Add users or groups to a team or project

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018

You add users to a team or project so they can contribute to the team and project. For enterprise organizations with large user bases, we recommend you use Azure Active Directory to add and manage new users through security groups. However, to enable flexibility for all size organizations, the following operations are supported:

• Team and project administrators can add new users to their team or project, unless the policy Allow team and project administrators to invite new users is disabled. New users are ones that haven't been added to the organization.
• When you add new users through the team and project user interfaces, the system automatically assigns an access level to the user.
• Adding users to a team or project automatically adds them to the Contributors group for the project. Members of the Contributors group have permissions to most features needed to contribute.
• By adding users to a team, you make team-specific tools aware of them, such as the team security group, Team Members widget, and sprint capacity planning tools.
• Once users have been added to a project or organization, you can browse for their display name or user name (email alias) from any people-picker tool.

You add projects to an organization or project collection and you add teams to projects. For more information, see:

• Create a project
• Add team, go from one default team to others

Important

Select the version of this article that corresponds to your platform and version. The version selector is above the table of contents. Look up your Azure DevOps platform and version.

Supported options for adding users

Depending on the interface you use, you can exercise different options for adding new or existing users to teams or projects.

Administrator level

Interface

Supported tasks

Team administrators

Team Members dashboard widget

Add new or existing users to a team. Send new users an invite.

Team administrators

Project Settings>Teams>Team>Members

Add existing users or groups to a team, or remove a member.

Project Administrators

Project Summary page, Invite

Add new or existing users. Send new users an invite. Optionally add users to one or more teams.

Project Administrators

Project Settings > Permissions > Groups > Group > Members

Add existing users or groups to a security group. By adding to a team group, you effectively add them to the team. Optionally remove a user from a group.

Project Collection Administrators

Organization Settings > Users

Add new users to an organization and send an invite. Must specify the access level. Optionally add them to select projects. Can use Group rules to further manage groups being added.

Project Collection Administrators

az devops user CLI

Add new users to an organization and send an invite. Must specify the access level.

Azure Active Directory Administrators

Azure Active Directory

Users you add to Azure Active Directory connected to Azure DevOps Services are added to the Project Collection Valid Users group. For more information, see Connect your organization to Azure Active Directory.

Prerequisites

• You must have an organization and project. If you don't have a project yet, create one.
• To add users to or remove users from a team, you must be added as a team administrator, or be a member of one of the administrative groups.
• To add users to or remove users from a project, you must be a member of the Project Administrators group.
• When the organization is connected to Azure Active Directory, the Allow team and project administrators to invite new users policy must be enabled for team administrators or members of the Project Administrators group to add new users.
• To add users or manage users for an organization, you must be a member of the Project Collection Administrators group. Organization owners are automatically members of this group.

If you're new to Azure DevOps, you may want to familiarize yourself with the information provided in these articles:

• Get started with permissions, access levels, and security groups
• About projects and scaling your organization
• Default permissions and access quick reference
• About teams and Azure Boards tools

Add a user from the Team Members widget

As a team administrator, you can add new or existing members from the Team Members dashboard widget. To add this widget to a dashboard, see Add widgets to a dashboard.

1. To invite someone to your team, choose the plus button on the Team Members widget.

   

2. For new users, enter their email address. For existing users, type their name until it resolves as a known name to the system. You can add several email addresses or account names by separating them with a semicolon (;).

   Choose the entry listed under Add users to complete the entry.

   Note

   Any valid email address is acceptable. When the user accepts the invitation and signs into Azure DevOps, they register their email address as a Microsoft account and choose a password.

   Choose the name that appears to complete the entry.

   

   

3. Complete the addition.

   When the user is unknown, you'll get a notification that an access level must be assigned. To complete the invitation, choose Add.

   Choose Add to complete adding the user. Known users don't receive an invitation.

   

   

   When you add a new user, the system assigns Stakeholder as the access level when all free five Basic access levels have been assigned. Active contributors to a project need to have Basic access as a minimum. A Project Collection Administrator can change the access level and resend invitations from the Organization Settings>Users page.

   Note

   Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. For more information, see Permissions and access.

4. (Optional) A message will briefly display on the screen to indicate success or failure. Choose Details to open the notification and review details.

   

   

   A success message indicates the status of adding the user to the system.

   A failure message indicates why the addition of the user failed.

   ":::

   

5. New users receive an email inviting them to sign in to the project. Existing users don't receive any formal notification.

Add users or groups to a team

Add existing users or security groups to a team from the Project settings> Teams page. From this interface you can view, add, or remove users and security groups to/from a team. To add a custom security group, see Add or remove users or groups, manage security groups.

Note

To enable the new user interface for managing teams, enable the New Teams Page from the Preview features tool. To learn how, see Manage or enable features.

Preview UI

You can toggle between direct or expanded membership views. The Direct Members view displays users and groups that have been added to the team. The Expanded Members view replaces any Azure DevOps groups with the members that belong to those groups. Azure Active Directory or Active Directory groups aren't expanded.

