Removing the “Assigned To” rule on a bug work item

Remember back in the old days when the TFS/VSTS Process Templates were a series of XML files, instead of an inherited process with a nice UI to customize them?

Well, back then there was a rule built into the bug in the Agile template that set the “assigned to” field to the user that created the bug when you changed the state to Resolved. It was clever. Whoever created the bug had it reassigned to them when the bug was fixed automatically.

Rules like these made their way into the Azure DevOps processes and a lot of them are still there. Problem is, in the old XML template we could change, or even remove rules like these if we didn’t want them. In the Azure DevOps process you can’t remove it.

Apparently enough people have given feedback to Microsoft about this situation that they removed the rule in sprint 177. Which was released a few weeks ago. You may have noticed.

If you are one of the folks who are unhappy about this change and liked that built in rule, don’t worry. If you want to learn more about the change, including how to add it back using a custom rule check out this Blog Post Removing Assigned To Rule from Bug. It’s very easy to add it back.