Governance roles and permissions in free and enterprise account types

Important

This permissions article covers Microsoft Purview data governance permissions in the new Microsoft Purview portal using the new data catalog.

Microsoft Purview data governance has two solutions in the Microsoft Purview Portal: the Microsoft Purview Data Map, and the Microsoft Purview Data Catalog. These solutions use tenant/organizational-level permissions, existing data access permissions, and domain/collection permissions to provide users access to governance tools and data assets. The kind of permissions available to use depends on your Microsoft Purview account type. You can check your account type in the Microsoft Purview portal under the Settings card, and Account.

Screenshot of the settings solution highlighted on the Microsoft Purview portal main page.

Screenshot of the settings page in the Microsoft Purview portal.

Account Type Tenant/Organization permissions Data access permissions Domain and collection permissions Data catalog permissions
Free x x
Enterprise x x x x

For more information about each permission type, see these guides:

For more information about permission based on account type, see these guides:

Important

For users newly created in Microsoft Entra ID, it may take some time for permissions to propagate even after correct permissions have been applied.

Tenant level role groups

Assigned at the organizational level, tenant level role groups provide general, and administrative permissions for both the Microsoft Purview Data Map and Data Catalog. If you're managing your Microsoft Purview account or your organization's data governance strategy, you probably need one or several of these roles.

The currently available governance tenant-level role groups are:

Role group Description Account type availability
Purview administrator Create, edit, and delete domains and perform role assignments. Free and enterprise accounts
Data Source Administrators Manage data sources and data scans in the Microsoft Purview Data Map. Enterprise accounts
Data Governance Grants access to data governance roles within Microsoft Purview. Free and enterprise accounts

For a full list of all available roles and role groups, not just for data governance, see roles, and role groups in the Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Purview portals.

How to assign and manage role groups

Important

To be able to assign roles in Microsoft Purview a user needs to be assigned the role management role.

To assign and manage roles in Microsoft Purview, follow the permissions in Microsoft Purview guide.

Data catalog permissions

The Microsoft Purview Data Catalog also uses three levels of permissions to allow users to access information in the data catalog:

  • Data governance - a tenant/organizational-level role group that has the Data Governance Admin role. That role delegates the first level of access for governance domain creators. (This role isn't surfaced in the data catalog, but affects your ability to assign permissions in the data catalog.)
  • Catalog-level permissions - permissions to grant ownership to governance domains and access to health management.
  • Governance domain level permissions - permissions to access and manage resources inside specific governance domains.

Catalog-level permissions

Permissions that are assigned on the data catalog itself, and provide only high-level access.

Role Description Application
Governance domain creator Creates domains and delegates governance domain owner (or remains governance domain owner by default) Data catalog
Data health owner Create, update, and read artifacts in health management. Health management
Data health reader Can read artifacts in health management. Health management

How to assign catalog-level roles

Important

To be able to assign roles in Microsoft Purview a user needs to be a data governance admin at the tenant/organization level.

  1. In the Microsoft Purview portal, select Settings.
  2. Under Solution Settings select Data Catalog.
  3. Select Roles and permissions.
  4. Select Governance domain creators or another role add user icon.
  5. Search the user you wish to add.
  6. Select the user.
  7. Select Save.

Governance domain level permission

Tip

The Governance domain owner is important to delegate to someone running data governance or the data catalog as it is an essential role to be able to start to build governance domains, data products, glossary terms, etc. It's recommended that you have at least two people assigned as governance domain owners.

Governance domain permissions provide access within a specific governance domain, and should be granted to data experts and business users to read and manage objects within the governance domain.

These are the governance domain roles currently available in the Microsoft Purview Data Catalog:

Role Description
Governance domain owner Ability to delegate all other governance domain permissions, configure data quality scan alerts, and set domain level access policies.
Governance domain reader Ability read governance domains and monitor their metadata and function.
Data steward* Create, update, and read artifacts and policies within their governance domain. Can also read artifacts from other governance domains.
Data product owner* Create, update, and read data products only within their governance domain. Can read artifacts from other domains to build relationships between the concepts.
Data catalog reader Read all published concepts to the catalog across all domains.
Data quality stewards Able to use all data quality features like data profiling, data quality rule management, data quality scanning, browsing data profiling and data quality insights, data quality scheduling, job monitoring, configuring threshold and alerts.
Data quality reader Browse all data quality insight, data quality rules definition, and data quality error files. This role can’t run data quality scanning and data profiling job, and this role won't have access to data profiling column level insight as column level insight.
Data quality metadata reader Browse data quality insights (except profiling results column level insight), data quality rule definition, and rule level scores. This role won't have access to error records and can't run profiling and DQ scanning job.
Data profile steward Run data profiling jobs and have access to browse profiling insight details. This role can also browse through all data quality insights and can monitor profiling jobs. This role can’t create rules and can’t run data quality scanning.
Data profile reader This role will have required permissions to browse all data quality insights and can drill down the profiling results to browse the statistics in column level.

