Manage role permissions and security in Azure Automation

Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC) enables access management for Azure resources. Using Azure RBAC, you can segregate duties within your team and grant only the amount of access to users, groups, and applications that they need to perform their jobs. You can grant role-based access to users using the Azure portal, Azure Command-Line tools, or Azure Management APIs.

Roles in Automation accounts

In Azure Automation, access is granted by assigning the appropriate Azure role to users, groups, and applications at the Automation account scope. Following are the built-in roles supported by an Automation account:

Role Description
Owner The Owner role allows access to all resources and actions within an Automation account including providing access to other users, groups, and applications to manage the Automation account.
Contributor The Contributor role allows you to manage everything except modifying other user’s access permissions to an Automation account.
Reader The Reader role allows you to view all the resources in an Automation account but can't make any changes.
Automation Contributor The Automation Contributor role allows you to manage all resources in the Automation account, except modifying other user's access permissions to an Automation account.
Automation Operator The Automation Operator role allows you to view runbook name and properties and to create and manage jobs for all runbooks in an Automation account. This role is helpful if you want to protect your Automation account resources like credentials assets and runbooks from being viewed or modified but still allow members of your organization to execute these runbooks.
Automation Job Operator The Automation Job Operator role allows you to create and manage jobs for all runbooks in an Automation account.
Automation Runbook Operator The Automation Runbook Operator role allows you to view a runbook’s name and properties.
Log Analytics Contributor The Log Analytics Contributor role allows you to read all monitoring data and edit monitoring settings. Editing monitoring settings includes adding the VM extension to VMs, reading storage account keys to be able to configure collection of logs from Azure storage, creating and configuring Automation accounts, adding Azure Automation features, and configuring Azure diagnostics on all Azure resources.
Log Analytics Reader The Log Analytics Reader role allows you to view and search all monitoring data as well as view monitoring settings. This includes viewing the configuration of Azure diagnostics on all Azure resources.
Monitoring Contributor The Monitoring Contributor role allows you to read all monitoring data and update monitoring settings.
Monitoring Reader The Monitoring Reader role allows you to read all monitoring data.
User Access Administrator The User Access Administrator role allows you to manage user access to Azure Automation accounts.

Role permissions

The following tables describe the specific permissions given to each role. This can include Actions, which give permissions, and Not Actions, which restrict them.

Owner

An Owner can manage everything, including access. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/* Create and manage resources of all types.

Contributor

A Contributor can manage everything except access. The following table shows the permissions granted and denied for the role:

Actions Description
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/* Create and manage resources of all types
Not Actions
Microsoft.Authorization/*/Delete Delete roles and role assignments.
Microsoft.Authorization/*/Write Create roles and role assignments.
Microsoft.Authorization/elevateAccess/Action Denies the ability to create a User Access Administrator.

Reader

Note

We have recently made a change in the built-in Reader role permission for the Automation account. Learn more

A Reader can view all the resources in an Automation account but can't make any changes.

Actions Description
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/read View all resources in an Automation account.

Automation Contributor

An Automation Contributor can manage all resources in the Automation account except access. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/* Create and manage resources of all types.
Microsoft.Authorization/*/read Read roles and role assignments.
Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Create and manage resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read Read resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.
Microsoft.Insights/ActionGroups/* Read/write/delete action groups.
Microsoft.Insights/ActivityLogAlerts/* Read/write/delete activity log alerts.
Microsoft.Insights/diagnosticSettings/* Read/write/delete diagnostic settings.
Microsoft.Insights/MetricAlerts/* Read/write/delete near real-time metric alerts.
Microsoft.Insights/ScheduledQueryRules/* Read/write/delete log alerts in Azure Monitor.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/sharedKeys/action List keys for a Log Analytics workspace

Note

The Automation Contributor role can be used to access any resource using the managed identity, if appropriate permissions are set on the target resource, or using a Run As account. An Automation Run As account are by default, configured with Contributor rights on the subscription. Follow the principal of least privilege and carefully assign permissions only required to execute your runbook. For example, if the Automation account is only required to start or stop an Azure VM, then the permissions assigned to the Run As account or managed identity needs to be only for starting or stopping the VM. Similarly, if a runbook is reading from blob storage, then assign read only permissions.

