Q: How do I assign an Owner to a ticket in RT4?

• The Owner field is not a drop down menu anymore. How do I pick an Owner?
• How does the Owner field work on the People screen?

Context

This answer applies to the upgraded Request Tracker 4 service on help.mit.edu.

Answer

In the new version of Request Tracker the old Owner drop down menu has been replaced with a text field. This user interface control is used in several locations for people selection in the new RT, to make it easier to deal with a large number of users of Request Tracker.

The new Owner field is actually a text entry and type-ahead lookup field. Here's how it works:

Fastest way

1. Navigate to the "People" screen on a ticket to find the Owner field (the Owner field on the Reply, Comment, and Call Center screens works similarly)
2. If you know the username of the person you want to make the owner of a ticket, simply type it into the Owner field. For example, if you know that Oliver Thomas's username is othomas, just type othomas into the Owner field to assign the ticket to him.
   
3. Click "Save Changes" and you're done.
   

The slightly less fast way:

1. Navigate to the "People" screen on a ticket to find the Owner field (the Owner field on the Reply, Comment, and Call Center screens works similarly)
2. If you don't know the username of the person you want to make the owner, the field can do a lookup by name (first and/or last) and partial username). For example, if you want to assign a ticket to Barbara Johnson but don't know her username, type ba into the text box. After a second or two a list of all the matches will appear in a drop down menu below the box. The exact list will depend on who has access to own tickets in your queue.
   
3. Click on the name of the person you want to make the owner.
   
4. Click "Save Changes" and you're done.
   

To navigate away from the "People" page back to the ticket display, click the "Display" or "Call Center" tab, which is a link in the same area you selected "People." If you changed the owner from a Reply or Comment screen, you'll automatically return to the Display or Call Center screen after you submit the reply or comment.

See also

• How to I change the Owner of a Request Tracker ticket?
• Things to Know When Getting Started with Request Tracker (RT) 4.0
• [archive:Request Tracker (RT) 4.0 Upgrade]
• RT 4.0 Articles