Creating a JIRA workflow where 2 users assigned to 1 issue

[Chuck Curtis]

Hi,

I'm having a hard time coming up with a workflow in JIRA where 2 (or more) users could be assigned to code a piece of a bug issue. Doing this by subtask is "okay" but it means having them update 2 issues - adding their revisions/reviews to the main issue and also updating the status on the subtask. Any ideas out there?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

You could try having a second assigned field. User picker so it wouldn't have the functionality of the single assignee, although you could still use it in workflow functions, permission and notification schemes. You could also try something funky with workflows if it is just a case of "two people must flag this as approved/done"

[Chuck Curtis]

Thanks for the prompt response.

How does having the 2 assigned fields work - especially using the filtered search? We need to make sure certain people are aware that they have work to be done.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

That's part of the problem - the second user field is completely separate from the assignee. You need filters like : "assignee = currentUser() or coassignee = currentUser()", and the built in reporting and filters wouldn't see it either because they are all based purely on assignee.

I find a lot of places that need multiple assignees tend to do something slightly more complex - they use "assignee" to be "person ultimately responsible for this issue", and then use multi-user pickers when they need many assignees, but only for that phase of the process (so the multi-user field would be "developers" or "testers" and only be important during development or testing, and the assignee would be the dev or qa team lead at the time)

Another option is dummy users and groups - if you have a group of developers, put them all in a group called "Dev Team". Create a new dummy user called "Dev Team" and add it to the developer group. Give it an email address that is a distrubution list (handled outside Jira by your mail system) that will mail all the developers. Then assign it to that user. This is NOT suitable for dynamic multiple assignees (e.g. Alice, Bob and Chuck are all developers, and you want Alice and Chuck to pair on an issue) but it does work well for teams.

[Bharadwaj Jannu]

hello Chuck Curtis,

you might create a customfield of multiuserpicker type and say that as assignee.

[Chuck Curtis]

Thank you for the suggestions. For my situation, we'd be doing dynamic multiple assignees. I might have to stick with separating out the work by different assignees per/subtask. What I was trying to avoid was using the subtasks as simply an assignment piece as I'd want all the work (revisions, reviews, documentation, etc...) on the main issue.

We would be having a responsible group per issue but at times other groups are needed to handle a piece. Not ideal when trying to keep everything on 1 issue.

Thanks again.