Assign custom roles with resource scope using PowerShell in Microsoft Entra ID

Article
02/23/2024

This article describes how to create a role assignment at organization-wide scope in Microsoft Entra ID. Assigning a role at organization-wide scope grants access across the Microsoft Entra organization. To create a role assignment with a scope of a single Microsoft Entra resource, see Create and assign a custom role in Microsoft Entra ID. This article uses the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK module.

For more information about Microsoft Entra roles, see Microsoft Entra built-in roles.

Prerequisites

Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 license
Privileged Role Administrator
Microsoft Graph PowerShell module when using PowerShell

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

Assign a directory role to a user or service principal with resource scope

Load the Microsoft Graph PowerShell module.
Sign in by executing the command Connect-MgGraph.

Create a new role using the following PowerShell script.

## Assign a role to a user or service principal with resource scope
# Get the user and role definition you want to link
$user = Get-MgUser -Filter "UserPrincipalName eq 'cburl@f128.info'"
$roleDefinition = Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -Filter "DisplayName eq 'Application Support Administrator'"

# Get app registration and construct resource scope for assignment.
$appRegistration = Get-MgApplication -Filter "displayName eq 'f/128 Filter Photos'"
$directoryScope = '/' + $appRegistration.Id

# Create a scoped role assignment
$roleAssignment = New-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleAssignment -DirectoryScopeId $directoryScope `
   -RoleDefinitionId $roleDefinition.Id -PrincipalId $user.Id

To assign the role to a service principal instead of a user, use the Get-MgServicePrincipal cmdlet.

Role definitions

Role definition objects contain the definition of the built-in or custom role, along with the permissions that are granted by that role assignment. This resource displays both custom role definitions and built-in directory roles (which are displayed in roleDefinition equivalent form). For information about the maximum number of custom roles that can be created in a Microsoft Entra organization, see Microsoft Entra service limits and restrictions.

Create a role definition

# Basic information
$description = "Can manage credentials of application registrations"
$displayName = "Application Registration Credential Administrator"
$templateId = (New-Guid).Guid

# Set of actions to include
$rolePermissions = @{
    "allowedResourceActions" = @(
        "microsoft.directory/applications/standard/read",
        "microsoft.directory/applications/credentials/update"
    )
}

# Create new custom directory role
$customAdmin = New-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -RolePermissions $rolePermissions `
   -DisplayName $displayName -Description $description -TemplateId $templateId -IsEnabled:$true

Read and list role definitions

# Get all role definitions
Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition

# Get single role definition by ID
Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -UnifiedRoleDefinitionId 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

# Get single role definition by templateId
Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -Filter "TemplateId eq 'c4e39bd9-1100-46d3-8c65-fb160da0071f'"

Update a role definition

# Update role definition
# This works for any writable property on role definition. You can replace display name with other
# valid properties.
Update-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -UnifiedRoleDefinitionId c4e39bd9-1100-46d3-8c65-fb160da0071f `
   -DisplayName "Updated DisplayName"

Delete a role definition

# Delete role definition
Remove-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -UnifiedRoleDefinitionId c4e39bd9-1100-46d3-8c65-fb160da0071f

Role assignments

Role assignments contain information linking a given security principal (a user or application service principal) to a role definition. If required, you can add a scope of a single Microsoft Entra resource for the assigned permissions. Restricting the scope of a role assignment is supported for built-in and custom roles.

Create a role assignment

# Get the user and role definition you want to link
$user = Get-MgUser -Filter "userPrincipalName eq 'cburl@f128.info'"
$roleDefinition = Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleDefinition -Filter "DisplayName eq 'Application Support Administrator'"

# Get app registration and construct resource scope for assignment.
$appRegistration = Get-MgApplication -Filter "displayName eq 'f/128 Filter Photos'"
$directoryScope = '/' + $appRegistration.Id

# Create a scoped role assignment
$roleAssignment = New-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleAssignment -DirectoryScopeId $directoryScope `
   -RoleDefinitionId $roleDefinition.Id -PrincipalId $user.Id

Read and list role assignments

# Get role assignments for a given principal
Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleAssignment -Filter "PrincipalId eq 'aaaaaaaa-bbbb-cccc-1111-222222222222'"

# Get role assignments for a given role definition 
Get-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleAssignment -Filter "RoleDefinitionId eq '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'"

Remove a role assignment

# Remove role assignment
Remove-MgRoleManagementDirectoryRoleAssignment -UnifiedRoleAssignmentId 'aB1cD2eF3gH4iJ5kL6-mN7oP8qR-1'

Next steps

Share with us on the Microsoft Entra administrative roles forum
For more about roles and Microsoft Entra administrator role assignments, see Assign administrator roles
For default user permissions, see a comparison of default guest and member user permissions

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