Assign a Work Item to a Team Member
You can assign a work item to a person when you need that person to supply information or do work that helps complete the work item.
Note
The following guidance is based on the work item transitions available in the bug work item for Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development v5.0, one of the process guidance templates that are included with Team Foundation. If your project uses a different methodology, the work item states might be different.
Office Project does not populate the Resource Names field list with names of team members. Therefore, you must manually add names to the list. When you assign a work item to a resource in Office Project, you should specify the resource by its display name from Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or the Address Book. If you assign a work item to a resource by alias or other shortened form of the name, you may introduce an inconsistency that can cause validation errors.
Important
Team Foundation does not currently support assigning a work item to multiple resources. If you must assign a work item to multiple resources, create multiple work items and assign each to one resource. For more information, see Quick Tips and Operational Differences when Tracking Tasks Using Microsoft Project and Team Foundation.
In this topic
Assigning a Work Item by Using Team Web Access or Team Explorer
Assigning a Work Item by Using Microsoft Office Excel
Assigning a Work Item by Using Microsoft Office Project
Required Permissions
To perform these procedures, you must be a member of the Contributors group or have your View work items in this node, and your Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.
Assigning a Work Item by Using Team Web Access or Team Explorer
To assign a work item by using Team Web Access or Team Explorer
View the results of a work item query that contains the work item that you want to modify.
Double-click the work item that you want to assign to a team member.
Under Status, in the Assigned to list, click the name of the team member to whom you want to assign the work item.
(Optional) In the Description box, type any information that helps the team member complete the work.
Click Save, Save & Close, or Save Work Item.
Assigning a Work Item by Using Microsoft Office Excel
To assign a work item by using Office Excel
Open or create a work item list in Office Excel.
(Optional) If you reopen a work item list, on the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Refresh.
This step helps make sure that the work item list has the most current information.
In the Assigned To column for the work item that you want to assign, click the arrow next to the cell, and then click the name of the person to whom you want to assign the work item.
On the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Publish.
Assigning a Work Item by Using Microsoft Office Project
To assign a work item by using Office Project
Open or create a project plan in Office Project.
(Optional) If you reopen a plan, on the Team menu, click Refresh.
This step helps make sure that the Office Project plan has the most current information.
Click the field in the Resource Names column for the work item that you want to modify.
Click the arrow at the right of the field to display a list of resources.
If the name of the resource to whom you want to assign the work item is on the list, click the name. Otherwise, follow these steps:
On the Tools menu, click Assign Resources.
In the Assign Resources dialog box, expand Resource list options to show additional buttons, check boxes, and lists.
Click Add Resources, and click the resource source from which you want to retrieve resource names.
Use the tools in the resource source that you chose to find names of resources and add them to the Resources from <project name> list. For detailed information about resources, click Help in the Assign Resources dialog box to open the Office Project online Help.
When you finish adding resources to the Resources from <project name> list, click the name of the resource to whom you want to assign the current work item, and then click Assign.
Click Close to close the Assign Resources dialog box.
After you add names of resources to the Resources from <project name> list in the Assign Resources dialog box, you can select one of those names without opening the Assign Resources dialog box.
On the Team menu, click Publish Changes.
Save the Office Project plan.
See Also
Tasks
Create, Open, and Modify Work Items Using Office Excel
Create a Microsoft Project Plan from Team Foundation Work Items
Concepts
Working with Team Foundation Clients
Other Resources
Work Items and Workflow (Agile)