Give users admin permissions

Viewing the right content?

From your organization at admin.atlassian.com, if the Users list and Groups list are under the Directory tab, view the improved user management content.

A diagram of an new admin.atlassian.com view that shows a new Directory tab instead of Users and Groups

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 how to create and update groups

Make a user 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 or site admin, you can add someone as a product admin. You can only make someone a product admin if they already have access to the site or have been invited:

  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 a user a site admin

Site admins can perform these site operations:

As an organization or site admin, you can make another user a site admin. You can only make someone a site admin if they already have access to the site or have been invited:

  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 a user an organization admin

Organization admins can perform these organization operations:

As an organization admin, you can make another user an organization admin. You can make anyone who has an Atlassian account an organization admin:

  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.


Improved user management experience

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. You can make other users organization admins.

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. Jira Admins do not need product access to Jira Software or Jira Service Desk).

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

The site admin role no longer exists for organizations with the improved user management experience. We’re rolling out a new user access admin role from May 2023 to replace this. Learn more about the user access admin role

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 product roles to admins to make sure they can access a product. Learn how to give users access to products

Each product has it’s own admin roles as well. See

Make a user 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 someone a product admin. You can only make someone a product admin if they already have access to the organization or have been invited.

To give a user 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 Add products to view a list of products the user doesn’t have access to.

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

  6. Select Grant.

Here are the product admin roles currently available:

Product

Product admin role

Confluence

Confluence admin

Jira Administration (this product includes access to the administration features for all Jira products)

Jira admin

Opsgenie

Opsgenie admin

Statuspage

Statuspage admin

Trello

Trello admin

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

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

Granting access to a Jira product is slightly different to other products. To grant product admin access, select Jira admin from the dropdown next to Jira Administration.

The following image is 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 a user an organization admin

Organization admins can perform these organization operations:

As an organization admin, you can make another user an organization admin.

  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 Organization admin > Update.

User profile, 3-dot menu allows to Assign organization role

Use groups to grant admin permissions

Whenever you make a user a product or organization admin, they are also added to the group that grants particular admin permissions. Learn how to create and update groups

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.).

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

Additional Help