One of the things SQL Server doesn’t make all that easy is to know what SQL Agent jobs are running. At least that’s what I used to think.

After turning to multiple search engine queries, I was equipped with all kinds of complex scripts that parsed MSDB tables in all kinds of ways, but they never told me what I really wanted to know. What is running NOW. Then one day, I stumbled across this. I just wish I knew who had originally posted it so I could thank them.

[SQL]exec msdb.dbo.sp_help_job @execution_status=1[/SQL]

This little thing tells me precisely which SQL Agent jobs are running at the moment, and that fills a great need in a lot of cases.