Marking a Batched Update Set 'Ignore'

[charliesdev]

Until now we have used the 'merge' functionality for Update Sets but recently changed over to use Batched Update Sets.

When we merged, all of the US in the collection were automatically marked 'Ignore'.  This helps us differentiate the US that have moved forward from the ones that haven't.

1. Now with the Batch, if I mark the top-most parent 'Ignore', the children all stay 'Completed'.  Why doesn't it mark them all 'Ignore', is this a bug?
2. If I go through all of the other (children) US in the batch and mark them 'Ignore' they're removed from the batch!  This definitely feels like a bug. 

[Jordan Iles2 · Accepted solution]

To start, here's a reference to the SN docs on update set batching: Update Set Batching
Here is a reference to merged update sets as well: Merge Update Sets

When you merge update sets, the updates contained in each are transferred into a new update set (the merged set). This is good to use when you have multiple updates to the same artifacts which will be moving at the same time, but may cause collisions when migrated to another environment. In merging update sets, you are taking the updates out of the prior update set and placing them into a new, collective update set, so the old update sets no longer contain any updates, thus you'd want it to be marked as 'Ignore'. 

When you group update sets through batching, you're not merging them -- that is to say they are organized collectively but the updates remain with their original update set. In this scenario, as you're seeing, one update set can act as the parent with other child update sets. Through batching, the system processes and previews each update set and defines the order in which they should be migrated so as to avoid collisions/errors. In order to migrate between instances, these update sets must be marked as 'Complete'. 

To reiterate, through batching update sets, you are grouping them so that the individual update sets may move together. They are not, however, a merged set (meaning these individual updates are not in one update set together). When you mark an update set as 'Ignore' in this case, it can no longer be migrated to another environment. 

[The SN Nerd]

Hey,

Please see my responses below.

1. Now with the Batch, if I mark the top-most parent 'Ignore', the children all stay 'Completed'.  Why doesn't it mark them all 'Ignore', is this a bug?
   I wouldn't call it a bug, rather a feature that has not been implemented yet.
   I've never actually ignored a Batch before, I usually leave it in 'In Progress' until I am ready to move it. I use Batching for releases, so I never ignore the batch but take out individual Update Sets that aren't going to make it. My parent batch will never have any customer updates, only child Update Sets.
   
   In my view, they haven't implemented this feature as batches are not really intended to be ignored.
   
   
2. If I go through all of the other (children) US in the batch and mark them 'Ignore' they're removed from the batch!  This definitely feels like a bug. 
   ServiceNow doesn't let you add 'ignored' Update Sets to a batch - it throws a message and the set isn't added. This is handy if you accidentally add an Update Set that was marked as ignored. With that in mind, it makes sense for an ignored Update Set to be removed from a batch, as you wouldn't want this to move to the next environment.
   
   In my view, this is not a bug, but a handy feature.

[charliesdev]

Thank you both for your input.  I've been reading your replies and the documentation to help me change how I manage Update Sets.  Fun fact - the word "ignore" doesn't even show up in your 2 linked articles, jiles.  We're going to stay with batching and use a tag on the 'dev' version of the top-most parent to keep track of how far the batch has been migrated (we have dev, test, uat and prod instances).  Also changing our list view of Update Sets to include the column 'Parent' and 'Tags', hopefully that will be enough to keep us all in the know.