When assigning permissions, it is recommended to use Azure role based access control (RBAC) assigned to a managed identity. Review our best approach recommendations for using a system or user-assigned managed identity, including management and governance during its lifetime.

Automation Operator

An Automation Operator is able to create and manage jobs, and read runbook names and properties for all runbooks in an Automation account.

Note

If you want to control operator access to individual runbooks then don’t set this role. Instead use the Automation Job Operator and Automation Runbook Operator roles in combination.

The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
Microsoft.Authorization/*/read Read authorization.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/hybridRunbookWorkerGroups/read Read Hybrid Runbook Worker Resources.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/read List jobs of the runbook.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/resume/action Resume a job that is paused.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/stop/action Cancel a job in progress.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/streams/read Read the Job Streams and Output.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/output/read Get the Output of a job.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/suspend/action Pause a job in progress.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/write Create jobs.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobSchedules/read Get an Azure Automation job schedule.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobSchedules/write Create an Azure Automation job schedule.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/linkedWorkspace/read Get the workspace linked to the Automation account.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/read Get an Azure Automation account.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/runbooks/read Get an Azure Automation runbook.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/schedules/read Get an Azure Automation schedule asset.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/schedules/write Create or update an Azure Automation schedule asset.
Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read Read roles and role assignments.
Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Create and manage resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Insights/alertRules/* Create and manage alert rules.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.
Microsoft.ResourceHealth/availabilityStatuses/read Gets the availability statuses for all resources in the specified scope.

Automation Job Operator

An Automation Job Operator role is granted at the Automation account scope. This allows the operator permissions to create and manage jobs for all runbooks in the account. If the Job Operator role is granted read permissions on the resource group containing the Automation account, members of the role have the ability to start runbooks. However, they don't have the ability to create, edit, or delete them.

The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
Microsoft.Authorization/*/read Read authorization.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/read List jobs of the runbook.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/resume/action Resume a job that is paused.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/stop/action Cancel a job in progress.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/streams/read Read the Job Streams and Output.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/suspend/action Pause a job in progress.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/write Create jobs.
Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read Read roles and role assignments.
Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Create and manage resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Insights/alertRules/* Create and manage alert rules.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/hybridRunbookWorkerGroups/read Reads a Hybrid Runbook Worker Group.
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/output/read Gets the output of a job.

Automation Runbook Operator

An Automation Runbook Operator role is granted at the Runbook scope. An Automation Runbook Operator can view the runbook's name and properties. This role combined with the Automation Job Operator role enables the operator to also create and manage jobs for the runbook. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/runbooks/read List the runbooks.
Microsoft.Authorization/*/read Read authorization.
Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/read Read roles and role assignments.
Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Create and manage resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Insights/alertRules/* Create and manage alert rules.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.

Log Analytics Contributor

A Log Analytics Contributor can read all monitoring data and edit monitoring settings. Editing monitoring settings includes adding the VM extension to VMs; reading storage account keys to be able to configure collection of logs from Azure Storage; creating and configuring Automation accounts; adding features; and configuring Azure diagnostics on all Azure resources. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
*/read Read resources of all types, except secrets.
Microsoft.ClassicCompute/virtualMachines/extensions/* Create and manage virtual machine extensions.
Microsoft.ClassicStorage/storageAccounts/listKeys/action List classic storage account keys.
Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions/* Create and manage classic virtual machine extensions.
Microsoft.Insights/alertRules/* Read/write/delete alert rules.
Microsoft.Insights/diagnosticSettings/* Read/write/delete diagnostic settings.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/* Manage Azure Monitor logs.
Microsoft.OperationsManagement/* Manage Azure Automation features in workspaces.
Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Create and manage resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourcegroups/deployments/* Create and manage resource group deployments.
Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/listKeys/action List storage account keys.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.
Microsoft.HybridCompute/machines/extensions/write Installs or Updates an Azure Arc extensions.

Log Analytics Reader

A Log Analytics Reader can view and search all monitoring data as well as and view monitoring settings, including viewing the configuration of Azure diagnostics on all Azure resources. The following table shows the permissions granted or denied for the role:

Actions Description
*/read Read resources of all types, except secrets.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/analytics/query/action Manage queries in Azure Monitor logs.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/search/action Search Azure Monitor log data.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.
Not Actions
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/sharedKeys/read Not able to read the shared access keys.

