Who Changed My Database Schema? | Database Journal

Who Changed My Database Schema?

Written By
Gregory Larsen
Gregory Larsen
Mar 2, 2017
2 minute read

Have you ever wanted to know who made a schema change to your database?  If so, that information is tracked in the default trace.  The default trace is just a server-side profiler trace that gets started when SQL Server starts up, provided the default trace is enabled.  If the default trace is enabled, then it is extremely simple to report single database, or instance wide schema changes, using SQL Server Management Studio. 

To show the schema changes for a specific database, right click on your database and then when the menu is displayed hover over the “Reports” item.  When the next menu is displayed, hover over the “Standard Report” option.  On the “Standard Report” menu, you will see a “Schema Change History” menu option, as in the screenshot below:

Schema Change History
Schema Change History

When you click on the “Schema Change History” report then all the schema changes that are contained in the default trace, for your database, will be displayed.  Here is a sample of a schema change report for my DEMO database:

Schema Change Report
Schema Change Report

In the screenshot above you can see I created and altered a table named “MyNewTable”.

If you want to show all the schema changes for all the databases on your instance then right click on the instance name and select “Reports”, “Standard Reports” and then “Schema Changes”.  When you do this, all schema changes for any database on your instance will be reported.

See all articles by Greg Larsen

Gregory Larsen

Gregory A. Larsen is a DBA at Washington State Department of Health (DOH). Greg is responsible for maintaining SQL Server and other database management software. Greg works with customers and developers to design and implement database changes, and solve database/application related problems. Greg builds homegrown solutions to simplify and streamline common database management tasks, such as capacity management.

Database Journal Logo

DatabaseJournal.com publishes relevant, up-to-date and pragmatic articles on the use of database hardware and management tools and serves as a forum for professional knowledge about proprietary, open source and cloud-based databases--foundational technology for all IT systems. We publish insightful articles about new products, best practices and trends; readers help each other out on various database questions and problems. Database management systems (DBMS) and database security processes are also key areas of focus at DatabaseJournal.com.

Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2026 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.