Assign and Reassign: A Person or a Role

Assign a task to one person when it needs a clear owner, or assign it to a role when a small team should monitor the full queue. Reassign a role-owned task to a person when someone needs to own the work.

Before you start

You need the Edit tasks permission to change an assignment. Open the task from the Tasks queue or from its task page before changing who receives it.

Choose a person, role, or no assignee

The Assigned to field in edit mode offers Profile, Role and Unassigned. The search field follows the choice: Admin profile searches for a person, and Admin role searches for a role.

Assign a task to a person

Assign a person when the task needs one owner and should appear in that person's Show Only My Tasks view.

Open the task in edit mode, choose Profile in Assigned to, search with Admin profile and select the staff member, then save the task. The person owns the task and receives a New Task Assigned notice, and the task page shows them in Assigned to. A student staffer assigned by name sees the task on the staff Requests page and can change its status.

Assign a task to a role

Assign a role when a small team checks the full queue every day and any member can take responsibility for the next task.

Open the task in edit mode, choose Role in Assigned to, search with Admin role and select the role, then save the task. Every member of the role becomes a subscriber and receives New Task Assigned at once. Open View subscribers to review the people who were added through the role assignment.

A role assignment does not give the task a single owner. The task does not appear in any member's Show Only My Tasks view, the queue's Unassigned card does not count it, and there is no claim button. Reassign the task to a person when someone needs to own it.

Check why a role-owned task is missing

Turn off Show Only My Tasks when you need to find a task assigned to a role. That view is limited to tasks assigned to you by name, so a role-owned task is absent even when you belong to the role.

Reassign one task

Reassign a task from its task page when the current person or role should no longer receive ownership or assignment notices. Open the task and choose Edit, then in Assigned to choose Profile, search with Admin profile, select the new person and Save.

The new assignee receives New Task Assigned. Other subscribers receive the same notice, and the previous assignee remains a subscriber until you remove them. The task page shows the new assignee in Assigned to.

Reassign several tasks

Use the bulk assignment action when the same person or role should receive multiple selected tasks. Select the tasks in the queue, open the actions menu beside the selection count and choose Assign Task. In the Assign Tasks window, choose the assignment target and confirm the assignment.

The new assignee receives New Task Assigned, and the other subscribers on each task receive that notice as well.

Leave a task unassigned

Choose Unassigned in Assigned to when you want to clear both the person and the role assignment. Choosing it intentionally stops the request type's automatic assignee from filling in the task.

Understand automatic assignment

Changing a task's request type fills in that type's automatic assignee. A manual choice of Unassigned stops that automatic assignee from filling in the task.

Cloudy can suggest an assignee for an unowned task. Review the suggestion before applying it.