How to setup SQL Server alerts and email operator notifications

By: David Bird   |   Read Comments (9)   |   Related Tips: More > Monitoring

Problem
Setting up an alert to e-mail an operator with a message is a multiple step process. You can setup database mail, define an operator and an alert, but still no e-mail is being sent. So how do you send an alert to an operator?

Solution

Note: This solution involves restarting SQL Agent.

Database Mail

First setup database mail with a profile named SQLAlerts. The profile can be named anything but in these instructions, the profile name SQLAlerts is referenced. If you wish to use a different profile name just substitute accordingly. For procedures in setting up database mail, see this post.

Define Operator

Connect to the instance using Microsoft SQL Management Studio

Double Click SQL Server Agent

Right Click on Operators and select New Operator

Specify an operator Name, E-mail name, and click OK

Setup SQL Agent Settings

Note: This step is often overlooked when creating an alert for the first time. SQL Agent must be setup correctly for operators to receive an alert e-mail.

Right Click SQL Server Agent > select Properties

Select Alert System in the left pane

• Checkmark > Enable mail profile
• Verify Mail system: Database Mail
• Verify Mail Profile: SQLAlerts
• Checkmark > Include body of e-mail in the notification message
• Click OK.

Restart SQL Agent to activate settings.

Warning: Restarting SQL Agent will cancel any executing jobs.

Define Alert

This sample alert will send an email when TEMPDB database gets larger than 0 KB. This setting is set zero so the alert can be tested. Once verified, you will need to update its settings to a reasonable amount or disable it.

Right Click Alerts and select New Alert

On the General pane specify

• Name: TEMPDB Growing
• Type: SQL Server performance condition alert
• Object: SQLServer:Databases
• Counter: Data File(s) (KB)
• Instance: tempdb
• Alert if counter: rises above
• Value: 0

Click Response in left pane

• Checkmark > Notify operators
• Checkmark > E-mail for the operator

Click Options in left pane

• Checkmark > Include alert error text in E-mail
• Delay between response: 2 minutes

Click OK

Verify Alert is Working

The operator should receive an e-mail if not see the troubleshooting section.

Open the Alert. Click History in the left pane.

The fields are updated when the alert is triggered.

Stop the Test

To stop the Alert from being sent every two minutes, you have two options disable the alert or provide a more appropriate size and response times.

To disable alert

• Click General in left pane and remove the checkmark from Enable and click OK
• OR
• Right click on Alert name and select Disable

To change the settings

• Click General in left pane
• Change value to value larger than existing TEMPDB database file save. The current file size is included in the e-mailed alert.
• Click Options in left pane
• Change response to 720 minutes which is 12 hours
• Click OK

Troubleshooting

If the operator does not receive an e-mail

• Test database mail by sending a test e-mail to the operator's e-mail address.
• Make sure you restarted SQL Agent and it is running.

Next Steps

• Modify the alert to execute a job that captures all current connections using sp_who2 .
• Create alerts for other criteria you wished to monitor.
• Using SQL Server Manager Studio, you can script the alert so you can easily create it in other instances. See this tip on how to create scripts.

Last Update: 6/19/2008

About the author

David has years of IT Experience working as a DBA and programmer on Windows, UNIX, and mainframes.

View all my tips

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Comments and Feedback:

Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 10:15:16 AM - sm8680	Read The Tip
Hi does anyone know how to alert for when a job gets disabled?  Please advise.  Thanks  Steve

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 1:32:25 PM - dguillory	Read The Tip
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1803

Monday, April 16, 2012 - 6:08:46 PM - carlos

Read The Tip

Good article, thanks. I have a job with notifications when it fails. When the job fails, I receive an email, but it only says: JOB RUN:        'test1' was run on 4/16/2012 at 10:35:00 AM DURATION:       0 hours, 0 minutes, 1 seconds STATUS:         Failed MESSAGES:       The job failed.  The Job was invoked by Schedule 15 (prog).  The last step to run was step 1 (step1). How more detail about the error could be sent by email? Thanks in advance.

Thursday, June 07, 2012 - 4:29:59 AM - Bharath	Read The Tip
Can we have a multiple email ids configured as one operator? If so, what is the delimiter between the emails ids?

Friday, June 22, 2012 - 7:14:34 AM - Reuben Sultana	Read The Tip
@carlos You might want to refer to the following article: SQL Server Diaries: Send SQL Server Agent Job log file by Email   @Bharath The delimiter is a semi-colon (;) but the length is limited to 256 characters.   Reuben

Monday, December 17, 2012 - 2:08:19 PM - Matthew	Read The Tip
Thank you David. Excellent guide and still relevent in 2012! Cheers! :)

Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 1:22:02 PM - Jodi	Read The Tip
I have gone through the steps to set up the operator, but when I go to the SQL Server Agent properties and go to the Alert System page, I enable the maile profile, select Database Mail, but then the profile I created is not listed. I have tried restarting and it doesn't change anything. What do I need to do to fix this?

Tuesday, February 05, 2013 - 5:58:59 PM - Salman	Read The Tip
Good one. But if I have to modify the text (body/subject). How can I do that. Thanks

Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - 10:47:12 AM - Paul	Read The Tip
I have all of this working with the Alerts but when a Maintenance Plan runs it will not send out an email.

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