Is there a way to change the Created By field on a work item in TFS? Maybe by altering the database?
I want to be able to create a bug/feature/PBI, then change it to be created by the member of staff who reported it to me.
This way, I can track who is submitted change requests, and they would also then receive bug update notifications.
Seems you want to set a faker creator for a work item.
Created By
The name of the team member who created the work item.
Reference name=Microsoft.VSTS.Common.CreatedBy
There is no build-in way to change this filed. Take a look at this:
IsEditable
No
Indicates if users can modify this field (True) or not (False). Examples of non-editable fields are ones that are set by the system, such as the ID, Revision, Created By, and Changed By fields.
More details please refer Work Item Field Attributes – What You Can and Can’t Change
Change the value directly in the Database may do the trick, but it's not a recommend way. It's also go against the concept of source control.
If you just want to notify others when work item update. As a workaround, suggest you use the follow function in work item.
When you want to track the progress of a single work item, click the Follow icon icon. This signals the system to notify you when changes are made to the work item.
Note: This feature is available from TFS 2017 and above.
You can only overwrite the CreatedBy field when create the workitem via API with bypass rule enabled. Refer to this link for details: Make an update bypassing rules.
A quick solution for this would be create a powershell script to create the workitem via Rest API. Sample for your reference:
#Input basic information
$collectionuri = "http://tfsserver:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection/"
$project = "ProjectName"
$workitemtype = 'Task'
$createdby = 'Display Name'
$title = 'Title'
#Create the workitem
$workitem = @(@{op="add";path="/fields/System.Title";value=$title},@{op="add";path="/fields/System.CreatedBy";value=$createdby})
$json = $workitem | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 100
$headers= @{"Content-Type"="application/json-patch+json"}
$url= $collectionuri + $project + '/_apis/wit/workitems/$' + $workitemtype +'?bypassRules=true&api-version=1.0'
$mycredentials = Get-Credential
$wi = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $url -Method Patch -Credential $mycredentials -Body $json -ContentType 'application/json-patch+json'
Write-Host $wi
Why do you want to update the system field? You may add a new field "Initiator"(Add or modify a field to track work). Set value from Created By on creation. Then update it when you want.