Monitoring Contributor

A Monitoring Contributor can read all monitoring data and update monitoring settings. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
*/read Read resources of all types, except secrets.
Microsoft.AlertsManagement/alerts/* Manage Alerts.
Microsoft.AlertsManagement/alertsSummary/* Manage the Alert dashboard.
Microsoft.Insights/AlertRules/* Manage alert rules.
Microsoft.Insights/components/* Manage Application Insights components.
Microsoft.Insights/DiagnosticSettings/* Manage diagnostic settings.
Microsoft.Insights/eventtypes/* List Activity Log events (management events) in a subscription. This permission is applicable to both programmatic and portal access to the Activity Log.
Microsoft.Insights/LogDefinitions/* This permission is necessary for users who need access to Activity Logs via the portal. List log categories in Activity Log.
Microsoft.Insights/MetricDefinitions/* Read metric definitions (list of available metric types for a resource).
Microsoft.Insights/Metrics/* Read metrics for a resource.
Microsoft.Insights/Register/Action Register the Microsoft.Insights provider.
Microsoft.Insights/webtests/* Manage Application Insights web tests.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/intelligencepacks/* Manage Azure Monitor logs solution packs.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/savedSearches/* Manage Azure Monitor logs saved searches.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/search/action Search Log Analytics workspaces.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/sharedKeys/action List keys for a Log Analytics workspace.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/storageinsightconfigs/* Manage Azure Monitor logs storage insight configurations.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets.
Microsoft.WorkloadMonitor/workloads/* Manage Workloads.

Monitoring Reader

A Monitoring Reader can read all monitoring data. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
*/read Read resources of all types, except secrets.
Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/search/action Search Log Analytics workspaces.
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets

User Access Administrator

A User Access Administrator can manage user access to Azure resources. The following table shows the permissions granted for the role:

Actions Description
*/read Read all resources
Microsoft.Authorization/* Manage authorization
Microsoft.Support/* Create and manage support tickets

Reader role access permissions

Important

To strengthen the overall Azure Automation security posture, the built-in RBAC Reader would not have access to Automation account keys through the API call - GET /AUTOMATIONACCOUNTS/AGENTREGISTRATIONINFORMATION.

The Built-in Reader role for the Automation Account can't use the API – GET /AUTOMATIONACCOUNTS/AGENTREGISTRATIONINFORMATION to fetch the Automation Account keys. This is a high privilege operation providing sensitive information that could pose a security risk of an unwanted malicious actor with low privileges who can get access to automation account keys and can perform actions with elevated privilege level.

To access the API – GET /AUTOMATIONACCOUNTS/AGENTREGISTRATIONINFORMATION, we recommend that you switch to the built-in roles like Owner, Contributor or Automation Contributor to access the Automation account keys. These roles, by default, will have the listKeys permission. As a best practice, we recommend that you create a custom role with limited permissions to access the Automation account keys. For a custom role, you need to add Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/listKeys/action permission to the role definition. Learn more about how to create custom role from the Azure portal.

Feature setup permissions

The following sections describe the minimum required permissions needed for enabling the Update Management and Change Tracking and Inventory features.

Permissions for enabling Update Management and Change Tracking and Inventory from a VM

Action Permission Minimum scope
Write new deployment Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Subscription
Write new resource group Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/write Subscription
Create new default Workspace Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Resource group
Create new Account Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/write Resource group
Link workspace and account Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write
Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/read
Workspace
Automation account
Create MMA extension Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write Virtual Machine
Create saved search Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace
Create scope config Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace
Onboarding state check - Read workspace Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/read Workspace
Onboarding state check - Read linked workspace property of account Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/read Automation account
Onboarding state check - Read solution Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/intelligencepacks/read Solution
Onboarding state check - Read VM Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/read Virtual Machine
Onboarding state check - Read account Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/read Automation account
Onboarding workspace check for VM1 Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/read Subscription
Register the Log Analytics provider Microsoft.Insights/register/action Subscription

1 This permission is needed to enable features through the VM portal experience.

Permissions for enabling Update Management and Change Tracking and Inventory from an Automation account

