Admin resetting password for a user

Question

I have attempted to reset a password for a user on my team without success. As Admin, I have given permission in Entra for the user to reset their password and it shows successful, yet we still can't reset their password. I want to send them a temporary password, and I can't find where to execute. please advise.

Answer 1

Self-service password reset (SSPR) permission is not required for this task; use the user’s Reset password action in the Microsoft Entra admin center to generate a temporary password.

Generate the temporary password

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center with an account assigned at least the Password Administrator role.
2. Go to Entra ID → Users.
3. Select the affected user.
4. Select Reset password.
5. On the confirmation page, select Reset password again.
6. Copy the autogenerated temporary password and provide it to the user through an approved secure channel.
7. Have the user sign in with that password. Microsoft Entra requires them to choose a new password during sign-in.

For a cloud-managed Microsoft Entra account, the administrator cannot choose the temporary password; Entra generates it. The temporary password does not expire before its first use.^1^

If Reset password is unavailable or fails

Check the account type and administrative scope:

• Insufficient role: Your account needs at least Password Administrator. Other roles can reset passwords only for specific categories of users, so administrative users may require a more privileged role.^1^
• Guest or externally managed account: Your tenant must be the user’s home directory. If the account belongs to another organization, External Microsoft Entra tenant, personal Microsoft account, or Google account, its user or home-tenant administrator must reset it.
• Synchronized on-premises account: If the source of authority is Windows Server Active Directory, an Entra reset requires password writeback and a managed domain. For a federated domain, reset the password in on-premises Active Directory instead.^1^
• Specific hybrid error: If the Microsoft Entra Connect server’s Application event log shows hr=80231367, inspect the user’s on-premises AdminCount attribute. Microsoft documents that AdminCount=1 blocks this reset and must be changed to 0.^1^

The SSPR setting you already enabled governs users resetting their own passwords. It is separate from the administrator-issued temporary-password workflow described above.

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References

1. Reset a user's password

Answer 2

It did reset users password, but I can't use the authenticator to verify due to a new device, this user was not added to my authenticator app