job step runs. 
  • Log to table - if you select this option, the job step output is logged to the sysjobstepslogs  table in the msdb  database.     
  • Append output to existing entry in table - select this option if you want to append the output to the contents of the table. If you do not select this option, the table contents are overwritten each time the job step runs. 
  • Include step output history - this option lets you include the output of your job step in the job history
  • Run as user - you can specify another SQL login to run this step


SQL Enterprise Job Manager monitors and manages your SQL Server agent jobs. Learn more > >
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