1. Open a backlog or board for a team and choose the team profile icon. Then choose Team Settings.

   Here we open the Board for the Web team and from there the team profile.

   

2. If you need to switch the team context, use the team selector within the breadcrumbs.

   

3. Choose Add.

   

4. Enter the sign-in addresses or display name for each account you want to add. You can also add a project security group—such as another team group, custom group, or Azure Active Directory group when used by the organization. Add them one at a time or all at the same time. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas.

   

   Tip

   You must enter user and group names one at a time. However, after entering a name, the account is added to the list, and you can enter another name in the Identities text box before choosing to save your changes.

   You may need to choose the refresh icon to see your updates.

5. To add an account as a team administrator, choose the Settings page and then choose Add under the Administrators section. For details, see Add a team administrator

Current UI

You can toggle between direct or expanded membership views. The direct view displays users and groups that have been added to the team. The expanded view replaces any Azure DevOps groups with the members that belong to those groups. Azure Active Directory or Active Directory groups aren't expanded.

You add team members from Project Settings>Work>Team configuration. You can quickly navigate to it from a team work tracking backlog, board, or dashboard.

1. Open a backlog or board for a team and choose the Show Team Profile . Then choose Team Settings.

   Here we open the Board for the Web team and from there the team profile.

   

2. If you need to switch the team context, use the team selector within the breadcrumbs.

   

3. Choose Add.

   

4. Enter the sign-in addresses or display name for each account you want to add. Add them one at a time or all at the same time. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas.

   

   Tip

   You must enter user and group names one at a time. However, after entering a name, the account is added to the list, and you can enter another name in the Identities text box before choosing to save your changes.

   You may need to choose the refresh icon to see your updates.

5. To add an account as a team administrator, choose Add located in the Team Profile page. For details, see Add a team administrator

Tip

The total count display stops incrementing at 500, but you can still add more users.

Remove users or groups from a team

From the team's Members page, you can remove members.

Preview UI

1. To remove members, open the team's Members page, choose Direct Members, check the checkbox of the user you want to remove, choose More options, and then choose Remove.

   

   Tip

   To remove a team administrator as a team member, you must first remove them as an administrator.

2. Confirm the removal by choosing Delete in the confirmation message.

   

Current UI

1. To remove members, open the team's Members page, choose direct membership, return to this page, highlight the user name and choose Remove.

   

   Note

   To remove a team administrator as a team member, you must first remove them as an administrator.

Invite users from the Summary page

As a member of the Project Administrators group, you can add members to a project from the Summary page and optionally add them to one or more teams. For more information about the Summary page, see Share your project vision, view project activity.

1. Open the Project>Summary page, and choose Invite.

   

1. For new users, enter their email address. For existing users, type their name until it resolves as a known name to the system. You can add several email addresses or account names by separating them with a semicolon (;).

   Choose the entry listed under Add users to complete the entry.

   If you're adding a user known by the organization or collection, type the name or email address and then choose the name that appears to complete the entry.

   

   

   Note

   Any valid email address is acceptable. When the user accepts the invitation and signs into Azure DevOps, they register their email address as a Microsoft account and choose a password.

2. Optionally, select the teams you want to add the user to and then choose Add to complete the invitation.

   When the user is unknown, you'll get a notification that an access level must be assigned. To complete the invitation, choose Add.

   Choose Add to complete the invitation.

   

   

   When you add a new user, the system assigns Stakeholder as the access level when all free five Basic access levels have been assigned. Active contributors to a project need to have Basic access as a minimum. A Project Collection Administrator can change the access level from the Organization Settings>Users page.

   Note

   Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. For more information, see Permissions and access.

3. (Optional) A message will briefly display on the screen to indicate success or failure. Choose Details to open the notification and review details.

   

   

   A success message indicates the status of adding the user to the system.

   A failure message indicates why the addition of the user failed.

   ":::

   

4. New users receive an email inviting them to sign in to the project. Existing users don't receive any formal notification.

Add users or groups to a project

As a member of the Project Administrators group, you can add users or groups to a project from the Project settings> Permissions page by adding them to a security group. To add a custom security group, see Add or remove users or groups, manage security groups.

Note

To enable the Project Permissions Settings Page preview page, see Enable preview features.

Preview UI

1. Open the web portal and choose the project where you want to add users or groups. To choose another project, see Switch project, repository, team.

2. Choose Project settings, and then Permissions.

   

3. Under Groups, choose one of the following options:

   • Readers: To add users who require read-only access to the project, choose.
   • Contributors: To add users who contribute fully to this project or who have been granted Stakeholder access.
   • Project Administrators: To add users who need to administrate the project. For more information, see Change project-level permissions.

   Or, you can choose any team group to add users to a specific team.

   Here we choose the Contributors group.

   

4. Next, choose the Members tab.

   The default team group, and any other teams you add to the project, get included as members of the Contributors group. Add a new user as a member of a team instead, and the user automatically inherits Contributor permissions.

   Tip

   Managing users is much easier using groups, not individual users.

5. Choose Add to add a user or a user group.

   

6. Enter the name of the user account into the text box. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas. The system automatically searches for matches. Choose the match(es) that meets your requirements.

