Reassign the Last Developer

Owned by Daniel Barrow
Last updated: Oct 19, 2023
3 min read

Scenario

When an issue is reopened by a tester, it should be reassigned to the Developer who last worked on it.

Resolution

This requires that a Developer project role exist in your Jira instance; it can have any name, but it should be a project role that includes all members of the development team. Using the Developer project role, you can use the Assign to last role member post-function to automatically assign an issue to the member of the Developer role who last worked on the issue. Adding this post-function to the Reopen transition will fulfill the requirements.

Note: the steps below require your workflow has a status of Reopened (or something similar). Figure 1, below, shows the status Reopened with an incoming transition from Done and and outgoing transition to In Progress. Your transitions do not need to match, but you will need a status that represents reopening an issue after it has been closed.

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On This Page

Steps to Create

1. Project role for Developers

Verify that your Jira instance has a project role that includes the necessary developers. If that role does not exist, create one and add any necessary team members; see this page for more information: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/manage-project-roles/.

2. Add Assign to last role member post-function

  1. Log in to your Jira instance as an Administrator.

  2. In the upper right corner of the window, click Settings ( ) and select Issues.

  3. In the left-hand sidebar, click Workflows.

  4. From the list of Workflows, click Actions ( ) for the appropriate workflow and select Edit.

  5. Edit the transition:

    1. When viewing the Workflow in Diagram view (Figure 1, right), select the Transition and click the Post Functions link. Click Add post function at the top of the list of existing post functions.

    2. When viewing the Workflow in Text view, click the name of the Transition then select the Post Functions tab. Click Add post function at the top of the list of existing post functions.

    3. Select Assign to last role member (JMWE app) from the list of post-functions and click Add.

Edit Transition to Add Post-function
Figure 1 - Edit Transition

3. Configure the post-function

Set the following configurations (Figure 2, right):

  1. Issue(s) to operate on - Set Target issue(s) to Current Issue.

  2. Project role

    1. Set Project Role to the project role you created for your Development team, e.g. Developers.

    2. Set Options as needed. See Project Role Options, below, for more information.

  3. Conditional execution - Set as needed.

  4. Run As - Set as needed; it is recommended to leave the default Add-on user value unless required for specific reasons.

  5. Delayed execution - Set as needed.

  6. Click Add.

Project Role Options

The configuration of Options, above, will depend on your organizational structure and on your specific process. For example:

  • Do Developers close issues? If so, can a Developer reopen an issue? If Developers can close issues, they may be the assignee on the issue when it is marked Done. If so, make sure to check Include Current Assignee so that if the Developer who last worked on the issue also reopens it, it will be assigned correctly.

  • Can only non-Developer (e.g. QA, Support, or Project Management) team members close an issue? - You do not need to check Include Current Assignee.

Configure the Post-function
Figure 2 - Configure the Post-function