How do you know if another technician is already working on a JIRA Service Desk issue?

[Nate Smith]

We are new to JIRA Service Desk. The implementation was an on-prem server based (v 7.6.3). One issue we keep running into is... how do you know if another technician is already in an issue working on it? We keep stepping on each others toes. Sorry if this is a duplicate question but could not find it when searching. Thanks for your help.

[Jack Brickey]

There is no lock 🔒 icon however I would assume if an issue displays an agents name in the assignee vs unassigned then it would convey the same message. You just need to add the Assignee field in the queue display. Moreover, what is commonly done is to have an unassigned “triage” queue and then assigned queues as appropriate. Small teams have queues agent. So the workflow is:

1. issue created goes to triage queue
2. all agents work the unassigned triage queue and take ownership by setting Assignee to themselves 
3. peach agent has an in progress queue. 

[Nate Smith]

Thanks for the quick reply Jack! The problem we are having is that 4 agents are working the queues at any time. In the system we just moved from, it showed a lock icon if an agent was in that ticket so we knew to stay out. Hoping to see if there is a way to do that here. :)

[Jack Brickey]

Well it depends on how literal you want to be regarding "working on". In Jira "working on" equates to being the Assignee. However, just because they are assigned the issue doesn't mean they are actually working on it. Long story short, addressing your issue is a combination of a few things:

1. internal process and ensuring agents follow the process
2. In JSD you should ensure that when someone takes ownership they change the assignee. you could consider enforcing this by modifying the workflow, e.g. 'new' = unassigned and when it goes to 'in progress' it requires the assignee
3. you can require comments and logging time as further means of knowing someone is working on it.

hope that helps.