Site Collection Administrator in SharePoint Online – A Comprehensive Guide!

Introduction

The SharePoint Online site collection administrator is responsible for managing the SharePoint Online site collection. This includes creating and managing sites, configuring site settings, managing user access, etc. When creating a site collection, a Global Administrator or SharePoint Online Administrator specifies the primary site collection administrator for the site. Learn the basics of managing site collection administrators in SharePoint Online with PowerShell, Site settings, and the SharePoint Admin Center with this easy-to-follow guide!

What is SharePoint Online Site Collection Administrator?

A SharePoint Online site collection administrator is a user who has been given administrative permissions to manage a SharePoint site collection. As a site collection administrator, you have full control over the site collection and the ability to manage all aspects of the site collection, including the look and feel, permissions, and content. The site collection administrator can perform all tasks, including create, delete, and manage subsites within the site collection, configuring site settings, setting permissions on sites and content, monitoring usage statistics, configuring search settings, and troubleshooting any issues that arise with the SharePoint Online sites.

How to add a site collection administrator in SharePoint Online?

To add a site collection administrator in SharePoint Online, you must be an existing site collection Administrator or have administrative permissions for the tenant. Adding a site collection administrator in SharePoint Online is a simple process that can be completed in just a few steps. If you have the necessary permissions, follow these steps:

1. Go to the SharePoint Online admin center by signing in to Office 365 Admin Center and selecting “Admin centers” >> “SharePoint” from the left navigation bar.
2. In the SharePoint Online admin center, select the site you wish to add site collection Administrator from “Sites” >> “Active sites”.
3. Select the site collection, click on the “Permissions” button from the command bar, and then click on the “Manage Admins” menu item.
4. On the Site Collection Administrators page, you will see a list of all the current site collection administrators. To add a new administrator, Search and select the user you want to add as a site collection administrator.
5. Click “Save” to apply the changes.

The user will now be listed as a site collection administrator and will have all the necessary permissions to manage the site collection.

Keep in mind that being a site collection administrator does not give the user administrative permissions for the entire SharePoint Online tenant. To add a site collection admin, You can use the site collection administrators page from site settings as well. Other than individual user accounts, you can add an Active Directory security group as a site collection administrator too! How to Set an Active Directory security group as a site collection administrator?

Add site collection administrator in SharePoint Online using PowerShell.

In addition to managing site collection administrators through the SharePoint Online admin center, you can also use PowerShell to add site collection Administrators in SharePoint Online. To add a site collection administrator using PowerShell, you will need to first connect to your SharePoint Online tenant using the Connect-SPOService cmdlet. You will then need to use the Set-SPOUser cmdlet to grant the user site collection administrator permissions.

Here is an example of how to add a site collection administrator using PowerShell:

#Connect to Admin Center
Connect-SPOService -Url https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com

#sharepoint online powershell add site collection administrator
Set-SPOUser -Site https://yoursitecollection.sharepoint.com -LoginName user@yourtenant.com -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $True

In this example, https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com is the URL of your SharePoint Online tenant and https://yoursitecollection.sharepoint.com is the URL of the site collection where you want to add the site collection administrator. user@yourtenant.com is the login name of the user you want to add as a site collection administrator. Adding site collection Admin to multiple sites from a CSV file is also possible: Add Site Collection Admin to Multiple SharePoint Online Sites from a CSV File using PowerShell

Get site collection administrators using PowerShell in SharePoint Online.

As a SharePoint Online administrator, you may occasionally need to find out who the site collection administrators are for a particular site collection. To get all site collection administrators of a Sharepoint Online site, do the following:

1. Log in to SharePoint Admin Center from your favorite browser
2. Expand “Sites” >> Active Sites >> Select the site from the list
3. Click on “Permissions” and then choose “Manage Admins” to get site collection admins for the selected site.

   

You can also use the Get-SPOUser cmdlet to view the current site collection administrators for a site collection. Other than the SharePoint Online Management Shell, You can use PnP PowerShell, CSOM, site settings page of a site collection to get the site collection administrators for a SharePoint Online site collection or for all sites in your tenant. More here: How to check the site collection administrator in SharePoint Online?

Here is an example of how to get all site collection administrators using PowerShell in SharePoint Online:

#Connect to SharePoint Online
Connect-SPOService -Url https://yourtenant-admin.sharepoint.com

#Get site collection Administrators of a site
Get-SPOUser -Site https://yoursitecollection.sharepoint.com | Where-Object {$_.IsSiteAdmin -eq $True} | Select-Object DisplayName, LoginName

This will retrieve a list of all users who are currently site collection administrators for the site collection https://yoursitecollection.sharepoint.com and display their Display Name and login names. If you need to export the site collection administrators from all sites in your environment to a CSV file, use: Export Site Collection Administrators from SharePoint Online to a CSV Report

How to Remove a SharePoint Online Site Collection Administrator?

If you need to remove a site collection administrator from your SharePoint Online sites, there are a few different methods you can use.

• The first one is to use the web browser interface to remove the site collection admin from the site settings page.
• The next method you can use to remove a site collection administrator is through the SharePoint Online admin center.
• Finally, you can also use Microsoft PowerShell to remove a site collection administrator.

To remove a site collection administrator from a SharePoint Online site collection, you can use the following steps:

1. Open a web browser and go to the SharePoint Online site collection that you want to manage.
2. Sign in with your administrator account.
3. Click the “Settings” icon, and then click “Site settings”.
4. Under “Site Collection Administration”, click “Site collection administrators”.
5. The site collection administrators for the site collection will be listed on the page. To remove an administrator, click the “X” icon next to their name.
6. Click “OK” to confirm that you want to remove the administrator.

That’s all there is to it! Removing a site collection administrator in SharePoint Online is a quick and easy process that can be completed in just a few clicks.

Note that these steps assume that you have the necessary permissions to manage the site collection. If you do not have the necessary permissions, you will not be able to access the site collection administrators page or remove site collection administrators. If you want to remove a site collection administrator using PowerShell, you can use the following script: Remove a site collection administrator using PowerShell in SharePoint Online

Change site collection Administrators in SharePoint Online

To change the site collection administrator for a SharePoint Online site collection, you can use the following steps:

1. Open a web browser and go to the SharePoint Online site collection that you want to manage.
2. Click the “Settings” icon, and then click “Site settings”.
3. Under “Site Collection Administration”, click “Site collection administrators”.
4. The site collection administrators for the site collection will be listed on the page. You can add or remove users from the list to change site collection admins.

You can use PowerShell to replace site collection Administrators: How to replace site collection Administrators in SharePoint Online using PowerShell?

Conclusion

The SharePoint Online site collection administrator is responsible for managing the SharePoint Online site collection. This includes creating and managing sites, configuring site settings, and managing user access. It is important to note that being a site collection administrator does not give you administrative permissions for the entire SharePoint Online tenant. To manage tenant-level SharePoint settings, you must be a global administrator or a SharePoint Online Administrator.