Forcing a Job Failure Based on time

Hi everyone.
I have a SQL job in which the last step calls an outside cmd batch. This ba
tch often gets suspended indefinitely. In order to allow the SQL job to com
plete I periodically run a scheduled command that kills the suspended batch.
This allows the SQL job t
o end, but it does not end it in a failure. The job reports successful exec
ution. Is there a creative way to force the job to return failure status in
this case?
I appreciate your help
OscarIs there a way that you could include some commands within that non-SQL job
that will handle the timeout?
Vikram Jayaram
Microsoft, SQL Server
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