Action Permission Minimum Scope
Create new deployment Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* Subscription
Create new resource group Microsoft.Resources/subscriptions/resourceGroups/write Subscription
AutomationOnboarding blade - Create new workspace Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Resource group
AutomationOnboarding blade - read linked workspace Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/read Automation account
AutomationOnboarding blade - read solution Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/intelligencepacks/read Solution
AutomationOnboarding blade - read workspace Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/intelligencepacks/read Workspace
Create link for workspace and Account Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace
Write account for shoebox Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/write Account
Create/edit saved search Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace
Create/edit scope config Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace
Register the Log Analytics provider Microsoft.Insights/register/action Subscription
Step 2 - Enable Multiple VMs
VMOnboarding blade - Create MMA extension Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write Virtual Machine
Create / edit saved search Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace
Create / edit scope config Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/write Workspace

Manage Role permissions for Hybrid Worker Groups and Hybrid Workers

You can create Azure custom roles in Automation and grant the following permissions to Hybrid Worker Groups and Hybrid Workers:

Update Management permissions

Update Management can be used to assess and schedule update deployments to machines in multiple subscriptions in the same Microsoft Entra tenant, or across tenants using Azure Lighthouse. The following table lists the permissions needed to manage update deployments.

Resource Role Scope
Automation account Virtual Machine Contributor Resource Group for the account
Log Analytics workspace Log Analytics Contributor Log Analytics workspace
Log Analytics workspace Log Analytics Reader Subscription
Solution Log Analytics Contributor Solution
Virtual Machine Virtual Machine Contributor Virtual Machine
Actions on Virtual Machine
View history of update schedule execution (Software Update Configuration Machine Runs) Reader Automation account
Actions on virtual machine Permission
Create update schedule (Software Update Configurations) Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write For static VM list and resource groups
Create update schedule (Software Update Configurations) Microsoft.OperationalInsights/workspaces/analytics/query/action For workspace resource ID when using non-Azure dynamic list.

Note

When you use Update management, ensure that the execution policy for scripts is RemoteSigned.

Configure Azure RBAC for your Automation account

The following section shows you how to configure Azure RBAC on your Automation account through the Azure portal and PowerShell.

Configure Azure RBAC using the Azure portal

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal and open your Automation account from the Automation Accounts page.

  2. Select Access control (IAM) and select a role from the list of available roles. You can choose any of the available built-in roles that an Automation account supports or any custom role you might have defined. Assign the role to a user to which you want to give permissions.

    For detailed steps, see Assign Azure roles using the Azure portal.

    Note

    You can only set role-based access control at the Automation account scope and not at any resource below the Automation account.

Remove role assignments from a user

You can remove the access permission for a user who isn't managing the Automation account, or who no longer works for the organization. The following steps show how to remove the role assignments from a user. For detailed steps, see Remove Azure role assignments:

  1. Open Access control (IAM) at a scope, such as management group, subscription, resource group, or resource, where you want to remove access.

  2. Select the Role assignments tab to view all the role assignments at this scope.

  3. In the list of role assignments, add a checkmark next to the user with the role assignment you want to remove.

  4. Select Remove.

    Remove users

Configure Azure RBAC using PowerShell

You can also configure role-based access to an Automation account using the following Azure PowerShell cmdlets:

Get-AzRoleDefinition lists all Azure roles that are available in Microsoft Entra ID. You can use this cmdlet with the Name parameter to list all the actions that a specific role can perform.

Get-AzRoleDefinition -Name 'Automation Operator'

The following is the example output:

Name             : Automation Operator
Id               : d3881f73-407a-4167-8283-e981cbba0404
IsCustom         : False
Description      : Automation Operators are able to start, stop, suspend, and resume jobs
Actions          : {Microsoft.Authorization/*/read, Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/read, Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/resume/action,
                   Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/jobs/stop/action...}
NotActions       : {}
AssignableScopes : {/}

Get-AzRoleAssignment lists Azure role assignments at the specified scope. Without any parameters, this cmdlet returns all the role assignments made under the subscription. Use the ExpandPrincipalGroups parameter to list access assignments for the specified user, as well as the groups that the user belongs to.

Example: Use the following cmdlet to list all the users and their roles within an Automation account.

