SQL SERVER – Find Last Date Time Updated for Any Table

I just received an email from one of my regular readers who is curious to know if there is any way to find out when a table is recently updated. I was ready with my answer! I promptly suggested him that if a table contains UpdatedDate or ModifiedDate date column with default together with value GETDATE(), he should make use of it. On close observation the table is not required to keep history when any row is inserted. However, the sole prerequisite is to be aware of when any table has been updated. That’s it!

If a user wants to finds out when was the last table updated he can query dynamic management view (dmv) – sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats and easily figure out when was the table updated last. Let us comprehend this example by creating a table and updating it. We can use dmv to determine when it was updated last.

USE AdventureWorks
GO
CREATE TABLE Test
(ID INT,
COL VARCHAR(100))
GO
INSERT INTO Test
SELECT 1,'First'
UNION ALL
SELECT 2,'Second'
GO

Now we have created a table and populated it with data. Next, we will run the following query to find out when it was last updated.

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) AS DatabaseName, last_user_update,*
FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats
WHERE database_id = DB_ID( 'AdventureWorks')
AND OBJECT_ID=OBJECT_ID('test')

Running query provides accurate details of when was  the table last updated. If WHERE condition is entirely removed it will provide details of the entire database.