This is a quick post to sneak something extra into February…
I added a new solution onto the Technet Gallery that some people might find useful here.
What this solution does…
Do you want to see the Affected User of the top parent Service Request or Incident on your Manual Activities?
There is at least one online discussion on how to do this via a Type Projection and a custom view by editing the Management Pack XML directly. However, that solution will only work if the Manual Activity parent is directly an SR or IR. It won’t work if the MA parent is a Parallel or Sequential activity. That is no fault of the suggested solution, it is simply how the system works.
Also, you need to know how to edit your exported XML which makes a lot of people turn a nice shade of green 
Plus, such a view can no longer be edited in the console.
Much better to copy the Affected User relationship when it changes on an SR or IR to each child MA. Although the Affected User relationship is not used on the MA form or available via any of the out-of-the-box type projections (combination classes seen when you create views) it is still a valid relationship because Manual Activity is a Work Item.
To make this work, download MA.AffectedUser.Workflows.zip from the Technet Gallery link and:
1. Import:
MA.AffectedUser.Workflows.xml
This defines 2 workflows, both disabled:
Incident Affected User to Manual Activity workflow
Service Request Affected User to Manual Activity workflow
2. Import:
MA.AffectedUser.TypeProjections.mp
This sealed Management Pack defines a type projection to use in the MA views to see Affected User called “Manual Activity (Affected User)”.
3. Copy:
MA.AffectedUser.Workflows.dll to the SCSM install folder (where all the other DLLs are) on the workflow Management Server (unless you have changed it, the first Management Server you installed in your Management Group).
4. Enable one or both workflows via Administration\Workflows\Status. Change the Affected User on an IR or SR (depending on which workflow(s) you enabled).
All child MAs, recursively, have their Affected User set to the parent IR or SR.
5. To see this:
Create a new view, under “Search for objects of a specific class” click “Browse”. Change “Frequently used basic classes” to “Combination Classes”. Find “Manual Activity (Affected User)”, select, click OK.
You can now add properties of the Affected User from the Manual Activity class to your view.
