Give users admin permissions

Which user management experience do you have?

To check, go to your organization at admin.atlassian.com and select Directory. If the Users and Groups lists are found here, then you are using the centralized user management. Learn more about the centralized user management

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As a site administrator or organization admin, Users is found under Product site.

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As an organization admin, Users is found under Directory tab.

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Centralized user management content

Share management tasks in your organization by assigning admin roles to users. When you create an organization, you become an organization admin and automatically get admin permissions. From admin.atlassian.com, you can assign these admin roles:

  • Product admins – They administer settings inside the product depending on group memberships (e.g. Jira and Confluence settings). Not all product admins need product access (e.g. Product admins for Jira don’t need product access to Jira Software or Jira Service Management).

  • User access admins - They administer users and groups from admin.atlassian.com for a specific product in your organization. This role doesn’t grant access to the product.

  • Organization admins – They administer users and groups for the organization’s products, and have access to the organization’s settings which can be found at admin.atlassian.com.

Learn more about the different types of admin roles

It’s important to note that users can hold multiple roles at once, and admin roles don’t automatically give access to all products in your organization. You may need to assign additional access roles (like the user role) to an admin if they need to use the product. Learn how to give users access to products

Make someone a product admin

Product admins only have access to settings inside the product they admin. See Administering Jira Cloud products or Administering Confluence Cloud sites for more details.

As an organization admin, you can make another user a product admin. A user access admin can also do this for products they administer. You can only make someone a product admin if they already have access to the organization or have been invited. It’s possible to be a product admin for one or more Atlassian products.

Who can do this?

  • Organization admins

  • User access admins

To give someone a product admin role:

  1. Go to admin.atlassian.com. Select your organization if you have more than one.

  2. Select Directory > Users.

  3. Select a user.

  4. Select Grant access to view a list of products the user doesn’t have access to.

  5. From the Product roles dropdown for a Product, select Product admin (you can change a user’s product role anytime).

  6. Select Grant access.

The following image shows how to assign the product admin role for Confluence:

User details page, select add products, assign the product admin role for Confluence

Granting admin access to a Jira product is different to other products because there are multiple Jira products that share the same administration console. To grant admin access to the Jira admin console, select Product admin from the dropdown next to Jira Administration.

The following image is an example of a user who holds the product admin role for Jira Administration:

User profile page, with the product admin role for Jira Administration

You can also make users product admins by adding them to the administrators or <product-name>-admins group.

Make someone a user access admin

We’re rolling out the user access admin role. It may not be available for your organization yet.

Who can do this?

  • Organization admins

To give someone a user access admin role:

  1. Go to admin.atlassian.com. Select your organization if you have more than one.

  2. Select Directory > Users.

  3. Find a user, then select their avatar or select Show details.

  4. Select Grant access to view a list of products the user doesn’t have access to.

  5. Find the product you’d like them to be a user access admin for. From the Product roles dropdown for the product, select User access admin (you can change a user’s product role anytime).

  6. Select Grant access.

The following image shows how to assign the user access admin role for Confluence:

User details page, select add products, assign the user access admin role for Confluence

Make someone an organization admin

Organization admins can perform these organization operations:

Who can do this?

  • Organization admins

To give someone an organization admin role:

  1. Go to admin.atlassian.com. Select your organization if you have more than one.

  2. Select Directory > Users.

  3. Find a user, then select their avatar or Show details.

  4. From the 3 dot icon at the top of the page, select Assign organization role.

  5. Select Assign role to confirm.

This places the user into a group (either called site-admins or org-admins) that grants the organization admin role. By default, this group grants the user role for all the products in your organization however your organization may have modified this (more on this in the next section).

User profile, select 3-dot menu to assign organization role

Use groups to grant admin permissions

Whenever you make a user a product admin, user access admin, or organization admin, they are also added to the group that grants those particular admin permissions.

Learn more about default groups and permissions

For example, when you first create your organization:

  • Users in the groups called jira-admin-<sitename> or org-admins/site-admins are Jira admins (can manage Jira settings, projects, workflows, etc.)

  • Users in the groups called confluence-admins-<sitename> or org-admins/site-admins are Confluence admins (can manage Confluence settings, space permissions, etc.).

Note that roles in groups can be modified at any time. The above is true only if your organization hasn’t removed the product admin role from these groups or made changes to the default groups.

The following screenshot is an example of a group that grants its members the product admin role for Jira:

Group details page, group product access, product admin role for Jira Administration

Original user management content

As an admin, you may get those permissions automatically if you create a site or an organization. Or you may have to grant admin permissions to existing users.

You can be any number of these admin types:

  • Product admins – There are two types of product admins that have access to the Jira or Confluence settings:

    • Admins that belong to the administrators group – administer product settings, but they also have access to the product themselves through this group.

    • Admins that belong to the <product-name>-admins groups – administer product settings, but they don’t have access to the product through this group.

  • Site admins – They administer the users and groups for the site’s products. They have access to the site's Admin and access to the products through this group.

  • Organization admins – They administer the organization and have access to the organization settings, which can be found at admin.atlassian.com.

Let’s see how users become admins

When you create an organization, you become an organization admin (in addition to a site admin) and can make other users organization admins.

When you start out with a site, you're a site admin. After you invite users, you can make them site admins or product admins by adding them to groups.

Once you have an organization, you can add other sites that your company manages. When you add a site to your organization:

  • All organization admins become site admins for the newly added site.

  • All site admins stay site admins of their current site.

How to use groups to give admin permissions

Group memberships give users site and product admin permissions. You can specify which groups get product admin permissions. For example:

  • Users in the jira-admin-<sitename> or site-admins groups are Jira admins (can manage Jira settings, projects, workflows, etc.)

  • Users in the confluence-admins-<sitename> or site-admins groups are Confluence admins (can manage Confluence settings, space permissions, etc.)

Learn more about default groups and permissions

Make someone a product admin

Product admins can access the product settings. See Administering Jira Cloud products or Administering Confluence Cloud sites for more details.

As an organization admin, you can make another user a product admin. A site admin can also do this for products within the sites they administer. You can only make someone a product admin if they already have access to the site or have been invited.

Who can do this?

  • Organization admins

  • Site administrators

To give someone a product admin role:

  1. Go to your site's Admin at admin.atlassian.com. If you're an admin for multiple sites or an organization admin, click the site's name and URL to open the Admin for that site.

  2. Select Groups from the left side of the page.

  3. Select the administrators or <product-name>-admins group.

  4. Click Add members, search and select the people you want to add, and click Add.

Make someone a site admin

Site admins can perform these site operations:

As an organization admin, you can make another user a site admin. A site admin can also do this for sites they administer. You can only make someone a site admin if they already have access to the site or have been invited.

Who can do this?

  • Organization admins

  • Site administrators

To give someone a site admin role:

  1. Go to your site's Admin at admin.atlassian.com. If you're an admin for multiple sites or an organization admin, click the site's name and URL to open the Admin for that site.

  2. Select Groups from the left side of the page.

  3. Select the site-admins group.

  4. Click Add members, search and select the people you want to add, and click Add.

Make someone an organization admin

Organization admins can perform these organization operations:

Who can do this?

  • Organization admins

To give someone an organization admin role:

  1. Log in to your organization at admin.atlassian.com.

  2. Choose Settings > Administrators.

  3. Click Add administrators.

  4. Enter an Atlassian account email address and click Grant access.

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