Can't Change Default Assignee in Jira Cloud
Platform Notice: Cloud Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the cloud platform.
Summary
When you try to change the Default Assignee of a project (Project Settings > Details), which is set to Project Lead, you will not be able to change it. Hovering the mouse on Default Assignee, you will see one of the following messages depending on the project type:
For a team-managed project, the field is greyed out with a message "Reach out to your Jira Admin to modify the default assignee."
For company-managed projects, the message displayed is "The default assignee when creating issues for this project."
Solution
The default assignee of an issue can only be either the Project Lead or unassigned.
In System > General Configurations, the Allow unassigned issues setting should be ON - This option allows issues to be assigned to 'no one' or unassigned.
If turned off, issues will always be assigned to someone. When created, they will be automatically assigned to the project lead, who then passes them off. You will not be able to edit the default assignee field if it is set to OFF.
Refer to our documentation on Configure Jira application options for more details on how to edit the options.
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