The Administrator role in Office 365 includes roles such as global Administrators, password administrators, account Administrators, service administrators, and so on. For different enterprise sizes, you may want to assign multiple administrators who exercise different responsibilities.
The following is an introduction to the Administrator role for Office 365:
Global Administrator : access to all administrative functions. A global administrator is the only administrator who can assign other administrator roles. You can have more than one global administrator in your organization. People who sign up for Office 365 will become global administrators.
Note: Make sure that all users who are global administrators in your organization fill in their contact information with their mobile phone number and alternate email address.
Billing Administrator : Make purchases, manage subscriptions, manage support tickets, and monitor service health.
Note: If you do not purchase Office 365 from Microsoft, you cannot make a billing change, so you cannot assign the account Administrator role to you. For billing issues, contact the administrator of the Organization for which you purchased the subscription.
Password Administrators : Reset passwords, manage service requests, and monitor service health. Password administrators can only reset user passwords.
Service Administrator : manages service requests and monitors service health.
Note: before a global administrator can assign the service administrator role to a user, they should first assign the user administrative permissions to the service (such as Exchange Online), and then assign the service administrator role to the users in Office 365.
User Management administrator : Resets passwords, monitors service health, and manages user accounts, user groups, and service requests. User Management Administrators cannot delete global administrators, create additional administrator roles, or reset passwords for accounts, global, and service administrators.
Exchange Administrator : has permissions to manage access to Exchange online through the Exchange Admin Center (EAC) and can perform almost any task in exchange online.
SharePoint Administrator : has permissions to manage access to SharePoint online through the SharePoint Online Admin Center (EAC) and can perform almost any task in SharePoint Online.
What services does my Office 365 permissions extend to?
Some administrator roles in Office 365 have corresponding roles in Exchange Online, SharePoint online, and Skype for business Online. See the following table to learn how these Office 365 Administrator roles are converted to roles in different Office 365 services.
Office 365 Administrator Role |
Roles in Exchange Online |
Roles in SharePoint Online |
Roles in Skype for business |
Global Administrator |
|
SharePoint Online Administrators |
Skype for Business Administrator |
Account Administrator |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Password Administrator |
Technical Support Administrator |
N/A |
Skype for Business Online Administrator |
Service administrator |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
User management administrator |
N/A |
N/A |
Skype for Business Online Administrator |
Exchange Administrator |
Exchange Online Administrator |
N/A |
N/A |
SharePoint Administrators |
N/A |
SharePoint Online Administrators |
N/A |
Skype for Business Administrator |
N/A |
N/A |
Skype for Business Online Administrator |
Skype for business administrator: has permission to manage Skype for business access through the Skype for Business Admin Center, and can be in Skype for business Online Perform almost any task in the
View Office 365 Administrator permissions by role
This table shows the Office 365 Administrator role and the permissions associated with it.
rights |
billing administrator |
global admin |
Password Administrator |
service admin |
user admin admin |
exchange admin |
sharepoint Administrator |
skype for Business Administrator |
view organization and user information |
support |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
support (but cannot edit) |
admin support ticket |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
reset user password |
no |
support |
Yes; but there are restrictions. This administrator can only reset the password for non-administrators. |
no |
Yes , but there are restrictions. This administrator can only reset the password for non-administrators. |
no |
no |
no |
perform accounts and purchase operations |
Yes |
Yes |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
not supported |
view users and roles |
no support |
Yes |
no |
no |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
support |
Create, edit, and delete users and groups |
no support |
Yes |
no |
no support |
Yes , but there are restrictions. This administrator cannot delete the global administrator or create another administrator. |
no support |
no |
not supported |
Manage user licenses |
no support |
Yes |
no |
no support |
Yes , but there are restrictions. This administrator cannot delete the global administrator or create another administrator. |
no support |
no |
not supported |
View user licenses |
no support |
Yes |
no |
Yes |
Yes , but there are restrictions. This administrator cannot delete the global administrator or create another administrator. |
support |
Yes |
support |
admin domain |
not supported |
Yes |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
not supported |
Manage Organization information |
not supported |
Yes |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
not supported |
View service health and Message center posts |
|
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
support |
delegating management roles to other people |
no support |
Yes |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
not supported |
use dir-sync |
no |
Yes |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
admin report |
no |
Yes |
no |
no |
no |
Yes |
Yes |
no |
Manage mobile devices |
Whether |
Is |
Whether |
Whether |
Whether |
Whether |
Whether |
Whether |
Introduction to Administrator roles in Office 365-Beginner