Every action needs an owner — the one person responsible for getting it done. This article covers setting an owner and moving actions between people.
Setting an owner when the action is created
All the create forms ask for an owner:
Add action — Owner is required, so you can't create one without an owner.
Raise an action from a checklist task — pick the Action Owner.
Audit and risk assessment actions — set the owner as you create the action.
Changing the owner
You can do this in two places:
From the list — click the owner on the row and pick someone else.
From the action — use Owner in the Overview card.
Where nobody is responsible yet you'll see Unassigned with an Assign option. You'll get a confirmation naming the new owner, and they're notified straight away with Action assigned to you.
One thing worth knowing: assigning an owner to an action sitting at Pending moves it back to Open. Handing over work in progress puts it back on the active list rather than leaving it looking half-parked.
Finding actions with no owner
Set the Owner filter to Unassigned. Unowned actions are the ones most likely to drift, so this is a useful thing to check periodically.
Moving several actions at once
Covering someone's leave, or someone has left? Select the actions using the checkboxes on the list and choose Reassign N actions, then pick the new owner. See How to update several actions at once.
Who can reassign
Members of the organisation can reassign actions, and for audit-linked actions that includes the auditor who ran the audit. Two exceptions:
Incident actions show their owner as read-only in the Actions list. Change it on the event.
Risk assessment actions only accept owners allowed for that assessment. If you pick someone else you'll see "Selected owner is not allowed for this risk assessment".
What owners see
Being the owner means:
An email and in-app notification when the action is assigned.
A reminder on the due date, and an escalation if it goes overdue.
The action appears on their Work page and counts towards their open actions.
Team members and viewers only see actions for sites they're assigned to. If someone says an action isn't showing up for them, check they have access to that site — that's usually the reason.
Good practice
One named person, not a team. Shared ownership tends to mean nobody owns it.
Set a due date whenever you assign. Without one there are no reminders and the action can never show as overdue.
Reassign rather than closing and recreating. Reassigning keeps the comments, the evidence and the link back to the original finding.