Assign Azure roles using the Azure portal

To assign Azure roles, you must have:

• Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments/write permissions, such as Role Based Access Control Administrator or User Access Administrator

When you assign roles, you must specify a scope. Scope is the set of resources the access applies to. In Azure, you can specify a scope at four levels from broad to narrow: management group, subscription, resource group, and resource. For more information, see Understand scope.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. In the Search box at the top, search for the scope you want to grant access to. For example, search for Management groups, Subscriptions, Resource groups, or a specific resource.

3. Click the specific resource for that scope.

   The following shows an example resource group.

   

Access control (IAM) is the page that you typically use to assign roles to grant access to Azure resources. It's also known as identity and access management (IAM) and appears in several locations in the Azure portal.

1. Click Access control (IAM).

   The following shows an example of the Access control (IAM) page for a resource group.

   

2. Click the Role assignments tab to view the role assignments at this scope.

3. Click Add > Add role assignment.

   If you don't have permissions to assign roles, the Add role assignment option will be disabled.

   

   The Add role assignment page opens.

To select a role, follow these steps:

1. On the Role tab, select a role that you want to use.

   You can search for a role by name or by description. You can also filter roles by type and category.

   

2. If you want to assign a privileged administrator role, select the Privileged administrator roles tab to select the role.

   For best practices when using privileged administrator role assignments, see Best practices for Azure RBAC.

   

3. In the Details column, click View to get more details about a role.

   

4. Click Next.

To select who needs access, follow these steps:

1. On the Members tab, select User, group, or service principal to assign the selected role to one or more Microsoft Entra users, groups, or service principals (applications).

   

2. Click Select members.

3. Find and select the users, groups, or service principals.

   You can type in the Select box to search the directory for display name or email address.

   

4. Click Select to add the users, groups, or service principals to the Members list.

5. To assign the selected role to one or more managed identities, select Managed identity.

6. Click Select members.

7. In the Select managed identities pane, select whether the type is user-assigned managed identity or system-assigned managed identity.

8. Find and select the managed identities.

   For system-assigned managed identities, you can select managed identities by Azure service instance.

   

9. Click Select to add the managed identities to the Members list.

10. In the Description box enter an optional description for this role assignment.

    Later you can show this description in the role assignments list.

11. Click Next.

If you selected a role that supports conditions, a Conditions tab will appear and you have the option to add a condition to your role assignment. A condition is an additional check that you can optionally add to your role assignment to provide more fine-grained access control.

The Conditions tab will look different depending on the role you selected.

Storage condition

If you selected one of the following storage roles, follow the steps in this section.

• Storage Blob Data Contributor
• Storage Blob Data Owner
• Storage Blob Data Reader
• Storage Queue Data Contributor
• Storage Queue Data Message Processor
• Storage Queue Data Message Sender
• Storage Queue Data Reader

1. Click Add condition if you want to further refine the role assignments based on storage attributes.

   

2. Follow the steps in Add or edit Azure role assignment conditions.

If you have a Microsoft Entra ID P2 or Microsoft Entra ID Governance license, an Assignment type tab will appear for management group, subscription, and resource group scopes. Use eligible assignments to provide just-in-time access to a role. This capability is being deployed in stages, so it might not be available yet in your tenant or your interface might look different. For more information, see Integration with Privileged Identity Management (Preview).

If you don't want to use the PIM functionality, select the Active assignment type and Permanent assignment duration options. These settings create a role assignment where the principal always has permissions in the role.

1. On the Assignment type tab, select the Assignment type.

   • Eligible - User must perform one or more actions to use the role, such as perform a multifactor authentication check, provide a business justification, or request approval from designated approvers. You can't create eligible role assignments for applications, service principals, or managed identities because they can't perform the activation steps.
   • Active - User doesn't have to perform any action to use the role.

   

2. Depending on your settings, for Assignment duration, select Permanent or Time bound.

   Select permanent if you want member to always be allowed to activate or use role. Select time bound to specify start and end dates. This option might be disabled if permanent assignments creation is not allowed by PIM policy.

3. If Time bound is selected, set Start date and time and Start date and time to specify when user is allowed to activate or use role.

   It's possible to set the start date in the future. The maximum allowed eligible duration depends on your Privileged Identity Management (PIM) policy.

4. (Optional) Use Configure PIM Policy to configure expiration options, role activation requirements (approval, multifactor authentication, or Conditional Access authentication context), and other settings.

   When you select the Update PIM policy link, a PIM page is displayed. Select Settings to configure PIM policy for for roles. For more information, see Configure Azure resource role settings in Privileged Identity Management.

5. Click Next.

Follow these steps:

1. On the Review + assign tab, review the role assignment settings.

   

2. Click Review + assign to assign the role.

   After a few moments, the security principal is assigned the role at the selected scope.

   

3. If you don't see the description for the role assignment, click Edit columns to add the Description column.

If you have a Microsoft Entra ID P2 or Microsoft Entra ID Governance license, you can edit your role assignment type settings. For more information, see Integration with Privileged Identity Management (Preview).

1. On the Access control (IAM) page, click the Role assignments tab to view the role assignments at this scope.

2. Find the role assignment that you want to edit.

3. In the State column, click the link, such as Eligible time-bound or Active permanent.

   The Edit assignment pane appears where you can update the role assignment type settings. The pane might take a few moments to open.

   

4. When finished, click Save.

   Your updates might take a while to be processed and reflected in the portal.