Automation
Azure Automation allows you to automate the creation, monitoring, deployment, and maintenance of resources in your Azure environment using a highly-available workflow execution engine. Orchestrate time-consuming, error-prone, and frequently repeated tasks against Azure and third party systems to decrease time to value for your cloud operations.
Visit the Automation page to learn more about Automation and how to get started.
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PowerShell cmdlet to get Runbook context.
It would be great if you could use in runbook code something like Get-RunbookContext to retrieve the current ResourceGroup and/or Automation Account the runbook is executing in. Then it would be much easier to locate Automation Account Assets like connections and variables without the need to hard-code them into your Runbook. The PowerShell commands available to retrieve and use assets require you to specify the ResourceGroup and Automation Account the asset is stored under.
80 votesThank you for contributing this idea. We are considering how this can be implemented in our future plans.
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Add possibility to end a test job when it hangs.
Sometimes when running code in a PS runbook something seems to hang. I'm getting the following error although the job probably finished long time ago:
"BadRequest: Test job is already running."
I would like to have the opportunity to clear any running test jobs to bypass this bug.76 votesGreat feedback that is currently under review
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WebHook Job Monitoring
Allow people to use the same WebHook Url used for triggering a runbook for querying job status.
Instead of doing a HTTP POST (used for triggering) you could allow a HTTP GET with the JobId as parameter. This would be a lightweight alternative for consuming runbook results no matter client and platform.
Note: Using the same url means same access token which leads to monitoring being possible for the lifetime of the access token.70 votesThis is a great idea that we are continuing to review.
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Support populating and displaying arrays for account-level Variables
While it's possible to set arrays with Set-AutomationVariable, they cannot be displayed or edited from UI.
It makes them a bit inconvenient - if I have a job that I need to execute against a set of something, I need to have separate jobs to validate and change that set.45 votesThank you for the feedback. The product team has noted this suggestion and will consider it if resourcing allows.
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Outgoing WebHooks
It would be nice if it was possible to register callbacks for events like "Runbook Status Changed".
This would allow people to execute runbooks using your existing WebHooks concept (HTTP POST), store the jobid and consume the result of the runbook through the callback once completed.43 votesThank you for the feedback. The product team has noted this suggestion and will consider it if resourcing allows.
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Ability to rerun a job with same parameters of the last job
The feature I propose is a 'Rerun Command’. I have a ‘crude’ mockup attached. Clicking on Rerun would bring up the Start Runbook blade; but with the parameter values prepopulated with the same values from the previous execution. I can now modify any value, if necessary, or just click OK, to start the job quickly.
I see myself rerunning my runbook with mostly the same values. When I have many input parameters, I have to be very careful not to mess up any values, and what I do now is open two browser windows. Open the previous job’s Input blade…
42 votesThanks for this feature suggestion!
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Display Parameter Help Messages in UI
When using [Cmdletbinding()] along with parameter property Helpmessage and [ValidatePattern()] it would be nice if these messages were fed back to the user interface. Right now the users have to guess what the parameter allows them to input through trial and error.
For example:
[code]
[Cmdletbinding()]
param (
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true),HelpMessage='Enter 1 computername']
[ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
[string] $Computer
)In the console, when referencing a workflow with this parameter set you could enter !? to get the help message.
37 votesThanks for the feedback! We will look at making these modifications to starting a runbook job.
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Allow description/instructions of parameters to be seen by person starting a runbook
I have a PowerShell runbook that requires input for several parameters. I'd like to customize the text here when someone starts the runbook. For example, to let the automation operator know that this input is required to be less than 10 characters, or must have numbers, etc. This looks similar to these:
1) https://feedback.azure.com/forums/246290-automation/suggestions/6560476-display-parameter-help-messages-in-ui
2) https://feedback.azure.com/forums/246290-automation/suggestions/10921377-open-up-for-helpmessage-and-validation-to-be-suppo34 votesThanks. This is similar to other feedback we have and this will help us to prioritize this as a feature we can add. I will update here once we have concrete plans to implement.
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Change behavior when sandbox runs out of memory (1MB max to one stream limit)
There is currently a maximum limit of 1MB when outputting values to the any stream (Serialized size per object in pipeline).
I understand why this limit is there, but I don't think the current behavior is the right way to go.Current behavior is that the runbook restarts, and runs 3 times until it is stopped with the following error:
Suspended
The job action 'Activate' cannot be run, because the process stopped unexpectedly. The job action was attempted 3 times.If we run it on look at the eventlog on a hybrid worker (this error also happens in Azure workers),…
34 votesThanks for posting this feedback! I’m checking with our team to see if there is anything that we can do about this in the short term. We’ll definitely take this into consideration in our longer term plans.
