Tracking stored procedure usage

Question

Besides using SQL Server Profiler, is there any way to track which stored procedures are being used, or at least when they were last executed?

Answer 1

You can look in the plan cache to get a pretty good idea of Stored Procedure usage. Take this query, for instance:

select
    db_name(st.dbid) as database_name,
    object_name(st.objectid) as name,
    p.size_in_bytes / 1024 as size_in_kb,
    p.usecounts,
    st.text
from sys.dm_exec_cached_plans p
cross apply sys.dm_exec_sql_text(p.plan_handle) st
where p.objtype = 'proc'
and st.dbid = db_id('SomeDatabase')
order by p.usecounts desc

This will give you the usecounts of the stored procedures that are cached pertaining to SomeDB.

Note: the plan cache contains the execution plans. This retention of these plans has many factors involved. Whereas this will give you a good idea of what is being used and how often, it's definitely not the running total of stored procedures and how often/when they were executed.

BOL Reference about the Plan Cache