Handling of an issue is a process of delegating the responsibility for resolving the issue to one of the development team members. On the end of this process, the responsibility is mostly assigned to one of the product developers .

When filing a new issue  the issue 'opener' usually doesn't know for what part of product is responsible which product developer . Product end-users usually do not know internal product development organization or product developers at all. Therefore an issue might be assigned through several persons until it reach a product developer who actually resolves it.

The route how the issue is assigned until it reaches the 'final' product developer depends mostly on who is opening the issue, and to whom is the issue assigned. Paragraphs below are discussing scenarios of opening and assigning issues for each group of users.

Issues opened by Product User

Because product end-users do not know the product's development internal organization, issues filed by product end-users are initially assigned either to product support or to the product managers . In both cases, the issue assignment is done automatically by Issue Tracking System (ITS), the product end-users are not aware of this process.

Issues assigned to Product End-User

Product end-user cannot be assigned an issue, unless he/she is product manager, support, or developer team member in the same time.

Issues opened by Product Support

Product support team member usually files a new issue on behalf of product end-user . Typical scenario is that the product end-user contacts product support through one of the support's contact points (telephone, e-mail, etc). Product support handles the call and files the issue into the ITS.

One of the product support team responsibilities is to verify whether the issues reported by a product end-user is a valid issue , and filter out the issues reported by misunderstanding of the product, or issues which are not issues of the product. However, such "false" issues still might be entered into the ITS (and mark as closed) to track product support group activity, or for analysis of the areas of possible improvements of the product. This depends on the policies of product development group.

Whether product support actually assigns the issue to a particular product developer or not depends on right to assign an issue given to the product support group. For less complicated products, product support team members might know product developers and therefore  ITS administrators can give right to assing issue to the product support group. If ITS administrators do not give right to assing an issue to the product support team then product support team member can route his issue to product manager or product deveper through the "PROMOTE" button located on the Issue Details page, once he is confident that the issue is valid.

Issues Assigned to Product Support

An issue is usually assigned to a product support automatically by ITS when an product end-user opens the issue. Or, an issue can be assigned back to product support by product managers or developers for verifying whether the issue is an valid issue (it means whether it is really product issue or for example a result of misunderstanding of the particular product function by the product end-user ).

Issues opened by Product Tester

Product testers are filing issues into the ITS usually in the product testing phase, before releasing the product into production. Similar to the case when an issue is filed by product support, the product testers can be given right to assign issue  by ITS administrators when the product development group is small and product testers know responsibilities of product developers and managers. In this case product testers assign issues directly either to product developers or product managers .

For larger development teams where product testers do not know responsigilities of particular product developers and managers, ITS administrators usually do not give right to assign issue to product testers. In this case, issues filed by product testers are assigned to product managers or product developers automatically by the ITS.

Issues assigned to Product Tester

Product tester cannot be assigned an issue, unless he/she is product manager, support, or developer team member in the same time.

Issues opened by Product Developer

Product developer files an issue when he finds some problem with the product. Usually, the product developers is testing his own work and therefore a lot of the issues he assigns to himself to keep track of his tasks. When a product developer assign issue to himself, he usually just go ahead, resolves the issue and marks it as resolved or closed. While opening an issue a product developer can always assign the issue to himself, even if he is not given right to assign issue by ITS administrators .

Issues assigned to Product Developer

An issue is assigned to a product developer usually by a product manager. In this case, the product developer should resolve the issue. When he/she successfully resolves the issue then he should mark the issue as resolved.

If product developer cannot resolve the issue for some reason, he should consult this with his manager. When the product manager verifies that the issue really cannot be resolved by the developer, he can reassign the issue to another product developer or another product manager. If product developers haveright to assign issue, the product developer can do the issue re-assignment himself.

In case when there are no product managers user accounts in the ITS, an issue can be assigned to product developer automatically by ITS. In this case, the developer either resolves the issue or assigns the issue to another product developer (usually after consultation with him).

Issues opened by Product Manager

Product managers are usually filing issues themselves during product development phase while verifying work of their developers. A product manager is supposed to know development responsibilities of his developers and development responsibilities of other product managers. Therefore a product manager can assign issues directly to either his/her product developers or other product managers. ITS administrators should therefore always give right to assign issue to product managers .

Issues assigned to Product Manager

An issue can be assigned to product manager by any ITS user (which have right to assign issue) or automatically by ITS. Assigning an issue to a product manager means for him a request to re-assign the issue to appropriate product developer or to another product manager, whose responsibilities cover the problem described in the issue. Therefore product managers must know product development responsibilities of his/her product developers and product development responsibilities of other product managers , in order to be able to properly re-assign the issue..

See Also

Issue, Users of the Issue Tracking System