Assign

What it is

Assign changes who owns a row. You select a row, or several rows in a list, and choose Assign on the command bar. In the dialog you pick the Assign to option: Me, or User or Team, and in the second case you search for the person or team. Selecting Assign then saves the change, and the Owner column shows the new owner.

When to use it

Use it to hand work over completely. If the original owner should keep the row and someone else should work on it too, use Share instead. For editing the owner in a form, see Owner, which is the same column.

Licensing and configuration

No extra licence. The command shows only for tables that are owned by a user or team (not organisation owned), and a user needs the Assign privilege on the table in a security role. Microsoft notes that only a system administrator can assign a row that belongs to someone else to themselves. Relationship behaviour decides whether the assignment cascades to related rows, and a parental relationship cascades it.

Pitfalls

• Assigning does not move the row to a new business unit unless the new owner is in one, which can change who sees it.
• When a row is assigned, active workflows and business rules on it are deactivated and the new owner must turn them on again, according to Microsoft.
• A user without the Read privilege cannot see a row assigned to them.
• Assigning a row to the person who already owns it does nothing.

Try it in the demo

1. Open the Accelerator form at the deep link and select Assign on the command bar.
2. Choose User or Team and search for a user.
3. Select Assign. The Owner shows the new person, also in the header.