Grant Fritchey shows us how (safely) to collect data on statistics usage:
Years ago I was of the opinion that it wasn’t really possible to see the statistics used in the generation of a query plan. If you read the comments here, I was corrected of that notion. However, I’ve never been a fan of using undocumented trace flags. Yeah, super heroes like Fabiano Amorim and Paul White use them, but for regular individuals like me, it seems like a recipe for disaster. Further, if you read about these trace flags, they cause problems on your system. Even Fabiano was getting the occasional crash.
So, what’s a safe way to get that information? First up, Extended Events. If you use the auto_stats event, you can see the statistics getting created and getting loaded and used. Even if they’re not created, you can see them getting loaded. It’s an easy way to quickly see which statistics were used to generate a plan. One note, you’ll have to compile or recompile a given query to see this in action.
Read on for more.