Note

*To be able to add data assets to a data product, data product owners and data stewards also need data map permissions to read those data assets in the data map.

How to assign governance domain roles

Important

To assign roles in Microsoft Purview a user needs to be a governance domain owner in the governance domain. This role is assigned by data governance administrators, or governance domain creators.

Governance domain roles are assigned under the Roles tab in a governance domain. For more information, see how to manage governance domains.

Permissions to search the full data catalog

No specific permissions are needed in the data catalog to be able to search the data catalog. However, searching the data catalog will only return relevant data assets that you have permissions to view in the data map.

Users can find a data asset in the data catalog when:

Permissions to these assets are managed at the resource level and at the Microsoft Purview Data Map level, respectively. For more information on providing this access, follow the links provided.

Tip

If your data catalog is well-curated, day-to-day business users shouldn't need to search the full catalog. They should be able to find data they need in data products. For more information about setting up the data catalog, see: get started with the data catalog, and data catalog best practices.

What data catalog permissions do I need?

Element Action Data governance admin Governance domain creator Governance domain owner Data catalog reader Data steward Data product owner Data health owner Data health reader Data quality steward Data quality reader
Application role assignments Read x x
Edit x x
Governance domains Read x x x x x x
Edit x x
Data products Read x x x x x
Edit x
Health items Read x x
Edit x
Data quality items Read x x x
Edit x
Data access policies Read x x x x
Edit x x

Note

This table covers the basics, but not all roles, and not all scenarios for each role. Refer to the full list of roles for full details.

Data catalog roles

Here's the full list of all roles used to access and manage the Microsoft Purview Data Catalog.

Role Description Permission level Available actions
Data governance admin Delegates the first level of access for governance domain creators and other application-level permissions. Tenant/organization roleassignment/read, roleassignment/write
Governance domain creator Creates domains and delegates governance domain owner (or remains governance domain owner by default). Application businessdomain/read, businessdomain/write
Governance domain owner Ability to delegate all other governance domain permissions, configure data quality scan alerts, and set domain level access policies. Governance domain roleassignment/read, roleassignment/write, businessdomain/read, businessdomain/write, dataquality/scope/read, dataquality/scope/write, dataquality/scheduledscan/read, dataquality/scheduledscan/write, dataquality/scheduledscan/execute, datahealth/alert/read, datahealth/alert/write, dataquality/monitoring/read, dataquality/monitoring/write, dataproduct/read, glossaryterm/read, okr/read, dataaccess/domainpolicy/read, dataaccess/domainpolicy/write, dataaccess/dataproductpolicy/read, dataaccess/glossarytermpolicy/read
Data catalog reader Ability to read all published domains, data products, policies, and OKRs. Governance domain roleassignment/read, businessdomain/read, dataproduct/read, glossaryterm/read, okr/read, dataaccess/domainpolicy/read, dataaccess/glossarytermpolicy/read
Data steward Create, update, and read critical data elements, glossary terms, OKRs, and policies within their governance domain. They can also read and build relationships with concepts in other governance domains. Governance domain roleassignment/read, businessdomain/read, dataquality/observer/write, dataproduct/read, data product/curate, glossaryterm/read, glossaryterm/write, okr/read, okr/write, dataaccess/domainpolicy/read, dataaccess/domainpolicy/write, dataaccess/dataproductpolicy/read, dataaccess/dataproductpolicy/write, dataaccess/glossarytermpolicy/read, dataaccess/glossarytermpolicy/write
Data product owner Create, update, and read data products only within their governance domain. They can also read and build relationships with concepts in governance domains. Governance domain roleassignment/read, businessdomain/read, dataproduct/write, dataproduct/read, glossaryterm/read, okr/read, dataaccess/domainpolicy/read, dataaccess/dataproductpolicy/read, dataaccess/dataproductpolicy/write, dataaccess/glossarytermpolicy/read
Data health owner Create, update, and read artifacts in health management. Application datahealth/read, datahealth/write
Data health reader Can read artifacts in health management. Application datahealth/read
Data quality stewards Able to use all data quality features like data profiling, data quality rule management, data quality scanning, browsing data profiling and data quality insights, data quality scheduling, job monitoring, configuring threshold and alerts. Governance domain businessdomain/read, dataquality/scope/read, dataquality/scope/write, dataquality/scheduledscan/read, dataquality/scheduledscan/write, dataquality/scheduledscan/execute/action, datahealth/alert/read, datahealth/alert/write, dataquality/monitoring/read, dataquality/monitoring/write, dataquality/connection/write, dataquality/connection/read, dataquality/schemadetection/execute/action, dataquality/observer/read, dataquality/observer/write, dataquality/observer/execute/action, dataquality/history/scores/read, dataquality/history/ruledetails/read, dataquality/history/ruleerrorfile/read, dataquality/history/ruleerrorfile/delete, dataquality/history/delete, dataquality/profile/read, dataquality/profile/write, dataquality/profile/execute/action, dataquality/profilehistory/read, dataquality/profilehistory/delete, dataproduct/read, glossaryterm/read
Data quality reader Browse all data quality insights and data quality rules definitions. This role can’t run data quality scanning and data profiling jobs, and this role won't have access to data profiling column level insight as column level insight. Governance domain dataquality/connection/read, dataquality/observer/read, dataquality/observer/execute/action, dataquality/history/scores/read, dataquality/history/ruledetails/read
Data profile reader This role will have required permissions to browse all profiling insights and can drill down the profiling results to browse the statistics in column level. Governance domain dataquality/connection/read, dataquality/profile/read, dataquality/profilehistory/read

