Assign an issue to Multiple users

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Its been several times, I tried this solution mentioned in the following link

 https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/How+do+I+assign+issues+to+multiple+users

I created a custom field - Group Picker. A group of 2 users has been created. I also did the Notification thing which has been mentioned. But, I still could not find a "group option" in assignee tab of the issue to be be assigned. 

Is there any other way to do this? Labels and Notes - can they be useful. Although, currently there are not many users I would still need to know the same for near future. I am a Project Manager & Scrum Master, I have all the rights as JIRA System Administrators. However, I am not the owner. 

Thanks 

Suyog

[Kyle Cordes]

I think the important unstated that in some of the discussion here already, is that the notion of "an issue can be assigned to at most exactly one person" is not a fundamental law of nature. There are plausible, high quality, competent management schemes where an issue is assigned to more than one person.

However, Jira can't possibly implement every way of managing issues plausible in the universe; it is amazingly configurable, but one of the key choices made "in the box" in Jira is that it implements the idea that an issue can be assigned to at most one person. That's part of the Jira philosophy.

Over here we work around this by, in the handful of projects where it is not suitable, just using some other field that as has been discussed, to implement our own separate notion of assignment. It's not great because it doesn't integrate it all with the assignment notion built into Jira, but it gets the job done for the occasional use case.

One could imagine a future Jira that would change this notion, but it seems pretty fundamental so my guess is that it won't change in the future.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It is not a fundamental law of nature.

But it is a fundamental fact that it does not work.

"There are plausible, high quality, competent management schemes where an issue is assigned to more than one person."  - this is true, but only in two cases:

• When the people are working so closely together, a mistake cannot happen.  In real life, with humans, this only occurs during pair programming sessions. 
• Where all the assignees have eidetic memories.

Those are the only two cases I can think of where "I thought <other person> was doing it" won't happen.

This has been discussed many times over the years I've been involved with Atlassian stuff, and I'm still being paid to repair Jira (and non-Jira) systems which "support" multiple assignees. 

What's particularly ironic is that several of the Jira systems I've had to fix are ones which had been administrated by people who were telling us "multiple assignees can work" on similar threads in the community.

[Kyle Cordes]

Hi Nic. Wow I didn't mean to "poke a bear!" :-)

I much agree, in the most cases, especially where Jira is being use to manage things that are pretty typical to the traditional "issue" use case, single-assignee is the way to go. Great default, we use it for almost everything too.

We also see, and assist, companies using Jira in an astonishing variety of ways. Doing kind of amazing things, that we had not of even thought of. When you get farther away from "a Jira issue is a problem somewhere, an issue or task that someone has to take care of", there are more situations where there's not necessarily just a single person responsible.  This doesn't require super-humans or the lack of mistakes, just different scenarios, different things people are using Jira for.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ah, sorry, I don't want to come across as a grumpy bear.

But, I do get very very tired of a) people not getting it and then b) cleaning up the horrid mess they make because they fail

There's absolutely nothing wrong with shared or group responsibility for something.  But it is a very simple proven fact that it always fails unless there's a single "slightly more responsible than everyone else in the group" person.

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Hi Nic & Kyle

With the question which I asked, it actually had a change of paradigm as far as project management goes. Immaterial of the limitation of the software, but I agree with what you guys mean. And it is at much deeper a level. 

There are options like labels & comments. And I guess, we can use components for very smaller tasks, which can be assigned to Junior programmers led by a senior one who would have been assigned an Issue or a linked issue. Please correct me if I am wrong her. Awaiting your comment!! 

Thanks

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, absolutely, use other fields (labels, user fields, etc) to indicate shared responsibility and/or break down tasks into parts which will have different single assignees.

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Exploring components, what I reckon is that, the components are superset and Issues are sets and Subtasks are sub sets. Component sits at the top comprising of multiple issues of the same process and sub tasks are the smaller processes bred from Issues. Please correct me if I am wrong here. As in that case, I will have to restructure everything

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, concentrate on this:

Custom Field (which I defined) - Town Team
Below that a group icon is there - where the initials of the users are flashed

Earlier, you said your custom field is a group picker.  So, you've now configured the "assign to group" by saying "My field called 'Town Team' is the group assigned".  You're all done, the field contains the group assigned.

