Change project-level permissions

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

Many permissions get set at the project level. You can grant these permissions by adding a user or group to the Project Administrators group. Or, you can grant select project-level permissions to a custom security group or to a user.

Consider adding users to the Project Administrators group when they're tasked with adding or managing teams, area and iteration paths, repositories, service hooks, and service end points.

Project-level permissions

The following table lists the permissions assigned at the project-level. All of these permissions are granted to members of the Project Administrators group, except for the Delete shared Analytics views and Edit shared Analytics views permissions which are not set. For a description of each permission, see Permissions and groups reference, Groups.

General

• Delete team project
• Edit project-level information
• Manage project properties
• Rename team project
• Suppress notifications for work item updates
• Update project visibility
• View project-level information

Boards

• Bypass rules on work item updates
• Change process of team project
• Create tag definition
• Delete and restore work items
• Move work items out of this project
• Permanently delete work items

Analytics

• Delete shared Analytics views
• Edit shared Analytics views
• View analytics

Test Plans

• Create test runs
• Delete test runs
• Manage test configurations
• Manage test environments
• View test runs

Note

The permission to add or remove project-level security groups and add and manage project-level group membership is assigned to all members of the Project Administrators group. It isn't controlled by a permissions surfaced within the user interface.

Create tag definition permission

By default, members of the Contributors group are assigned the Create tag definition permission. Although the Create tag definition permission appears in the security settings at the project-level, tagging permissions are actually collection-level permissions that are scoped at the project level when they appear in the user interface. To scope tagging permissions to a single project when using a command-line tool, you must provide the GUID for the project as part of the command syntax. Otherwise, your change applies to the entire collection. For more information, see Security groups, service accounts, and permissions, Work item tags.

Prerequisites

• To manage permissions or groups at the project level, you must be a member of the Project Administrators security group. If you created the project, you're automatically added as a member of this group. To get added to this group, you need to request permissions from a member of the Project Administrators group. See Look up a project administrator.
• To add security groups defined in Microsoft Entra ID or Active Directory, make sure the security groups are first defined. For more information, see Add Active Directory / Microsoft Entra users or groups to a built-in security group.

Note

Users granted Stakeholder access, can't access select features even if granted permissions to those features. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

Add members to the Project Administrators group

You can add users who are associated with a project, organization, or collection to the Project Administrators group. This group has specific permissions at the organizations or collection level. To add a custom security group, first create the group as described in Add or remove users or groups, manage security groups.

Here we show how to add a user to the built-in Project Administrators group. The method is similar to adding a Microsoft Entra ID or Active Directory group.

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page preview page, see Enable preview features.

Preview page

1. Sign in to your organization (https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}).

2. Select Project settings > Permissions.

   

3. Select Project Administrators group > Members > Add.

   

4. Enter the name of the user account or custom security group into the text box. You can enter several identities recognized by the system into the Add users and/or groups box. The system automatically searches for matches. Choose one or more matches.

   

5. Select Save.

Current page

1. Sign in to your organization (https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}).

2. Select Project settings > Security.

   

3. Select Project Administrators group > Members > Add.

   

4. 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 one or more matches.

   

5. Select Save changes > refresh icon, and then view the additions.

Change permissions for a group

You can modify project-level permissions for any group associated with a project, except for the Project Administrators group. Also, each team that is added to a project is automatically included as a project-level group. To add security groups to a project, see Add or remove users or groups, manage security groups. To understand permission assignments and inheritance, see About permissions, Permission states.

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page preview page, see Enable preview features.

Preview page

1. Open the Permissions page as described in the previous section, Add a user or group to the Project Administrators group.

   Note

   You can't change the permission settings for the Project Administrators group. This is by design.

2. From the Permissions page, choose the group whose permissions you want to change.

   For example, we choose the Contributors group and change their permissions for Delete and restore work items to Allow.

   

   Your changes are automatically saved.

   Tip

   If you add a user to the Contributors group, they can add and modify work items. You can restrict permissions of users or user groups to add and modify work items based on the Area Path. For more information, see Modify work items under an area path.

Current page

1. Open the Security page as described in the previous section, Add a user or group to the Project Administrators group.

2. From the Security page, choose the group whose permissions you want to change.

   For example, we grant permission to the Contributors group to Delete and restore work items.

   

3. Select Save changes.

Change permissions for a user

You can change the project-level permissions for a specific user. To understand permission assignments and inheritance, see About permissions, Permission states.

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page preview page, see Enable preview features.

Preview page

1. Open the Permissions page as described in the previous section, Add a user or group to the Project Administrators group.

2. From the Permissions page, select Users, and then choose the user whose permissions you want to change.

   

3. From the Permissions page, change the assignment for one or more permissions.

   For example, we change the Edit project-level information for Christie Church.

   

   Dismiss the dialog when you're done. Your changes are automatically saved.

Current page

1. Open the Security page as described in the previous section, Add a user or group to the Project Administrators group.

2. From the Security page, in the Filter users and groups text box, enter the name of the user whose permissions you want to change.

3. Change change the assignment for one or more permissions.

   For example, we change the Edit project-level information for Christie Church.

   

4. Select Save changes.

Next steps

Manage projects

Related articles

• Set object-level permissions
• Get started with permissions, access, and security groups
• Look up permissions
• Learn about permissions and groups
• Manage teams and configure team tools