[TIP] How to make the assignee field required ?

You have just received a Service Request from one of the Jira project lead asking you to adopt the workflow to make the assignee field required. He is telling you the ticket are not moving and so is the project simply because the tickets are not assigned.

You have been battling, looking everywhere in the field configuration how to make the assignee field required and the requester doesn’t understand why it’s not that easy.

It’s actually pretty simple, and we will showcase here 2 workarounds. One will require some maintenance at workflow level and the second is more like a permanent solution if your big boss is tired of all this and tells you he doesn’t want to hear about this ticket assignment issue anymore 🙂

First workaround to make the assignee field required: Tweaking the workflow

We going to modify the workflow to make it impossible to create or transition a ticket without having the assignee field filled, by adding a validator

After adding the validator to the create step on the workflow, we try to create a ticket and we automatically get a message remind us to assign the ticket

So from now on it’s up to the project lead to decide whether this requirement should be applied to all the transition of the workflow or just some key steps. If it’s the former then you will have to replicate this to every transition concerned

Second workaround to make the assignee field required: Jira Administration

Let’s face it, this solution is more radical than the first one. Meaning you will have to chose whether you want to keep assignee field optional or mandatory for all the projects of your instance. That means you will have to figure out :

1. To whom the current unassigned issues should be assigned
2. Who should be the default assignee for all opened projects without a current default assignee

To make it happen you have to go to the Jira Administration Setting cog and select System

Under General configuration click on “Edit Settings”

If unassigned issues are present in your instance, you will have to deal with them first before seeing the the “turn off” button

Before

After

Once cleared, you can proceed with turning off this option and no more tickets will be unassigned. From now on, when a ticket is created it will automatically be assigned to the Project default assignee and he/she will need to reassign if needed.

If you need support maintaining your instance or want to leverage Jira in your company, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us