Although I suspect I'm missing something else here - if I have, could you explain further?

[Suyog Karmarkar]

"Earlier, you said your custom field is a group picker.  So, you've now configured the "assign to group" by saying "My field called 'Town Team' is the group assigned".  You're all done, the field contains the group assigned"

Ok about what you had mentioned. Now, in my previous message I had mentioned the vertical sequence of the screen when I clicked on Issue. Town Team - is displayed above the box. This box is located exactly below the "Assignee" one. It shows "assign to me" below. Now, all this is in Edit Issue Window. I tried typing Town Team in the Assignee one, but it says "No matches". 

Still dont understand how can I assign an issue to a group

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Hi Nic

If you can put down the process in brief steps, then it might be easy to address the hiccup. I believe that I have done it all. 

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Also, want to know where are you based. In UK or Australia so that I will come to know the time zones and your working times

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

>I tried typing Town Team in the Assignee one, but it says "No matches". 

Ah, that explains it, you have misunderstood the point.

The assignee is the user responsible for the issue.  You can not put a group in there, because it's a terrible idea that opens you up to masses of lost or neglected issues.

The doc you have found is about indicating a more general "the issue belongs to this group, as well as being personally assigned to a single use", so we don't get the "I thought someone else in the group was doing it" problem that group assignees inevitably causes.

The group assigned is literally the group you select in the "Town Team" field, as I said before.  The assignee is the current user who is responsible for the issue.

[Suyog Karmarkar]

But then what should i do if there are 2 users working on the same issue. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

One of them, the assignee, is the owner.  If they want other users to be involved, comment, have a field for collaborators, or have a group field to share.

But an issue should always have one single person responsible.

[Suyog Karmarkar]

 or have a group field to share. 

How can i do this?

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Can I use Label

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, absolutely, that's also a very good way to do it.

[Suyog Karmarkar]

U mean when I say I can use a label then that means - Putting the user names in the label. I checked about labels, but wanted to know whether we can put in user names in it. I know we can enter that text but can we use labels like that

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Labels are text strings, you can put user names into them, but they're not users, they remain simple strings (that happen to match users)

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Hi Nic

Ok, I will explain - when I open an 'issue' I click on edit, following is what i found from top to bottom

Issue Type - Task
Component/s - None
Fix Version/s - None
Priority - Highest
Labels - Blank
Assignee - Name of an user - entered
Custom Field (which I defined) - Town Team
Below that a group icon is there - where the initials of the users are flashed
Comment

Now I dont understand how will I be able to assign this issue to this group

[Suyog Karmarkar]

I have also chosen the current project for the custom field defined - Town Team

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Have you added your group picker field to the assignee tab?  And checked it has the right context (i.e. it belongs to the right projects and issue types when you look at it in the list of custom fields)?

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Hi Nic! Thanks for your reply. How can I add Group Picker Tab in assignee tab. Group Picker is there in Add Custom field tab. It also reflects now in the field which is created. And I have allocated this Field to the appropriate project. I know that I am very close to this. Please help me further. Thanks

[Suyog Karmarkar]

Do you mean the above as the screen details below

Its edit issue screen for individual screen

Wherein the fields are 
Issue Type
Component/s
Fix Version/s
Priority
Labels
Assignee
New Field Defined - Over here I have defined the Custom Field and in details, I have wrote the names of users (more than one)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I am finding your language confusing.  The word "tab" has a very specific meaning in Jira and I don't think you mean to use it that way.

A "tab" in Jira is a sub-section of a screen.  A screen is a list of fields, a tab separates groups of fields within a screen into, well, tabs, much like browser tabs.

So, when you say "How can I add Group Picker Tab in assignee tab", it makes no sense.  You could be saying that you have two tabs, one for "group picker" and one "assignee", but tabs are flat, and you can't put one inside another.

Could you explain where you have placed your fields, without using the word "tab" unless it is referring to a Jira tab within a screen?  (Not panel, or field, or location on screen, tab just meaning a screen-tab)

Then explain what you are trying to get to?