Question

I have several stored procedures structured like the following:

USE [WHouse]
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[pr_Alert_Dly]
AS
    IF (SELECT LastRunDate FROM WHouse.dbo.AlertRunDates WHERE NameDescription = 'X' ) < (SELECT CONVERT(DATE, GETDATE()))
    BEGIN
       --================
       --need to comment the following out if trying to re-run
       UPDATE x 
       SET  x.LastRunDate = CONVERT(DATE,GETDATE())
       FROM WHouse.dbo.AlertRunDates x
       WHERE [NameDescription] = 'X' 
       --================

       --===============
       --DO A LOAD OF STUFF IN HERE 
       --INCLUDING USING DB_SENDMAIL TO EMAIL 20 PEOPLE
       --===============

    END

My colleague has set up a reporting system (using procedures / SSIS) that loops every 10 minutes and as long as a stored procedure completes without an error then it is marked as complete in a control table.

What I don’t understand is even if the above throws an error why would it ever repeat the section between BEGIN / END more than once in the same batch ?

If it is not defensive enough how do defend against my colleagues system causing the same emails to get distributed every 10 minutes?!

Answer 1

Ultimately scrapped the pattern in the OP and have used the suggestions put forward by Aaron in the comments of the OP i.e created a EmailQueue table and set up a background process that loops every 5mins (via the Agent). This process scans the EmailQueue table for any new records and sends out emails if required.