Adding Users/Groups

How to add users and groups to Microsoft 365

Adding Users

Users are added in the Microsoft 365 admin center and must be added by an Admin-level account. In the admin account, navigate to the Users section and then to add a new user.

Once a user is added to the organization's Microsoft 365 account, they can then be added to SharePoint separately. A user can be added to a specific site or to a group that has permissions already set.

Adding a user to a Microsoft 365 organization without a license incurs no additional costs, and these users will be able to access SharePoint Online. However, some other specific features in Microsoft 365 will require additional licenses, which will add to the subscription price.

Groups

Like with users, Groups are made in Microsoft 365 and not within SharePoint. Groups have a shared set of permissions, and adding a user to a group will give the user all associated permissions automatically. Groups can be granted to specific sites and other resources within SharePoint.

A single user can have access to multiple sites and groups. When a user is part of multiple groups with conflicting access, the set of permissions with more access will prevail.

Breaking inheritance permission

Users within a group inherit the group's permissions by default, but specific users in that group may need more or fewer permissions. In order to change permissions, inheritance permission must be broken first by selecting the user in the Permissions page and choosing to stop inheriting permissions. From there, separate permissions can be given to the specific user.