   

   Note

   The first time you add a user or group to Azure DevOps, you can't browse to it or check the friendly name. After the identity has been added, you can just enter the friendly name.

   Choose Save when done.

7. You may customize user permissions for other functionality in the project. For example, in areas and iterations or shared queries.

Current UI

1. Open the web portal and choose the project where you want to add users or groups. To choose another project, see Switch project, repository, team.

2. Choose Project Settings and then Security.

   To see the full image, select to expand.

   

3. Under Groups, choose one of the following options:

   • Readers: To add users who require read-only access to the project.
   • Contributors: To add users who contribute fully to this project or who have been granted Stakeholder access.
   • Project Administrators: To add users who need to administrate the project. For more information, see Change project-level permissions.

4. Next, choose the Members tab.

   Here we choose the Contributors group.

   

   The default team group, and any other teams you add to the project, get included as members of the Contributors group. Add a new user as a member of a team instead, and the user automatically inherits Contributor permissions.

   Tip

   Managing users is much easier using groups, not individual users.

5. Choose Add to add a user or a user group.

6. Enter the name of the user account into the text box. You can enter several identities into the text box, separated by commas. The system automatically searches for matches. choose the match(es) that meets your requirements.

   

   Note

   The first time you add a user or group to Azure DevOps, you can't browse to it or check the friendly name. After the identity has been added, you can just enter the friendly name.

   Choose Save changes when complete.

7. (Optional) You can customize a user's permission for other functionality in the project. For example, in areas and iterations or shared queries.

   Note

   Users that have limited access, such as Stakeholders, won't be able to access select features even if granted permissions to those features. For more information, see Permissions and access.

Manage users or resend invitations

Project Collection Administrators can update user assignments and resend invitations. The various options they have are:

• Change the access level
• Manage user - add them to select projects
• Resend invite
• Remove direct assignments
• Remove from organization

For more information, see Add account users for Azure DevOps.

List team members or team details

From the Azure DevOps CLI command, you can see details about a team or list the individual members of that team. To first see a list of all teams in your organization, use the az devops team list command.

List team members | Show team details

Note

You can use the az devops user command to add users to an organization. There is no comparable command for adding users to a team or project.

List team members

You can list the individual members of a team in your organization with the az devops team list-member command. To get started, see Get started with Azure DevOps CLI.

az devops team list-member --team
                           [--org]
                           [--project]
                           [--skip]
                           [--top]

Parameters

• team: Required. Name or ID of the team to show.
• org: Azure DevOps organization URL. You can configure the default organization using az devops configure -d organization=ORG_URL. Required if not configured as default or picked up using git config. Example: --org https://dev.azure.com/MyOrganizationName/.
• project: Name or ID of the project. You can configure the default project using az devops configure -d project=NAME_OR_ID. Required if not configured as default or picked up using git config.
• skip: Optional. Number of members to skip.
• top: Optional. Maximum number of members to return.

Example

The following command lists the first five members of the team named Fabrikam Team and returns the details in table format.

az devops team list-member --team "Fabrikam Team" --top 5 --output table

ID                                    Name               Email
------------------------------------  -----------------  --------------------------
3b5f0c34-4aec-4bf4-8708-1d36f0dbc468  Christie Church    fabrikamfiber1@hotmail.com
19d9411e-9a34-45bb-b985-d24d9d87c0c9  Johnnie McLeod     fabrikamfiber2@hotmail.com
8c8c7d32-6b1b-47f4-b2e9-30b477b5ab3d  Chuck Reinhart     fabrikamfiber3@hotmail.com
d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff  Jamal Hartnett     fabrikamfiber4@hotmail.com
bd30c189-db0f-4dd6-9418-5d8b41dc1754  Raisa Pokrovskaya  fabrikamfiber5@hotmail.com

Show team details

You can view details about a team in your organization with the az devops team show command. To get started, see Get started with Azure DevOps CLI.

az devops team show --team
                    [--org]
                    [--project]

Parameters

• team: Required. Name or ID of the team to show.
• org: Azure DevOps organization URL. You can configure the default organization using az devops configure -d organization=ORG_URL. Required if not configured as default or picked up using git config. Example: --org https://dev.azure.com/MyOrganizationName/.
• project: Name or ID of the project. You can configure the default project using az devops configure -d project=NAME_OR_ID. Required if not configured as default or picked up using git config.

Example

The following command shows information about the team in your organization named Fabrikam Team and returns the details in table format.

az devops team show --team "Fabrikam Team" --output table

ID                                    Name          Description
------------------------------------  ------------  -------------------------------------------------
a48cb46f-7366-4f4b-baf5-b3632398ed1e  Fabrikam Team  The default project team. Was Fabrikam Fiber Team

Next steps

Manage your project

Related articles

• Add users and manage access
• Resources granted to project members
• Manage your organization, Limit identity search and selection
• Manage your organization, Limit user visibility for projects and more
• Manage permissions with command line tool
• Grant or restrict access using permissions.