Customizing the Assigned To field on a Work Item Type
A common customization request is the need to change the list values populated in the Assigned To field on a work item. By default, this field shows all users known to TFS (members of the TFS Everyone group).
What if you want to assign work items to groups or special values that don’t correspond to a user or group? Well, the Assigned To field is just like any other field and you can fully customize its list values.
Here’s what you do. Export the work item type from your project (see this post for instructions on importing and exporting types). If you want to assign work items to groups, replace the definition of Assigned To with the following XML. This expands all users and groups defined in the project contributors group in the Assigned To pick list.
<FIELD name="Assigned To" refname="System.AssignedTo" type="String">
<ALLOWEDVALUES expanditems="true">
<LISTITEM value = "[Project]\Contributors" />
</ALLOWEDVALUES>
</FIELD>
Note how the list shows the Contributor group, as well as the child groups such as Developers and users in those groups.
To assign work items to special string values, just add them as list items. The XML below allows work items to be assigned to the triage team.
<FIELD name="Assigned To" refname="System.AssignedTo" type="String">
<ALLOWEDVALUES expanditems="true">
<LISTITEM value = "[Project]\Contributors" />
<LISTITEM value = "Triage" />
</ALLOWEDVALUES>
</FIELD>
Until next time,
Ling Bao
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
