Having the 'Skip tenants where Snapshot xxxx is the current version deployed to <environment>' option selected can result in specific runbooks not being able to run.

[Clare-Octopus]

Severity

Not blocking customers, they can just untick the option.

Version

2023.3.13094 and 2024.4

Latest Version

I could reproduce the problem in the latest build

What happened?

This feature works as expected - when selecting the 'Include all connected tenants' button the 'Skip tenants where Snapshot xxxx is the current version deployed to <environment>' button is automatically selected. This means that any runbook which needs a snapshot to be regularly deployed ie restart a service on a machine or cleanup files in a folder would not be deployed unless that skip tenants button was unticked:

Customers tend to use runbooks for daily routine tasks that are the same across each day ie restart a service as I mentioned. Ideally, the default should be to have the Skip tenants button unticked when selecting the Include all connected tenants option. That way a customer will always be able to deploy a routine task (especially when running a runbook on a routine scheduled trigger).

The Skip tenants option is very useful if you have for example, a database you want to deploy regularly to a tenant, you would not want that deploying daily as it would overwrite a previous DB deployment that may have new data in it (therefore reverting that DB back to the previous snapshot and removing the new data). This, however, would be a rare use case of a runbook.

Customers are more likely to use a runbook for tasks that are required to be repeated daily so would need to re-deploy the same snapshot to each tenant.

I have created this GitHub issue to track this and request a discussion around having the 'Skip tenants where Snapshot xxxx is the current version deployed to <environment>' button unticked as default and have the option to tick it if a customer wants ie:

Reproduction

1. Create a project with a runbook and have a random step in that runbook you can deploy to a tenant.

2. Ensure that the project is able to be deployed to tenants and connect two tenants to that project.

3. Publish the runbook and run it making sure you make note of the environment and select the Tenanted and Include all connected tenants button (note the Skip Tenants button is ticked as default). It will run fine.

4. Go back into the runbook and try and run it again to the same environment with the same options ticked, you will note the Run button is greyed out.

5. Untick the Skip tenants button and you will note the Run button is green again allowing you to deploy.

6. If you had the runbook run on a scheduled trigger it would not run with the default options ticked and due to the nature of what runbooks are generally used for most customers will want to be able to deploy the same snapshot to the same environment daily. I am requesting we take a look at this and see if we are able to have the skip tenants button unticked as default when selecting all tenants to deploy a runbook snapshot.

Error and Stacktrace

No response

More Information

Initial customer ticket (internal) - https://octopus.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/155924 R and D discussion (internal) - https://octopusdeploy.slack.com/archives/CNHBHV2BX/p1697532423436939

Workaround

Untick the Skip tenants where Snapshot xxxx is the current version deployed to <environment> button and you will be able to deploy the same snapshot to all tenants.