Data map permissions

Domains and collections are tools that the Microsoft Purview Data Map uses to group assets, sources, and other artifacts into a hierarchy for discoverability and to manage access control within the Microsoft Purview Data Map.

Domain and collection permissions

The Microsoft Purview Data Map uses a set of predefined roles to control who can access what within the account. These roles are currently:

  • Domain admin (domain level only) - Can assign permissions within a domain and manage its resources.
  • Collection administrator - a role for users that will need to assign roles to other users in the Microsoft Purview governance portal or manage collections. Collection admins can add users to roles on collections where they're admins. They can also edit collections, their details, and add subcollections. A collection administrator on the root collection also automatically has permission to the Microsoft Purview governance portal. If your root collection administrator ever needs to be changed, you can follow the steps in the section below.
  • Data curators - a role that provides access to the data catalog to manage assets, configure custom classifications, create and manage glossary terms, and view data estate insights. Data curators can create, read, modify, move, and delete assets. They can also apply annotations to assets.
  • Data readers - a role that provides read-only access to data assets, classifications, classification rules, collections and glossary terms.
  • Data source administrator - a role that allows a user to manage data sources and scans. If a user is granted only to Data source admin role on a given data source, they can run new scans using an existing scan rule. To create new scan rules, the user must be also granted as either Data reader or Data curator roles.
  • Insights reader - a role that provides read-only access to insights reports for collections where the insights reader also has at least the Data reader role. For more information, see insights permissions.
  • Policy author - a role that allows a user to view, update, and delete Microsoft Purview policies through the Data policy app within Microsoft Purview.
  • Workflow administrator - a role that allows a user to access the workflow authoring page in the Microsoft Purview governance portal, and publish workflows on collections where they have access permissions. Workflow administrator only has access to authoring, and so will need at least Data reader permission on a collection to be able to access the Purview governance portal.

Note

At this time, Microsoft Purview policy author role is not sufficient to create policies. The Microsoft Purview data source admin role is also required.

Important

The user that created the account is automatically assigned domain admin on the default domain and collection admin on the root collection.

Add role assignments

  1. Open the Microsoft Purview Data Map.

  2. Select the domain or collection where you want to add your role assignment.

  3. Select the Role assignments tab to see all the roles in a collection or a domain. Only a collection admin or domain admin can manage role assignments.

    Screenshot of Microsoft Purview governance portal collection window, with the role assignments tab highlighted.

  4. Select Edit role assignments or the person icon to edit each role member.

    Screenshot of Microsoft Purview governance portal collection window, with the edit role assignments dropdown list selected.

  5. Type in the textbox to search for users you want to add to the role member. Select X to remove members you don't want to add.

    Screenshot of Microsoft Purview governance portal collection admin window with the search bar highlighted.

  6. Select OK to save your changes, and you'll see the new users reflected in the role assignments list.

Remove role assignments

  1. Select X button next to a user's name to remove a role assignment.

    Screenshot of Microsoft Purview governance portal collection window, with the role assignments tab selected, and the x button beside one of the names highlighted.

  2. Select Confirm if you're sure to remove the user.

    Screenshot of a confirmation pop-up, with the confirm button highlighted.

Restrict inheritance

Collection permissions are inherited automatically from the parent collection. You can restrict inheritance from a parent collection at any time, using the restrict inherited permissions option.

Note

Currently permissions from the default domain cannot be restricted. Any permissions assigned at the default domain will be inherited by the domain's direct subcollections.

Once you restrict inheritance, you'll need to add users directly to the restricted collection to grant them access.

