SQL Job Visualizer

A dark-mode desktop application for visualizing SQL Server Agent maintenance job history across multiple servers. Designed to make it immediately obvious whether jobs ran successfully, how long they took, and whether jobs on different servers overlap.

TODO

• Failed job error message — fetch the error text from sysjobhistory step rows (step_id > 0) and show it in the tooltip for failed bars
• Estimated time to completion — for running jobs, calculate elapsed / percent_complete × (100 - percent_complete) and show ETA: ~X min in the tooltip
• Duration variance highlighting — compare current run duration against historical average; colour a running bar amber if it exceeds 1.5× the average
• Missed job indicator — show a faint grey cell when a job ran yesterday but not today (past its expected window)
• Database list in tooltip — for backup jobs, parse the database name from sysjobhistory step messages and list them in the completed-job tooltip
• Backup coverage tab — third tab with one row per database: last FULL backup age, last LOG backup age, highlighted red when older than a configurable threshold

Features

• Week Overview — 7-day × 24-hour grid showing every maintenance job execution per server. Green = success, red = failed, orange = currently running. Navigate with Prev/Next week buttons; auto-scrolls to the current day.
• Day Detail — Pick any date with a calendar picker; see proportional job bars for the full 24-hour period with exact start/end times on hover. Auto-refreshes every 30 seconds when viewing today.
• Drag-to-reschedule — Scheduled jobs appear as hollow outlined bars. Drag one left or right to a new start time (snaps to 5-minute marks), confirm in the dialog, and the SQL Agent schedule is updated immediately via msdb.dbo.sp_update_schedule — no need to open SSMS. Saves significant DBA time when redistributing load across the day.
• Multiple servers in parallel — Queries all configured servers simultaneously. If one server is unreachable the others still load; a colour-coded dot in the toolbar shows each server's status.
• Hover tooltips — Every cell and bar shows server name, job type, start time, end time, and duration. For a running job the tooltip also shows live progress: spid, database name, command, and percent complete. Hovering a row label shows the actual T-SQL from the SQL Agent job step.
• Config file — Servers and job definitions are read from config.json next to the exe. No recompile needed to add servers or jobs.

Jobs Visualized

Out of the box the app is configured for Ola Hallengren's maintenance jobs, matched by SQL Agent job name via LIKE patterns:

Row label	SQL Agent job name pattern
Backup FULL	DatabaseBackup%FULL%
Backup DIFF	DatabaseBackup%DIFF%
Backup LOG	DatabaseBackup%LOG%
IndexOptimize	IndexOptimize%
IntegrityCheck	DatabaseIntegrityCheck%

Any SQL Server Agent job can be added by editing config.json.

Requirements

• Windows (.NET 8, Windows Integrated Security)
• .NET 8 Runtime (or SDK to build from source)
• SQL Server with SQL Server Agent enabled
• Login used by the app requires:
  • db_datareader on msdb (for job history and activity)
  • VIEW SERVER STATE (for live progress via sys.dm_exec_requests)
  • SQLAgentOperatorRole on msdb (or sysadmin) to reschedule jobs via sp_update_schedule

Getting Started

1. Clone the repository.

2. Build and run:

   dotnet run --project src/SQLJobVisualizer

   On first run config.json is created next to the exe with default servers sql1–sql5 and the five Ola Hallengren job patterns.

3. Configure — open config.json and update servers and jobs to match your environment:

   {
     "servers": ["myserver1", "myserver2"],
     "jobs": [
       { "label": "DatabaseBackup - FULL", "sqlPattern": "DatabaseBackup%FULL%", "shortLabel": "Backup FULL" },
       { "label": "DatabaseBackup - LOG",  "sqlPattern": "DatabaseBackup%LOG%",  "shortLabel": "Backup LOG"  }
     ]
   }

   • servers — hostnames or IP addresses; Windows auth is used, no credentials in the file.
   • sqlPattern — SQL LIKE pattern matched against msdb.dbo.sysjobs.name.
   • label — display name used in tooltips.
   • shortLabel — abbreviated name shown in the row label panel.

4. Restart the app after editing config.json.

Solution Structure

SQLJobVisualizer.sln
src/
  SQLJobVisualizer/
    Models/           AppConfig, CommandLogEntry, JobRow, JobSlot, JobExecution, SessionProgress
    Services/         ConfigLoader, ServerList, JobParser, CommandLogService
    Controls/         WeekMatrixControl, DayDetailControl
    Themes/           DarkTheme.axaml
config.json           Created on first run; edit to configure servers and jobs

Technology

UI framework	Avalonia UI 12.0.1
Target framework	.NET 8 / Windows
SQL client	Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.2.2
Architecture	Code-behind, no MVVM framework
Theme	Fluent Dark + custom resource dictionary

Author

Ronald de Groot — ronald.de.groot@opendata.nl