Why can't we have multiple assignees on a ticket?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It is easy.  One person (the assignee) is responsiple for the task in hand at the moment.  I'm not sure where you think multiple assignees might be of any use here?

[Julian C]

This is an issue for me - we are a small team of three that need a system of notification for tasks and sequential production flow.  Stages 1-3

When the stock gets low, we get notified, whoever is available can accept or decline the task. 

When the job is complete, a new stage opens up and whoever is available can accept or decline. 

You'd think it was easy

[Roman Iuvshibn]

Several years ago I;ve used jira where was installed some really handy plugin that allowed to set a list of co-workers on the ticket. Now I need it again but can't find it... does any body know where is this awesome co-worker thingy hiding from me?

[John Funk]

Hey @Mick C  - Here's pretty much the bottom line. There are NO open requests with Atlassian to add this feature. You should put one in if you like, but it sounds like it will go the way of the others that have been closed already. It is NOT the most requested feature asked for from Atlassian. 

You can use the workarounds suggested to you, or you can put in a new request for the feature. Then people can vote for your idea if they want it. But whining here will not change a thing. You are using up the time of other users that can respond to other needs and help people that want to be helped.

Sorry if that sounds arrogant or mean or whatever word you want to use. But you are going to get nowhere here with the rantings. I truly hope you find some peace about the matter.  :-)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Oh gods, wrong time to ask.  I'm on a course this week with 20 other expert Jira admins.  The instructor found a really odd thing in the data as we started one of the exercises, and almost broke down and wept when he say a mapping for multiple-assignee with a jira custom field.   The entire room sympathised - we've all got many horror stories about just how bad a thing to do it is.

[John Funk]

And out of the thousands of users in Jira - how often does that happen?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ah, that was my exception.  In this case, you don't actually care who the assignee is.  As soon as they stop working together, the problem can happen again.

[Viktor]

Two people sitting next to eachother, actively discussing how they are going to work together on an issue, documenting who is doing what.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Many tickets for this have been created.  They have all been closed with responses that say it does not work. 

[Lenin Raj]

AFAIK there is no open ticket for this request.

[John Funk]

@Lenin Raj  - Do you know if there is an open request to provide this functionality? If so, can you provide a link so that @Mick C can vote on this?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

This is the bit that my anecdotes are all based on

You say "teams that don't have a "I thought the other one was doing it" problem".

Show me one of those and I'll show you a handsome invisible pink unicorn.  Granted, some teams are better than others, and many superb, but it will happen, in every team, eventually.  The question is not about "probably won't", but about "cannot".

(My one exception to that is an active pair-programming couple, where it won't happen, but doesn't matter anyway)

[Viktor]

@Jack Brickey That's a good point, but making it available for teams that don't have a "I though the otherone was doing it" problem would not bother me at all.

[Jack Brickey]

Mick, it seems you have found the tool that best fits your requirements. I’m not sure that how something works in one tool translates to another tool being wrong. There are many tools out there in this space with many similarities and many differences. Competition and choices is a wonderful thing for obvious reasons.

if I can rewind back the the original post, you indicated that you did not want a discussion here but rather you wanted an answer. I think that the answers have been provided and this post in fact is a discussion at this point. At this point should we move to the discussion forum collection?

[Mick C]

And here we are in Kanban mode

[Mick C]

Also - the "task owner" column is configurable.

It's almost like they understand that different teams and different companies do things differently.... crazy!

[Mick C]

Actually the very first thing I tried lets you assign multiple "owners" to a task.

Monday.com - seems to be the new kid on the block and it seems that they get it.

See the video here:

https://www.loom.com/share/f8e65341c5a440988fc931f892137cdf

Now let's go look at their pricing page....

[Mick C]

In my world multiple assignees would only be assigned to pairs and mobs, so this wouldn't be an issue.

The key thing here is the "in my world" statement. I understand that different companies and teams work in different ways and if someone was to assign the same task to two or three people who were in different parts of the office, or in different offices then this would be a problem.

However this is a MANAGEMENT ISSUE and it's not for Atlassian to dictate how teams are run or how companies deal with accountability.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

How would you stop "I thought the other assignee was doing it" becoming a problem?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes.  I accept that.

I know that I am not a good writer.  I know that I write stuff that comes across as abrasive, aggressive or (and) arrogant.

I stand by "multiple assignees does not work".   But you are absolutely right that the way I said it is arrogant. 

"Small minded" is a different matter though.   I have imagined things that horrified science-fiction writers and kicked them into writing books and film scripts that win prizes because they are so twisted.  

Having spent 25 years of watching "multiple assignee" fail on every level (even the few it might, in theory, work for), I do want to object to that.

Let's try it the more useful way around.  Please could you show me a system that allows two or more assignees where "I thought the other assignee was doing it" can not happen?

[Mick C]

You know... for a community of what is obviously a group of intelligent, problem solving people, the amount of 

"Well i don't want this feature so therefore nobody should want it"

is really really surprising.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Short answer:  It.  Does.  Not.  Work.

[Viktor]

I agree with you.

I suspect this is because Jira does not update the issue you are looking at in real time.

If multiple people are viewing an issue, the "newest" change to a field is the one that sticks, so a group of people can not work on a single issue.

If Jira would support multiple simultaneous edits(like Google docs etc.) I think this would have been a feature long time ago.

[Lenin Raj]

If two people working on one issue is a common thing in your team, this article maybe is helpful: 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/Managing-Assignee-when-you-do-Pair-Programming/ba-p/1268008

and

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/How-do-I-create-an-issue-filter-for-a-User-Picker-Multiple-Users/qaq-p/1267642#M400463

[Lenin Raj]

Hi @Mick C,

We may have answer of some of your questions here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/How-we-handled-the-most-asked-question-quot-Can-I-assign-an/ba-p/1230108