title: How to see progress of running SQL stored procedures?
body: <p>Consider the following stored procedure..</p>
  
  <pre><code>CREATE PROCEDURE SlowCleanUp (@MaxDate DATETIME)
  AS
  BEGIN
      PRINT 'Deleting old data Part 1/3...'
      DELETE FROM HugeTable1 where SaveDate &lt; @MaxDate
  
      PRINT 'Deleting old data Part 2/3...'
      DELETE FROM HugeTable2 where SaveDate &lt; @MaxDate
  
      PRINT 'Deleting old data Part 3/3...'
      DELETE FROM HugeTable3 where SaveDate &lt; @MaxDate
  
      PRINT 'Deleting old data COMPLETED.'
  END
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Let's say that each delete statement take a long time to delete, but I like to see the progress of this stored procedure when I'm running it in SQL Management Studio. In other words, I like to see the the output of the PRINT statements to see where I'm at any given time. However, it seems that I can only see the PRINT outputs at the end of the ENTIRE run. Is there a way to make it so that I can see the PRINT outputs at real time? If not, is there any other way I can see the progress of a running stored procedure?</p>