Assign issues

Last update: February 12, 2025

Topics:
Work Management

CREATED FOR:

User

You can assign issues to users, roles, and teams to indicate who is responsible for completing the issues. For general information about assigning issues, see Overview of modifying issue assignments.

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You can assign multiple users, job roles, or teams. You can assign only active users, job roles, and teams.

If a user, job role, or team was assigned before they were deactivated, they remain assigned to the work item. In this case, we recommend the following:

Reassign the work item to active resources.
Associate the users in a deactivated team with an active team and reassign the work item to the active team.

In addition to this article, we recommend that you read the following articles for more information about assigning issues:

You can assign an issue to one or multiple resources at the individual issue level, or you can assign multiple resources to multiple issues at one time.

Assigning issues and tasks is similar in Adobe Workfront. For general information about assigning tasks, see Overview of modifying task assignments.

Access requirements

Expand to view access requirements for the functionality in this article.

Adobe Workfront plan	Any
Adobe Workfront license*	New: Contributor or higher Current: Review or higher
Access level	Edit access to Issues View or higher access to Projects and Tasks to assign one issue
Object permissions	Manage permissions to the issue View permissions or higher to the project or task where the issue is located, when assigning one issue Contribute permissions or higher to the project or task where the issue is located, when assigning multiple issues.

*For information, see Access requirements in Workfront documentation.

Considerations for multiple assignments to job roles, teams, and users

Consider the following when assigning multiple resources to a work item:

Users can have more than one job role associated with their profile. For information about associating users with job roles, see Edit a user’s profile.
Tasks or issues are usually first assigned to one or multiple job roles or teams. When projects are ready to start, they might need to also be assigned to users.

If a task or an issue is assigned to one or multiple roles and then you also assign a user, Adobe Workfront decides which job role to associate with the additional user (if any) according to the following rules:
- If there is only one job role assigned and it matches the user’s Primary Role, then the task or issue is assigned only to the user fulfilling their Primary Role.
- If there are multiple roles assigned and at least one of the roles matches the user’s secondary roles, then the task or issue is assigned to the user fulfilling one of their Other Roles — which Workfront selects at random if there are multiple matches — as well as any additional roles that are assigned.
- If there is one or more job roles assigned and there are no matches to the user’s roles, then the task or issue is assigned to both the role or roles as well as to the user.
If a task or an issue is assigned to a team and you also assign a user, the task or issue remains assigned to both the team and the user.

Assign a single issue

Go to an issue that you want to assign.
Click Assign to in the upper-right corner of the issue header, in the Assignments area

Or

Click the name of the current assignments, if the issue is already assigned.
Do one of the following:
- Start typing the name of a user, role, or team that you want to assign, then click it when it appears on the list.
- (Conditional) Click one of the names, roles, or teams in the available lists
- Click Assign to me to assign it to yourself
- Click Advanced.
  
  Creating advanced assignments is similar for tasks and issues. For information about how to make advanced assignments, see Create advanced assignments.
  
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  When adding a user assignment, notice the avatar, the user’s Primary Role, or their email address to distinguish between users with identical names.
  Users must be associated with at least one job role to view it as you add them.
  You must have the View Contact Info setting enabled in your access level for Users to view users’ emails. For information, see Grant access to users
Click Save to complete assigning the issue.
(Optional) Click the X icon next to the name of the assignments in the Assignments area on the header of the issue to remove an assignment.

Assign an issue in a list

You can assign issues in a list or a report when any of the assignments fields are visible in the list’s view. This is faster way to assign issues.

Depending on which field is visible in the view you can assign the following entities to the issue:

Option	Entities assigned
Assign To	Assign one user
Assigned	Assign one user
Assignments	Assign users, job roles, or teams.

To assign issues in a list:

Go to a list of issues that has the Assigned To, Assigned, or Assignments fields in the view.
To assign issues do one of the following:
- Click inside the Assigned To or Assigned fields and start typing the name of an active user that you want to assign to the issue, then click it when it displays in the list.
- Click inside the Assignments field and start typing the name of an active user, job role, or active team that you want to assign to the issue, then click it when it displays in the list.
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When adding a user assignment, notice the avatar, the user’s Primary Role, or their email address to distinguish between users with identical names.
Users must be associated with at least one job role to view it as you add them.
You must have the View Contact Info setting enabled in your access level for Users to view users’ emails. For information, see Grant access to users.
(Conditional) When visible in the Assignments field, click the People icon in the upper-right corner of the assignments box to open the Advanced Assignments box and create advanced assignments. For more information, see Create advanced assignments.

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You cannot make advanced assignments from the Assigned To or Assigned fields.
After adding your assignees to the issue, press Enter or click anywhere on the page to save your changes.

Assign issues in bulk

Go to a list of issues that you want to assign in bulk.
Select several issues in the list.
Click the Edit icon .

The Edit Issues dialog box opens.
In the Assignments area, select the Assignee box, then start typing the name of a user, job role, or team that you want to assign to all the issues.

IMPORTANT
If any of the issues is already assigned, the resources you indicate here are added to the issues instead of replacing the existing resources on the issues.
(Optional) Select the radio button in the Issue Owner column to indicate which resource is the primary assignee or the Owner of the issue, when you assign more than one resource to the issue. This is not available for teams.
(Optional) Select a role that the user should fulfill on the issue from the Pick a role drop-down menu in the Assignee’s Role column when you assign users to issues. If you do not select a role, Workfront automatically selects the user’s Primary Role.
(Optional) If you want to remove existing assignees from all issues do one of the following:
1. Start typing the name of a user, role, or team you want to remove from the issue, then select it when it appears on the list and click Remove Assignee to add additional assignees to remove.
2. Click Remove All Existing Assignees to remove all assignees from all selected issues.
Click Save Changes.
(Optional and conditional) When the Assigned to or the Assignments fields display in your list of issues, click inside one of these columns for an issue, then click the X icon next to the name of an assignee to remove it from the issue.

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