Some test cases always go to the same person. The one who knows the payment gateway, or the one who owns the mobile checkout flow. A default assignee records that on the test case itself, so you do not have to assign it again every time you build a test plan.
Where to set it
The field is on the test case, not on the plan. You can set it in four places:
- When you add a test case, under Priority.
- When you edit a test case.
- In bulk update, to apply one person to many cases at once, or to clear the field on all of them.
- On the test cases grid, where Default Assignee is available as a column and as a filter. The filter has an Unassigned choice, so you can find every case that still has no owner.
The field is optional and empty by default. Existing test cases are unaffected until you set one. It is included when you export test cases to CSV or PDF.
Who can be picked
The list offers only project members whose role lets them run test cases. Someone with a view-only role does not appear, because they could never execute the case you are assigning to them. If you cannot find a person in the list, check their role in this project.
What happens when the case joins a test plan
When the case is added to a test plan, the default assignee is copied onto the plan's copy of that case. The plan opens with that person already assigned, before anyone reaches the assignment step.
Two things can change that:
- If you picked a specific assignee while adding the cases, your choice wins. The default does not overwrite it.
- If the default assignee can no longer run test cases in that project, the case lands unassigned rather than assigned to someone who cannot execute it.
The copy is a snapshot
The plan gets its own copy of the assignment. Changing the default assignee on the test case later does not reach back into plans that already exist. Those keep whoever they had.
The new default applies from then on, so the next plan you build with that case gets the new person. This is deliberate: a plan that is already being executed should not have its owners change under the testers running it.
Copying a test case to another project follows the same rule. The default assignee is kept only if that person can also run test cases in the target project. Otherwise the copy is created with the field empty. Copies inside the same project keep it as it was.
What the assignment step does now
Because cases can arrive already assigned, the assignment methods in Step 3 of the wizard fill in only the cases that are still unassigned. Assigning everything to one tester, or splitting the work automatically across several, leaves the inherited assignments alone.
To ignore that and apply your rule to the whole plan, tick Apply assignment rules to all test cases. TestCollab tells you how many assignments this will overwrite before you continue. The checkbox appears only when something in the plan is already assigned.
If every case in the plan already carries an assignee and you leave the box unticked, the step finishes without changing anything.
When the default assignee leaves the project
A project member who still holds work cannot be removed silently. TestCollab shows you what they hold, including the test cases where they are the default assignee, and asks you to either mark that work unassigned or hand it to another member. See Adding project members for the full flow.
In a CI pipeline
tc createTestPlan respects the default assignee from version 1.19 of the CLI. Each
case keeps its own default, and --assignee-id covers only the cases that have none.
Pass --override-assignees to assign every case in the plan to one user instead, which
matches the checkbox in the wizard. See the
CLI command reference.
