How to change the Created By field on a Work Item

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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.