Overlap Checker

Application to reduce SQL Agent Job overlaps by introducing calculated job delays.

Whats New

• Added ability to exclude jobs by adding a custom keyword to either the job description or category
• Updated the installer

Overview

For a quick overview, please read through the code comments, and my blog post on this project: https://markw.dev/reduce-overlaps/

Installation

Installation is fairly straight forward:

1. Clone this repo.
2. Open the solution and build it.
3. Run Install\Install.ps1 and tell it which instances to install Overlap Checker on, which database to use, and which schema to create the database objects in.
4. Now just copy the JobOverlapChecker\bin\Debug\JobOverlapChecker.exe and Install\JobOverlapChecker.exe.config files to a folder on each instance and then set up a scheduled job on each instance with a step that executes YourDB.YourSchema.AddJobDelayStep @operation = 'A' followed by a step that executes JobOverlapChecker.exe. This will ensure that every job, even newly created ones, have the delay step added.

WARNING: Read through the Install.ps1 script, it will create various database objects on the instance(s) specified.

Here is an example JobOverlapChecker.exe.config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <startup>
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
    </startup>
    <connectionStrings>
      <add name="SQLData"
            connectionString="Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=DBTools;Integrated Security=true;"
            providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
    </connectionStrings>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="Instance" value="localhost"/>
    <add key="Schema" value="dbo"/>
    <add key="TargetTable" value="JobDelay"/>
    <add key="JobDataProc" value="GetJobData"/>
    <add key="JobExclusionString" value="NoDelay"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

Disclaimer

This is my first time posting C# code to Git, and my second time ( maybe third) ever writing C#. Feedback is VERY welcome.