Cannot Add Specific User to Security Roles (or any roles) in Purview

Jack Turner 20

Good morning folks,

Hoping this is a really silly one and someone can put me out of my misery. The below is using the new Purview portal. We're a single tenant and have an uncomplicated user structure.

I'm trying to add a user to eDiscovery roles and a few other things within Purview admin, we had tried to do this previously to no avail but assumed it was because we were trying to do it whilst logged in as them (they were unable to select themselves as we can normally do within Entra/365, as we are a group of Global Admins so we basically have the same permissions for the other Entra-enabled services.) however the user is not showing on any of the other admin's lists either in Purview.

This user does not feature in any of the user lists when trying to add permissions. We have tried with 2 other Global Admin accounts as well as a member who is currently eCompliance manager, none of them can add the user, they simply do not show up. The user is a global admin on Entra/365 and has a few other Security and Compliance related permissions. The list brings up nearly everybody who has an active account, just not this user.

Unfortunately, I don't have much else to add, but happy to provide any details requested.

Ganesh Gurram 3,110 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-01-03T17:39:39.43+00:00

Hello @Jack Turner

Thanks for the question and using MS Q&A platform.

It seems like you're experiencing an issue with adding a specific user to security roles in Microsoft Purview.

Here are a few steps you can try to resolve this issue:

Check User Status - Ensure that the user account is active and not disabled. Sometimes, inactive or disabled accounts may not appear in the list.

Licensing Issues - The user might not possess the necessary Purview license. Without the appropriate license, the user won't appear in Purview's user lists.

Search Filters - When searching for users in the Purview portal, ensure that there are no filters applied that might be excluding the user from the list. Clear any filters and try searching again.

Sometimes, browser issues can cause problems with displaying users. Try clearing your browser's cache and cookies or using a different browser.

If the user still does not appear, you can try using PowerShell to assign the roles. This can sometimes bypass issues with the web interface.

For more details refer to these documentations: Add users or groups to a Microsoft Purview built-in role group

Permissions in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal

Can't see list of users or groups when adding permissions in Access Control in the Azure portal

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you have any further queries.
Ganesh Gurram 3,110 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-01-06T03:18:34+00:00

@Jack Turner - We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. Otherwise, will respond with more details and we will try to help.
Jack Turner 20 Reputation points

2025-01-06T13:34:35.05+00:00

Apologies for the delay in responding, the snow stopped everything!

I have checked the licensing is the same as other users who do show up on the list, as mentioned our organisational layout is quite uncomplicated. Unless the Purview licensing shows up somewhere else that I'm not seeing. This user seems to be the only one affected.

We eventually added them via Powershell using the Compliance module, but doesn't fix it long term, but at least I can add them for now.

If anyone has any ideas why only this one user was exempt from the list I'd be interested to know, especially given the simplicity of our current setup it's the first time I've seen a user simply not show up at all.
Ganesh Gurram 3,110 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-01-06T14:11:58.5+00:00

@Jack Turner - I agree that this issue looks strange. If you have a support plan could you please file a support ticket for deeper investigation and do share the SR# with us?
Jack Turner 20 Reputation points

2025-01-06T14:14:21.08+00:00

I'll look into that and I will do, thank you.

I will mark this as answered for now: "Using Powershell to manually add the user worked around the problem"

Thank you for the suggestions.
Ganesh Gurram 3,110 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-01-06T16:18:11.59+00:00

@Jack Turner - I'm glad that you were able to resolve your issue and thank you for posting your solution so that others experiencing the same thing can easily reference this! Since the Microsoft Q&A community has a policy that "The question author cannot accept their own answer. They can only accept answers by others ", I'll repost your solution in case you'd like to accept the answer.
Vasilis Barbas 0 Reputation points

2025-01-15T09:12:00.5966667+00:00

Same issue, but worked after role assignment to Role Groups (Role groups for Microsoft Purview solutions). No need for Powershell.

Accepted answer

Ganesh Gurram 3,110 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2025-01-06T16:17:35.3633333+00:00

@Jack Turner - I'm glad that you were able to resolve your issue and thank you for posting your solution so that others experiencing the same thing can easily reference this! Since the Microsoft Q&A community has a policy that "The question author cannot accept their own answer. They can only accept answers by others ", I'll repost your solution in case you'd like to accept the answer.

Ask: Cannot Add Specific User to Security Roles (or any roles) in Purview

Solution: We managed to get around the issue by adding the user manually with PowerShell.

If I missed anything please let me know and I'd be happy to add it to my answer, or feel free to comment below with any additional information.

If you have any other questions, please let me know. Thank you again for your time and patience throughout this issue.

Please don’t forget to Accept Answer and Yes for "was this answer helpful" wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.
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