  1. Navigate to the collection where you want to restrict inheritance and select the Role assignments tab.

  2. Select Restrict inherited permissions and select Restrict access in the popup dialog to remove inherited permissions from this collection and any subcollections. Collection admin permissions won't be affected.

    Screenshot of Microsoft Purview governance portal collection window, with the role assignments tab selected, and the restrict inherited permissions slide button highlighted.

  3. After restriction, inherited members are removed from the roles expect for collection admin.

  4. Select the Restrict inherited permissions toggle button again to revert.

    Screenshot of Microsoft Purview governance portal collection window, with the role assignments tab selected, and the unrestrict inherited permissions slide button highlighted.

Tip

For more detailed information about the roles available in collections see the who should be assigned what roles table or the collections example.

Data access permissions

Data access permissions are permissions users already have on their Azure data sources. These existing permissions also grant permission to access and manage the metadata for those sources, depending on the level of permissions:

Currently, these features are only available for some Azure sources:

Data source  Reader permission
Azure SQL Database  Reader, or these actions.
Azure Blob Storage  Reader, or these actions.
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2  Reader, or these actions.
Azure Subscription Read permission on subscription, or these actions.

The reader role contains enough permissions, but if you're building a custom role, your users need to have these actions included:

Data source  Reader permission
Azure SQL Database  "Microsoft.Sql/servers/read", "Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases/read", "Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases/schemas/read", "Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases/schemas/tables/read", "Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases/schemas/tables/columns/read"
Azure Blob Storage  "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/read", "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices/read", "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices/containers/read"
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2  "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/read", "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices/read", "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices/containers/read"
Azure Subscription "Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read"

Reader permissions

Users who have at least the reader role on available Azure resources are also able to access those resources metadata in the free and enterprise account types.

Users can search and browse for assets from these sources in the data catalog and view their metadata.

These are the permissions needed on the resources for users to be considered 'readers':

Data source  Reader permission
Azure SQL Database  Reader, or these actions.
Azure Blob Storage  Reader, or these actions.
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2  Reader, or these actions.
Azure Subscription Read permission on subscription, or these actions.

Owner permissions

Users who have the owner role or write permissions on available Azure resources can access and edit metadata for those resources in free and enterprise account types.

Owning users can search and browse for assets from these sources in the data catalog, and view their metadata. They can also update and manage the metadata for those resources. For more information about this metadata curation, see our metadata curation article.

These are the permissions needed on the resources for users to be considered 'owners':

Data source  Owner permission 
Azure SQL Database  "Microsoft.Sql/servers/write", "Microsoft.Sql/servers/databases/write", "Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/write" 
Azure Blob Storage  "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/write", "Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/write" 
Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2  "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/write", "Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/write"

Permissions in the free version

All users are able to view data assets for available sources where they have at least Read permissions already. Owning users are able to manage the metadata for available assets where they have at least Owner/Write permissions already. For more information, see the data access permissions section.

Extra permissions can also be assigned using tenant level role groups.

Important

For users newly created in Microsoft Entra ID, it may take some time for permissions to propagate even after correct permissions have been applied.

Permissions in enterprise version

All users are able to view data assets for available sources where they have at least Read permissions already. Owning users are able to manage the metadata for assets where they have at least Owner/Write permissions already. For more information, see the data access permissions section.

Extra permissions can also be assigned using tenant level role groups.

Permissions can also be assigned in the Microsoft Purview Data Map so users can browse assets in the data map or data catalog search that they don't already have data access to.

Data catalog permissions can be assigned to grant users permission to the data catalog application to build out their data governance solutions.

Data asset lifecycle example

To understand how permissions work between the data map and data catalog, let's look at the full life cycle of an Azure SQL table in the environment:

Step Role Role Assignment Level
1. The Azure SQL Database is registered in the data map data source administrator data map permissions
2. The Azure SQL Database is scanned in the data map data curator or data source administrator data map permissions
3. The Azure SQL table is curated and certified data curator data map permissions
4. A governance domain is created in the Microsoft Purview Account Governance Domain Creator application-level role
5. A data product is created in the governance domain Governance Domain Owner and/or Data Product Owner governance domain-level role
6. The Azure SQL table is added as an asset to the data product Data Product Owner and/or Steward governance domain-level role
7. An access policy is added to the data product Data Product Owner and/or Steward governance domain-level role
8. A user searches the data catalog, looking for data assets that match their needs Asset permissions or data reader permission Asset permissions or data map permissions
9. A user searches data products, looking for a product that matches their needs Data Catalog Reader application-level role
10. A user requests access to the resources in the Data Product Data Catalog Reader application-level role
11. A user views Data Health Insights to track the health of their data catalog Data Health Reader application-level role
12. A user wants to develop a new report to track data health progress in their catalog Data Health Owner application-level role

Next steps