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Schedule exclusions
It would be nice to be able to exclude specific dates from schedules. For instance one might want to schedule a runbook every Friday of the month except on Friday 13th or if the Monday of the month is the 1st of that month. (like we could do in Orchestrator)
31 votesThanks for posting this! Moving to “Under Review”.
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Make securestring a supported input type for runbooks
As of right now you can´t secure the runbook input. Using a string works fine but it leaves the password for example in the input as plain text. If we could write the password as a secure string instead, that would be great and solutions to reset passwords etc. would be safe to implement in production.
29 votesThanks for posting this. We will take a look.
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Fixed IP for Automation PowerShell sandbox in order to fit ACL requirements for public endpoints
If VM has external endpoints (WinRM, SSH) protected by ACL, the Azure Automation doesn't able to connect for such VMs.
29 votesThanks for this suggestion!
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Enable Implicit Remoting
I don't seem to be able to use implicit remoting to manage things like Exchange Online or the Office 365 Compliance Center, which leverages Exchange as well.
This is a hurdle for me as I can't migrate some of our important jobs to Azure Automation. Is it possible to enable implicit remoting in the PowerShell environment?
Thanks!
28 votesThanks for this feedback. We will take a look.
Also, do you have an example of a command that you are trying to use right now? I’ve heard of other customers managing Exchange & O365 with Automation, so there might be a different way to perform the task you are trying to do.
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Git (Stash) Source Control Support or TFS On-Prem
Would be good if we could connect to our Stash server rather than having to use GitHub. Alternatively we have an on-prem TFS setup that we could also use. Data sovereignty issues prevent the use of GitHub/VSO at this time.
28 votesThanks for your feedback on this! We are definitively interested in private/on-prem scenarios for source control.
As we start to do more development in this area, our team will follow up to get more details about your specific needs. -
Desired State Configuration Source Control
Provide the ability to sync DSC Configurations with remote GitHub Repo's. Similar to how the Runbook integration works. When a push to a Git Repo is made, synchronise it with the Azure Automation Account.
27 votesThanks for this suggestion! Our team can look into this.
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Open up for HelpMessage and Validation to be supported in Automation runbooks input parameters.
Ability to describe and validate required parameters in more detail, in the Test Pane. Instead of starting a runbook that will fail due to wrong inputs, users will have to correct these wrong typings before initiation of the runbook.
26 votesThanks for this feedback! We will look into this.
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Surface runbook errors in the Automation account overview page like runbook exceptions are surfaced
Currently if my runbook is having issues and I look at the overview page, I can only see exceptions of the runbook. The runbook may hit errors during execution, which do not show up on this page.
24 votes -
Move "Run on" to runbook settings
It doesn't make sense to have "Run on" dynamically selecteable. Please move it to "Runbook settings" so that we can do a one-time configuration of whether a runbook should run using hybrid workers or cloud-based workers.
22 votesThanks for this suggestion! Our team is looking at this.
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Adding a "Create New" button in Graphical Runbook configuration when adding input parameters
when configuring input parameters for a cmdlet in the graphical runbook canvas, if there are no inputs configured, you'll get an "No item to display" message and you have to go back and add input parameters. However, you will lose unsaved changes if you go back. To make it more user friendly, would it be better if there's a "Create New" button next to the "No item to display" message so users can create input parameters without having to go back and lose unsaved changes.
22 votesThanks for voting for this suggestion. We will look into adding functionality that makes adding input parameters from cmdlet configuration easier.
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Show the line number when an exception is raised
I tend to use ErrorActionPreference = 'STOP' in my Runbooks (and my Powershell scripts) because if I haven't handled an exception, I want to know. While in Powershell this gives me a useful trace to go back and figure out what went wrong, in Azure Automation I am presented with only the exception name, ie "An error occurred while sending the request.". This makes it really hard to find out what happened.
As a work around, I can put a whole bunch of Write-Verbose statements in my Runbook, but this is tedious. It would be great if Azure Automation could…
21 votesCan you provide more detail on what you mean by useful? Do you want to know where in the code the error occurred? Can you provide an example of what you find useful for debugging PS in the ISE?
You may want to try using ErrorRecord.InvocationInfo for non-terminating errors since on non-terminating errors, we currently save this data in the Error stream.
On terminating errors (exceptions), this data is currently lost. But we can investigate storing this information to present it for debugging. I would like to make sure that this is the info that you are looking for though, so please confirm.
As a workaround for now, you could write a global try/catch block in the runbook (which will also catch exceptions thrown because of $ErrorActionPreference = ‘Stop’) and write $_.ErrorRecord.InvocationInfo to a stream.
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