HOW TO CREATE A TRIGGER TO UPDATE A DATE FIELD WHEN RECORD IS MODIFIED

Question

Hi,
I have a field (column)
SalesLeadLastModifiedDate
in the table
SalesPipeline
A record's field (SalesLEadLastModifiedDate) should be updated with current date and time every time any column in a record is modified. I'm new to SQL and can't figure out how to write this trigger. Could someone help me and also
refer literature that would give me independence? Online MSDN language without matching examples is not helping.
Tnx.,
IJ

Answer 1

Break it down into pieces.  Write a small script that updates some small (but more than 1) number of rows.  After updating the rows, write another update statement that will set your modified date column to the current date and time.  Once
you have that working, you can easily convert that into a trigger.  Pseudo-code would be:
begin tran;
select * from dbo.SalesPipeline where SalesPipelineID in (45, 76);
update dbo.SalesPipeline set <some column> = <something> where SalesPipelineID in (45, 76);
update dbo.SalesPipeline set <your date colum> = ?? where SalesPipelineID in (45, 76);
select * from dbo.SalesPipeline where SalesPipelineID in (45, 76);
rollback tran;
Notice the transaction control statements.  This will allow you to run the script, evaluate the result, and then revert all changes (leaving your database unchanged).  In turn, this will allow you to run the same script over and over and over again
and achieve (for the most part) the same results with each execution.  You can search the forums for examples of trigger code - just beware that many "solutions" are not necessarily well-written.