Get-AzRoleAssignment -Scope '/subscriptions/<SubscriptionID>/resourcegroups/<Resource Group Name>/Providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/<Automation account name>'

The following is the example output:

RoleAssignmentId   : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/myAutomationAccount/provid
                     ers/Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/cc594d39-ac10-46c4-9505-f182a355c41f
Scope              : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/myAutomationAccount
DisplayName        : admin@contoso.com
SignInName         : admin@contoso.com
RoleDefinitionName : Automation Operator
RoleDefinitionId   : d3881f73-407a-4167-8283-e981cbba0404
ObjectId           : 15f26a47-812d-489a-8197-3d4853558347
ObjectType         : User

Use New-AzRoleAssignment to assign access to users, groups, and applications to a particular scope.

Example: Use the following command to assign the "Automation Operator" role for a user in the Automation account scope.

New-AzRoleAssignment -SignInName <sign-in Id of a user you wish to grant access> -RoleDefinitionName 'Automation operator' -Scope '/subscriptions/<SubscriptionID>/resourcegroups/<Resource Group Name>/Providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/<Automation account name>'

The following is the example output:

RoleAssignmentId   : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourcegroups/myResourceGroup/Providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/myAutomationAccount/provid
                     ers/Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/25377770-561e-4496-8b4f-7cba1d6fa346
Scope              : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourcegroups/myResourceGroup/Providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/myAutomationAccount
DisplayName        : admin@contoso.com
SignInName         : admin@contoso.com
RoleDefinitionName : Automation Operator
RoleDefinitionId   : d3881f73-407a-4167-8283-e981cbba0404
ObjectId           : f5ecbe87-1181-43d2-88d5-a8f5e9d8014e
ObjectType         : User

Use Remove-AzRoleAssignment to remove access of a specified user, group, or application from a particular scope.

Example: Use the following command to remove the user from the Automation Operator role in the Automation account scope.

Remove-AzRoleAssignment -SignInName <sign-in Id of a user you wish to remove> -RoleDefinitionName 'Automation Operator' -Scope '/subscriptions/<SubscriptionID>/resourcegroups/<Resource Group Name>/Providers/Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/<Automation account name>'

In the preceding example, replace sign-in ID of a user you wish to remove, SubscriptionID, Resource Group Name, and Automation account name with your account details. Choose yes when prompted to confirm before continuing to remove user role assignments.

User experience for Automation Operator role - Automation account

When a user assigned to the Automation Operator role on the Automation account scope views the Automation account to which he/she is assigned, the user can only view the list of runbooks, runbook jobs, and schedules created in the Automation account. This user can't view the definitions of these items. The user can start, stop, suspend, resume, or schedule the runbook job. However, the user doesn't have access to other Automation resources, such as configurations, Hybrid Runbook Worker groups, or DSC nodes.

No access to resources

Configure Azure RBAC for runbooks

Azure Automation allows you to assign Azure roles to specific runbooks. To do this, run the following script to add a user to a specific runbook. An Automation Account Administrator or a Tenant Administrator can run this script.

$rgName = "<Resource Group Name>" # Resource Group name for the Automation account
$automationAccountName ="<Automation account name>" # Name of the Automation account
$rbName = "<Name of Runbook>" # Name of the runbook
$userId = "<User ObjectId>" # Azure Active Directory (AAD) user's ObjectId from the directory

# Gets the Automation account resource
$aa = Get-AzResource -ResourceGroupName $rgName -ResourceType "Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts" -ResourceName $automationAccountName

# Get the Runbook resource
$rb = Get-AzResource -ResourceGroupName $rgName -ResourceType "Microsoft.Automation/automationAccounts/runbooks" -ResourceName "$rbName"

# The Automation Job Operator role only needs to be run once per user.
New-AzRoleAssignment -ObjectId $userId -RoleDefinitionName "Automation Job Operator" -Scope $aa.ResourceId

# Adds the user to the Automation Runbook Operator role to the Runbook scope
New-AzRoleAssignment -ObjectId $userId -RoleDefinitionName "Automation Runbook Operator" -Scope $rb.ResourceId

Once the script has run, have the user sign in to the Azure portal and select All Resources. In the list, the user can see the runbook for which he/she has been added as an Automation Runbook Operator.

Runbook Azure RBAC in the portal

User experience for Automation operator role - Runbook

When a user assigned to the Automation Operator role on the Runbook scope views an assigned runbook, the user can only start the runbook and view the runbook jobs.

Only has access to start

Next steps