Assigning multiple users to an issue with Kick-Start

[Coreymdill]

Hi!

I'm using a kick-start to generate a slew of new issues for a queue. Many, if not all of the issues need to have multiple users assigned to them. I can't figure out how to assign multiple users using the "setAssignedToID" field. Is this even possible? 

Thank you for any recommendations you might have!

Corey

[JustinRenteria2]

The "Assigned To" field is typically associated with the Issue Owner.  Tasks/Issues can only have one owner.  
You may need to do an Assignment Kickstart after you create the issues.  That seems like a mess though...

[Coreymdill]

Thanks Justin, 

I am using "setOwnerID" to indicate the Primary Contact for the issues which is different than "setAssignedToID." I've tested and have been successful using these two fields to populate the Primary COntact and the Assignee correctly. The problem is, I can't add more than one person as being assigned to the issue. I figured it is fairly common for an issue to be assigned to more than one person and this should be doable, but maybe it's wishful thinking 🙂

Thanks again for sharing your view though. 

Corey

[JustinRenteria2]

You're not entirely correct.  Primary contact does equate to "Owner" but that is different from the Assignment "Owner" (Assigned To).  They are different fields and can have different values.  You can only have one assignee in the "Assigned To" field since that field corresponds to the Assignment Owner. So no it's not doable from a Issue Kickstart it seems.  You will have to do a Assignment Kickstart after the Issue Kickstart is complete. But that seems like a mess imo. 

Ex:  I am the Issue Assignment Owner on the issue below. You can see the task has multiple assignees but only one Assigned To (Owner).   

The same issue has someone else assigned as the Primary contact. 

[skyehansen]

hi. I don't do your type of kickstart but I'll explain my types of kickstarts and hopefully you can align that way of thinking to your type.

What I've been doing a lot of in the past couple of years, is kickstarting project templates into our workfront. Picture this:

* Each project template has many template tasks

* I list all the templates in one spreadsheet tab (the template tab)

* I list all the tasks in another spreadsheet tab (the template tasks tab) and reference the template line items in template tab

* I upload the one spreadsheet with two tabs

* templates are created and populated with template tasks 

You should be doing something similar. What you have is a situation where each issue has many assignments.

* All your issues should get listed in one tab (the issues tab)

* All your assignments should get listed in another tab (the assignments tab)

I can't help you with whether you need a primary assignee to show up on the issue tab, or in fact any syntax at all. What I CAN suggest, and how I learned to do the templates, is that I downloaded the templates and template tasks kickstart from my instance. This provided me with MANY examples of how to fill out each cell. So if you already have issues in your instance with multiple assignments, you should just EXPORT a kickstart with issues and assignments, and figure out how it is being filled out. Please feel free to continue to use your post to ask questions about specific columns you see--my guess is usually to try and see what the bare minimum is, that I need to fill out. So I would personally try an assignment row with the assigned to ID, and the issue ID -- and add a column at a time from there.

[tibormolnar]

Hi @skyehansen,

you've made me curious: How did you reference the template lines on the template tasks tab?

I experimented with the very same logic when I kick-start imported project templates and wanted to include the queue settings in the same import. I tried referencing the template line items on the queue defs tab in the XLS import file, but WF ignored that and created all templates with default queue settings.

Thank you,

Tibor

[skyehansen]

every line I put in for a new template, I give an arbitrary, unique ID, e.g. template1, template2, template3. Then in the template tasks tab, I reference this ID in the column for "setTemplateID".

So:

- create new template, ID column = template1

- create new template task, ID column = task1, setTemplateID column = template1

Sometimes if I'm feeling paranoid, I ID my tasks as T1.1, T1.2, T1.3, T2.1, T2.2, T2.3 (to indicate to myself that I have template tasks for template1, and template2. Just makes it easier to visually tell them apart.

[tibormolnar]

OK. This is just what I did with templates and queue definitions - but it did not work.

Good to know that it's working with templates and template tasks.

Thanks.

[kautuk_sahni]

@Coreymdill , just checking in — were you able to get this resolved? If one of the replies above helped, marking it as accepted can make it easier for others facing the same issue to find a solution quickly. And if you found another way to fix it, sharing your approach would be a big help to the community. Your follow-up not only closes the loop but also ensures others can benefit from your experience. Thanks again for being part of the conversation!