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Why does sending an e-mail assign the case to me?

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7 Answers

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FogBugz does that to prevent two people from sending an email at the same time. Common scenario (such as we have at Fog Creek) is to have a virtual user own the new incoming emails and a support team reply to them as available. Because clicking Reply assigns the case to the composer, it claims the bug so nobody else tries to answer at the same time.

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 Being able to override this behavior with the workflow plugin would be greatly appreciated. – Bradley Grainger Oct 18 2010 at 23:57
Being able to specify for which users this happens (only for inbox users) would be greatly appreciated; as you state, this is done to prevent two people from responding to a new email, so make it possible to have this behavior only in that scenario – Hans Kapitein Aug 17 at 8:28
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This is an utter pain for us as well - often when a case comes in you want to reply to the submitter and ask for more information. This assigns it to me which is never what I want - I then have to assign it back into the backlog or inbox.

This should be configurable with the workflow plugin so the project admin can decide what should happen when a user replies to a case.

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The official way to handle that scenario is to resolve and close the case when asking for more info. When the reply comes back, the case will be reopened and assigned to the backlog. – Ted♦ Aug 17 2010 at 19:03
Resolving as "need more info" seems like a cop-out though. The case wasn't really resolved...just placed on hold. – cdeszaq Aug 24 2010 at 19:34
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 +1 for wanting it configurable in the workflow plugin. Make that a separate feature request! – cdeszaq Aug 24 2010 at 19:35
@Ted - the problem with closing the case is that it then disappears from all our queues. I don't know about your users, but ours very occasionally might not get back to us without a prompt or two... – Steve Baxter Aug 27 2010 at 16:34
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 +1 for configuring this with the workflow plugin. – Bradley Grainger Oct 18 2010 at 23:56
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Is there any plans from FogCreek to modify this feature by way of a new plug-in or editing the existing workflow plug-in. This is also a pain for our organization.

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We are aware that not everybody likes this behavior, but there are no specific plans to address it in the near term. – Ted♦ Aug 24 2010 at 20:15
+1 for ability to modify this workflow. I have instructed co-workers many times that if they rely to a fogbugz generated email they will need to re-Assign the case. More often than not they don't. We only use fb internally, no customer service so the workflow would be simple: "if email address = fb user, then don't reassign" – David Fox Jun 22 at 15:36
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um, what? Why is having two people respond to an email bad?

This is another productivity-killing feature. I'm a manager and when I review tasks and need information about them, I use FB's email system to get people to update tasks with specific information. It has the nice feature that I now have a record of having asked the question in the task itself. Now every time I do that I have to remember to go back and reassign the task the correct person? It's completely counter-intuitive that sending an email should re-assign the task as a side-effect. If the point is to make sure I get a notification then add me as a correspondent.

Fogbugz is the only product I've ever used that when I notice a new feature it routinely makes the product worse.

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 Are the cases you are reminding people already assigned to them? Just edit the case then, and FogBugz will send them a notification email. – Ted♦ May 20 2010 at 14:02
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 Or if it isn't assigned to them, use "Assign" and add your notes as well. They'll get an email that way too. – Micky McQuade May 20 2010 at 15:16
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For those of you willing to live on the edge, here is how to "fix" your FogBugz installation to not re-assign the case to someone when they send an e-mail response.

!!!! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!!

Danger! Danger! Danger!
This solution requires editing the source code of FogBugz. The right way to do this under normal circumstances would be to use the extensive API and plugin framework, but as far as I can tell there isn't an API exposed that makes for a clean way to address this customization. Source code mods, are a last ditch option.

Caveats

  • Although the change seems pretty benign. I don't guarantee that this won't break something else in FogBugz.
  • Understandibly, Fog Creek might not be willing to fully support (or support at all) hacked versions of their software or issues this may cause.
  • Whenever you install upgrades to FB this fix may be overwritten and need to be applied again.

If you have read the above and you are stil willing to accept the potential downsides of running a tweaked FogBugz install, here is how you do it.

Instructions
(1) Backup your FogBugz program directory before you start.

(2) Open the file your-fogbugz-directory\src-Website\editBug2.was in the text editor of your choice.

(3) Find these lines and comment them out by adding an apostrophe at the front of each line (shown below). 

If c.ixPersonAssignedTo <> GetPersonID Then
  'c.ixPersonAssignedTo = GetPersonID
  'c.Assign GetPersonID, "", "", False, False
End If

Note: In my install it was lines 562-563, but it may vary depending on your FB version.

(4) Stop IIS on the machine and the maintenance service.
(5) Rebuild the FogBugz web site.

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I think it's so you will be notified when the email is responded to (assuming your user account has an email address and has email notifications turned on).

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Being a small organization where concurrent people trying to send emails isn't a concern, this is just a pain for us. It's easy to not notice the auto-assignment and then item drops off our "Up for Grabs" list when the person sending the email was simply responding to the customer, "Sorry, no progress yet" to keep customers happy before Devlopment gets around to investigating

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