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Add users, groups, or devices to an administrative unit

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In Microsoft Entra ID, you can add users, groups, or devices to an administrative unit to limit the scope of role permissions. Adding a group to an administrative unit brings the group itself into the management scope of the administrative unit, but not the members of the group. For additional details on what scoped administrators can do, see Administrative units in Microsoft Entra ID.

This article describes how to add users, groups, or devices to administrative units manually. For information about how to add users or devices to administrative units dynamically using rules, see Manage users or devices for an administrative unit with rules for dynamic membership groups.

Prerequisites

  • Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 license for each administrative unit administrator
  • Microsoft Entra ID Free licenses for administrative unit members
  • To add existing users, groups, or devices:
    • Privileged Role Administrator
  • To create new groups:
    • Groups Administrator (scoped to the administrative unit or entire directory)
  • Microsoft Graph PowerShell
  • Admin consent when using Graph Explorer for Microsoft Graph API

For more information, see Prerequisites to use PowerShell or Graph Explorer.

Microsoft Entra admin center

You can add users, groups, or devices to administrative units using the Microsoft Entra admin center. You can also add users in a bulk operation or create a new group in an administrative unit.

Add a single user, group, or device to administrative units

Tip

Steps in this article might vary slightly based on the portal you start from.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Privileged Role Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity.

  3. Browse to one of the following:

    • Users > All users
    • Groups > All groups
    • Devices > All devices

  4. Select the user, group, or device you want to add to administrative units.

  5. Select Administrative units.

  6. Select Assign to administrative unit.

  7. In the Select pane, select the administrative units and then select Select.

    Screenshot of the Administrative units page for adding a user to an administrative unit.

Add users, groups, or devices to a single administrative unit

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Privileged Role Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Roles & admins > Admin units.

  3. Select the administrative unit you want to add users, groups, or devices to.

  4. Select one of the following:

    • Users
    • Groups
    • Devices

  5. Select Add member, Add, or Add device.

  6. In the Select pane, select the users, groups, or devices you want to add to the administrative unit and then select Select.

    Screenshot of adding multiple devices to an administrative unit.

Add users to an administrative unit in a bulk operation

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Privileged Role Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Roles & admins > Admin units.

  3. Select the administrative unit you want to add users to.

  4. Select Users > Bulk operations > Bulk add members.

    Screenshot of the Users page for assigning users to an administrative unit as a bulk operation.

  5. In the Bulk add members pane, download the comma-separated values (CSV) template.

  6. Edit the downloaded CSV template with the list of users you want to add.

    Add one user principal name (UPN) in each row. Don't remove the first two rows of the template.

  7. Save your changes and upload the CSV file.

    Screenshot of an edited CSV file for adding users to an administrative unit in bulk.

  8. Select Submit.

Create a new group in an administrative unit

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Groups Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Roles & admins > Admin units.

  3. Select the administrative unit you want to create a new group in.

  4. Select Groups.

  5. Select New group and complete the steps to create a new group.

    Screenshot of the Administrative units page for creating a new group in an administrative unit.

PowerShell

Use the New-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnitMemberByRef command to add user, groups, or devices to an administrative unit or create a new group in an administrative unit.

Add users to an administrative unit

$adminUnitObj = Get-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnit -Filter "DisplayName eq '{admin-unit-id}'"
$userObj = Get-MgUser -Filter "UserPrincipalName eq '{user-principal-name}'"
$odataId = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/" + $userObj.Id
New-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnitMemberByRef -AdministrativeUnitId $adminUnitObj.Id -OdataId $odataId

Add groups to an administrative unit

$adminUnitObj = Get-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnit -Filter "DisplayName eq '{admin-unit-id}'"
$groupObj = Get-MgGroup -Filter "DisplayName eq 'group-name'"
$odataId = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups/" + $groupObj.Id
New-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnitMemberByRef -AdministrativeUnitId $adminUnitObj.Id -OdataId $odataId

Add devices to an administrative unit

$adminUnitObj = Get-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnit -Filter "DisplayName eq '{admin-unit-id}'"
$odataId = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/devices/{device-id}"
New-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnitMemberByRef -AdministrativeUnitId $adminUnitObj.Id -OdataId $odataId

Create a new group in an administrative unit

$adminUnitObj = Get-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnit -Filter "DisplayName eq '{admin-unit-id}'"
$params = @{
    "@odata.type" = "#microsoft.graph.group"
    description = "{group-description}"
    displayName = "{group-name}"
    groupTypes = @(
        "Unified"
    )
    mailEnabled = $false
    mailNickname = "{group-name}"
    securityEnabled = $true
}
New-MgDirectoryAdministrativeUnitMember -AdministrativeUnitId $adminUnitObj.Id -BodyParameter $params

Microsoft Graph API

Use the Add a member API to add users, groups, or devices to an administrative unit or create a new group in an administrative unit.

Add users to an administrative unit

Request

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/directory/administrativeUnits/{admin-unit-id}/members/$ref

Body

{
    "@odata.id":"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{user-id}"
}

Example

{
    "@odata.id":"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/john@example.com"
}

Add groups to an administrative unit

Request

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/directory/administrativeUnits/{admin-unit-id}/members/$ref

Body

{
    "@odata.id":"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups/{group-id}"
}

Example

{
    "@odata.id":"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups/871d21ab-6b4e-4d56-b257-ba27827628f3"
}

Add devices to an administrative unit

Request

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/directory/administrativeUnits/{admin-unit-id}/members/$ref

Body

{
    "@odata.id":"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/devices/{device-id}"
}

Create a new group in an administrative unit

Request

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/directory/administrativeUnits/{admin-unit-id}/members/

Body

{
    "@odata.type": "#Microsoft.Graph.Group",
    "description": "{Example group description}",
    "displayName": "{Example group name}",
    "groupTypes": [
        "Unified"
    ],
    "mailEnabled": true,
    "mailNickname": "{examplegroup}",
    "securityEnabled": false
}

Next steps