Find last time of update on a SQL table

For many reasons SQL Server DBAs need to find the last date and time of an update on a sql table. The SQL Server DMV sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats  can supply enough information to allow the DBA to make a good estimate of the time.

In this case I needed to create a list candidates for tables to be deleted. The data became bloated with a number of different temp tables .

The one drawback of using the DMV is that data is refreshed after every SQL Server restart.

This script lists all tables in the current database, with various columns assisting in deciding the last update.

SELECT
tbl.name
,ius.last_user_update
,ius.user_updates
,ius.last_user_seek
,ius.last_user_scan
,ius.last_user_lookup
,ius.user_seeks
,ius.user_scans
,ius.user_lookups
FROM
sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats ius INNER JOIN
sys.tables tbl ON (tbl.OBJECT_ID = ius.OBJECT_ID)
WHERE ius.database_id = DB_ID()

last_user_update - Time of last user update.
user_updates - Number of updates by user queries.
last_user_seek - Time of last user seek .
last_user_scan - Time of last user scan.
last_user_lookup - Time of last user lookup.
user_seeks - Number of seeks by user queries.
user_scans - Number of scans by user queries.
user_lookups - Number of bookmark lookups by user queries

If you need to follow up on queries using table scans , read Find Table Scans in Query Plan Cache

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