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Add or remove users or groups, manage security groups

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Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018

The recommended method for managing permissions and access is to assign users to a security group. You can assign users to a default security group or create a custom group to grant or restrict permissions. You can add users and groups to more than one security group. For example, you add most developers to the Contributors group. When that same user is added as a member to a team, then they are added to the team's system-generated security group.

This article shows how to perform the following tasks:

  • Create a custom security group at the project or collection level
  • Add or remove users or groups to a security group
  • Change a group name, image, or description
  • Delete a custom security group

For information on the following related tasks, see the corresponding articles:

Note

Users inherit permissions from the group(s) that they belong to. If a permission is set to Allow for one group and Deny for another group to which the user belongs, then their effective permission assignment is Deny. To learn more about permission inheritance, see Get started with permissions, access, and security groups, Permission inheritance and security groups.

How Azure DevOps uses security groups

Azure DevOps uses security groups for the following purposes:

  • Determine permissions allocated to a group or user
  • Determine access level allocated to a group or user
  • Filter work item queries based on membership within a group
  • Use @mention of a project-level group to send email notifications to members of that group
  • Send team notifications to members of a team group
  • Add a group to a role-based permission
  • Set object-level permissions to a security group

Note

All security groups are organization-level entities, even those groups that only have permissions to a specific project. From the web portal, visibility of some security groups may be limited based on user permissions. However, you can discover the names of all groups in an organization using the azure devops CLI tool or our REST APIs. To learn more, see Add and manage security groups.

Note

All security groups are collection-level entities, even those groups that only have permissions to a specific project. From the web portal, visibility of some security groups may be limited based on user permissions. However, you can discover the names of all groups in an organization using the azure devops CLI tool or our REST APIs. To learn more, see Add and manage security groups.

Note

All security groups are collection-level entities, even those groups that only have permissions to a specific project. From the web portal, visibility of some security groups may be limited based on user permissions. However, you can discover the names of all groups in an organization using the REST APIs. To learn more, see Add and manage security groups.

Prerequisites

  • To manage permissions or groups at the project level, you must be a member of the Project Administrators Group. If you created the project, you are automatically added as a member of this group.
  • To manage permissions or groups at the collection or instance level, you must be a member of the Project Collection Administrators Group. If you created the organization or collection, you are automatically added as a member of this group.

Note

Users added to the Project-Scoped Users group can't access most Organization Settings pages, including Permissions. To learn more, see Manage your organization, Limit user visibility for projects and more.

Create a custom security group

You create a custom security group from the Project settings>Permissions or Organization settings>Permissions pages. Choose to create a project-level group when you want to manage permissions at the project or object-level for a project. Create a collection-level group when you want to manage permissions at the collection level. To learn more about setting permissions for these areas, see Change project-level permissions and Change project collection-level permissions.

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page or the Organization Permissions Settings Page v2 preview pages, see Enable preview features. Both preview pages provide a group settings page that the current page does not.

To create a project-level group

  1. Open the web portal and choose the project where you want to add users or groups. To choose another project, see Switch project, repository, team.

  2. Choose Project settings, and then Permissions.

    Screenshot, open Project settings, Permissions.

  3. Choose New Group to open the dialog for adding a group.

To create a project collection-level group

  1. Open the web portal, choose the Azure DevOps icon, and then select Organization settings.

    Open Organization settings

  2. Under Security, choose Permissions, and then choose New group to open the dialog for adding a group.

    Create security group at the organization-level

To define the new group

  1. In the dialog that opens, enter a Name for the group. Optionally, add members and a description for the group.

    For example, here we define a Work Tracking Administrators group.

    Security group dialog, Add a security group at the organization-level

    Choose Create when done.

  1. Open the web portal and choose the project where you want to add users or groups. To choose another project, see Switch project, repository, team.

  2. Choose Project Settings and then Security.

    To see the full image, select to expand.

    Project Settings>Security

  3. Under Groups, choose one of the following options:

    • Readers: To add users who require read-only access to the project, choose.
    • Contributors: To add users who contribute fully to this project or who have been granted Stakeholder access.
    • Project Administrators: To add users who need to administrate the project. To learn more, see Change project-level permissions.

  4. Next, choose the Members tab.

    Here we choose the Contributors group.

    Security page, Contributors group, Membership page

    The default team group, and any other teams you add to the project, get included as members of the Contributors group. Add a new user as a member of a team instead, and the user automatically inherits Contributor permissions.

    Tip

    Managing users is much easier using groups, not individual users.

  5. Choose Add to add a user or a user group.

  6. Enter the name of the user account into the text box. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas. The system automatically searches for matches. choose the match(es) that meets your requirements.

    Add users and group dialog, server version.

    Note

    The first time you add a user or group to Azure DevOps, you can't browse to it or check the friendly name. After the identity has been added, you can just enter the friendly name.

    Choose Save changes when complete.

  7. (Optional) You can customize a user's permission for other functionality in the project. For example, in areas and iterations or shared queries.

    Note

    Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. To learn more, see Permissions and access.

  1. Open the web portal and choose the project where you want to add users or groups. To choose another project, see Switch project, repository, team.

  2. Choose the gear icon to open the administrative context.

    Open Project Settings, horizontal nav

  3. Choose Security and under Groups, choose one of the following options:

    • Readers: To add users who require read-only access to the project, choose.
    • Contributors: To add users who contribute fully to this project or who have been granted Stakeholder access.
    • Project Administrators: To add users who need to administrate the project. To learn more, see Change project-level permissions.

