External Tab

The External Tab can be used to view information about the SQL Server Agent Jobs located on the computer running the JAMS Client, as well as jobs located on other servers.

Displaying Jobs

To view the Jobs installed on the current machine, simply select the SQL Agent Ribbon Bar Tab.  Then, click the SQL Agent Jobs shortcut in the Shortcut bar to the left.  By default, this will display all the SQL Agent Jobs currently configured on the local machine.  If no Jobs are displayed, there may not be any SQL Agent Jobs configured on the current machine.

To display the configured Jobs on a remote machine, right click on the shortcut bar, and choose the Add Shortcut option.  Enter a new name for the shortcut.

Next, select the Query tab.  In the Server Name field, enter the name of the SQL Server instance to connect to.

Press OK to add the new shortcut to the shortcut bar.  When the newly added shortcut is selected, the Jobs on the remote machine will be displayed.  If no tasks are displayed, ensure that there are SQL Agent Jobs present on the remote instance.

SQL Server Versions

There are two supported versions of SQL Server Agent, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008.  The version is use is determined by the SQL Server version currently installed along with the JAMS Client.  If the Client is running on a machine with SQL Server 2008 installed, then it will be able to access Job information from other instances running SQL Server 2008.  It will also be able to access Jobs from instances running SQL Server 2005.

However, if the Client is running on a machine with SQL Server 2005 installed, then it will only be able to access Job information from other instances running SQL Server 2005.  The libraries required to access Jobs on SQL Server 2005 instances are not present, and therefore, no Job information can be retrieved from these instances.

Converting Jobs

It is very easy to convert a SQL Server Agent Job to a JAMS Job.  Simply select a Job from the Job list, right click, and choose the Convert option.  You can also use the Convert to JAMS button in the Ribbon Bar.

Note: Agent Job conversion requires a connection to a JAMS Scheduler.  The free version of the JAMS Client does not support converting SQL Agent Jobs to JAMS Jobs.  A licensed JAMS Scheduler is required.

A Conversion Wizard will now begin, which walks though all the steps required to convert an Agent Job to a JAMS job.  On each step of the wizard, fields will be pre-populated with information from the selected SQL Agent Job.  You can then change the retrieved information before the new JAMS Job is created.

Since some SQL Agent Jobs will contain multiple Job Steps, these Agent Jobs will be converted to JAMS Setups, with two or more Jobs.

Note: Not all options for a SQL Agent Job are supported by JAMS.  If an option is not supported, then you may receive an error when advancing to the next conversion step.  This is done so that you can appropriately change the property of the Job.

It is also possible to convert multiple SQL Agent Jobs at the same time.  Just select several Agent Jobs from the Jobs list and click the Convert to JAMS button.  This will start the Wizard for converting multiple Jobs.  The first few steps will prompt for information common to all of the Jobs selected for conversion.  The Wizard will then attempt to convert all of the selected Jobs to JAMS Jobs.

If a SQL Agent Job property cannot be directly converted to a JAMS Job property, then a new Wizard screen will be displayed so that the property can be changed accordingly.  A Job which cannot be converted automatically can be Canceled individually.

Other Actions

SQL Agent Jobs can also be started, stopped, and deleted from the SQL Agent instance.  Simply select a Job from the Job list and click the appropriate button on the Ribbon Bar.