How to automatically assign a TFS work item to a particular person/role

Question

I would like to customize a Work Item Type in TFS to automatically set the Assignee to a particular role. For example (to compare to another Issue Tracker), in JIRA the default Assignee is the Project Lead (so that any ticket not otherwise assigned, gets automatically assigned to whatever person is designated in the role of Project Lead). Can I do something similar in TFS?

So, I realize that one difference between JIRA and TFS is that TFS doesn't (to my knowledge) have the concept of "Roles". The closest thing to that is "Groups", but unlike Roles, Groups can have multiple people (which may be the restricting factor in this problem). I know how to configure a TFS Work Item so that only a certain Group gets listed in the "Assign To" field, but I would like to go a step farther, if possible, and create a custom Group with just one member (e.g., "Issue Guru") and then set up the work item to get automatically assigned to that person.

I'm trying to replicate the Jira functionality here, and maybe there is just no good way to do it in the TFS framework. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

I never tried this in production but here is something I tried quickly and it seems like it could work.

You can set the default value to a Group by editing work item template in template editor. Just select Assigned to field and add a DEFAULT rule like shown in the image below.

This will also require you to create one or more groups (one global or maybe one per project). Once you set this up you won’t have to make any updates in the future but only manage people who are in the groups.

Answer 2

There's a Step by Step Guide on Ivan Fioravanti's Blog for enabling it.

If you are unfamiliar with customising Work Item Types, have a look at the following links (stolen from Grant Holliday's blog).