  4. Next, choose the Members tab.

    Here we choose the Contributors group.

    Security page, Contributors group, Membership page

    Tip

    Managing users is much easier using groups, not individual users.

    By default, the default team group and any other teams you add to the project, are included as members of the Contributors group. Add a new user as a member of a team instead, and the user automatically inherits Contributor permissions.

  5. Choose gear iconAdd to add a user or a user group.

  6. Enter the name of the user account into the text box. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas. The system automatically searches for matches.

    Add users and group dialog

    Note

    The first time you add a user or group to Azure DevOps, you can't browse to it or check the friendly name. After the identity has been added, you can just enter the friendly name.

  7. (Optional) You can customize user permissions for other functionality within the project, such as areas and iterations or shared queries.

    Note

    Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. To learn more, see Permissions and access.

Add users or groups to a security group

As roles and responsibilities change, you might need to change the permission levels for individual members of a project. The easiest way to do that is to add the user or a group of users to either a default or custom security group. If roles change, you can then remove the user from a group.

Here we show how to add a user to the built-in Project Administrators group. The method is similar no matter what group you are adding. If your organization is connected to Azure Active Directory or Active Directory, then you can add security groups defined in those directories to Azure DevOps security groups. To learn more, see Add AD/Azure AD users or groups to a built-in security group.

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page or the Organization Permissions Settings Page v2 preview pages, see Enable preview features. Both preview pages provide a group settings page that the current page does not.

  1. Open the Permissions page for either the project-level or organization-level as described in the previous section, Create a custom security group.

  2. Choose the security group whose members you want to manage, then choose the Members tab, and then choose Add.

    For example, here we choose the Project Administrators group, Members, and then Add.

    Project Settings > Permissions, Add member

  3. Enter the name of the user account into the text box and then select from the match that appears. You can enter several identities recognized by the system into the Add users and/or groups box. The system automatically searches for matches. Choose the matches that meet your choices.

    Add users and group dialog, preview page.

    Note

    Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. To learn more, see Permissions and access.

  4. Choose Save.

  1. Open the Permissions page for either the project-level or organization-level as described in the previous section, Create a custom security group.

  2. Choose the security group whose members you want to manage, then choose the Members tab, and then choose Add.

    For example, here we choose the Project Administrators group, Members, and then Add.

    Project Settings>Security, Add member

  3. Enter the name of the user account into the text box. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas. The system automatically searches for matches. Choose the match(es) that meets your choice.

    Add users and group dialog, on-premises.

    Note

    Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. To learn more, see Permissions and access.

  4. Choose Save changes. Choose the refresh icon to see the additions.

  1. Open the Permissions page for either the project-level or organization-level as described in the previous section, Create a custom security group.

  2. Choose the security group whose members you want to manage, then choose the Members tab, and then choose Add.

    For example, here we choose the Project Administrators group, Members, and then Add.

    Project Settings>Security, Add member

  3. Enter the name of the user account into the text box. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas. The system automatically searches for matches. Choose the match(es) that meets your choice.

    Add users and group dialog, TFS 2018 and earlier versions.

    Note

    Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. To learn more, see Permissions and access.

  4. Choose Save changes. Choose the refresh icon to see the additions.

Change permissions for a user or group

To change the permissions for a user or group, you need to open the security dialog for the user or group. Because permissions are defined at different levels, review the following articles to open the dialog for the permissions you want to change:

Remove users or groups from a security group

You add or remove users from a group from the Members tab of a selected group.

  1. For the user or group you want to remove, choose More options, and then Remove.

    Screenshot of Remove a user, cloud version.

  2. Choose Delete to confirm removal of the group member.

    Remove user confirmation dialog, cloud version.

  • To remove a user from a group, choose Remove next to the user's name that you want to remove.

    Remove user confirmation dialog, on-premises versions.

Manage group settings

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page or the Organization Permissions Settings Page v2 preview pages, see Enable preview features. Both preview pages provide a group settings page that the current page does not.

  1. Open the Permissions page for either the project-level or organization-level as described earlier in this article, Create a custom security group.

  2. Choose the Settings tab. You can change a group description, add a group image, or delete a group through the group Settings page.

From the Project settings > Permissions or Organization settings > Permissions page, choose the group you want to manage, and then choose Settings.

For example, here we open the Settings for the Work Tracking Administrators group.

Screenshot of Open group settings, preview page.

You can modify the group name, group description, upload an image, or delete the group.

You can change a group name, description, add a group image, or delete a group.

  1. From the Project > Settings > Security or Organization > Settings > Security page, choose the group you want to manage

  2. Choose from the Edit menu to either Edit profile or Delete.

    For example, here we open the Edit profile for the Stakeholder Access group.

    Open Edit group profile, on-premises versions.

    . . . and change the description. Note that you can change the name of the group as well.

    Edit group dialog profile description, on-premises versions.

  3. Choose Save to save your changes.

On-premises deployments

For on-premises deployments, see these additional articles:

If your on-premises deployment is integrated with SQL Server Reports, you'll need to manage membership for those products separately from their websites. See Grant permissions to view or create SQL Server reports in TFS.

Next steps

Manage projects