This article describes the default roles and groups in SharePoint Online for Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses. Assignment to a role or membership in a group determines what tasks a user can perform.
In this article
Default roles
Global administrator
When you sign up for Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, you become your company’s first global administrator for SharePoint Online. As the SharePoint Online global administrator, you are responsible for creating new users, assigning licenses, distributing credentials to new users, and managing service-wide settings. You work with these features in the Office 365 portal for your installation.
For information about how to get started as a global administrator, Introduction for Office 365 Administrators.
As a global administrator, you can assign the global administrator role to other users, so there can be more than one global administrator for SharePoint Online at your company, but the first global administrator by default becomes the default site administrator for the Team site and Web site.
Only global administrators can assign other administrative roles.
Site administrators
Site administrators have the Full Control permission level for the Team site and any subsites created under it. They have access to content in all sites in the Team Site, and use Web site design tools to design a Web site in Website. They can add users to the Team Site and Web site, and perform administrative and auditing tasks relevant to the sites.
Site User
Site users are assigned the Enhanced Contribute permission level. Site users can add, edit and delete items in existing lists and document libraries, work with web parts, manage lists and approve items. A site user can also work in the management portal to make changes to their own profile. Site users do not have access to other administrative tools, and they cannot use Web site design tools to design a web site.
Default groups
After the global administrator or site administrator has added site users, site administrators can use SharePoint groups to manage people and assign the same permission levels to many people at once.
You can use SharePoint groups to assign the same permission levels to many people at once. By using groups, instead of trying to control and track the access you grant to your sites or content for one person at a time, you can simplify the task of managing access to a site. Using groups:
Streamlines your site maintenance for you and your successor site owners,
Ensures that people performing similar tasks have the same levels of access, and
Helps you make sure that people have only the access they need, not more.
Here are the default groups that come with SharePoint Online for professionals and small businesses.
Site owners
By default, members of the Owners group have the Full Control permission level in the site they created in the Team Site. They can add users and perform any administrative tasks relevant to their site. They can also use Web Site Design Tool to design a Web site.
Note A user who creates a site under a top-level site in the Team Site automatically becomes a site owner for that site.
Designer
By default, members of the Design group have the Design permission level. They can create lists and document libraries, edit pages, and apply themes, borders, and style sheets in the Team Site. They can also use Web Site Design Tool to design a Web site.
Contributor
By default, members of the Members group have the Contribute permission level. In the Team Site, Contributors can only add, edit, and delete items in existing lists and document libraries, and work with Web parts. Contributors cannot use Web Site Design Tool tool to design a Web site.
Visitor
By default, members of the Visitors group have the Read permission level. In the Team Site, visitors can only view pages, list items, and documents. Visitors cannot use Web Site Design Tool to design a Web site.
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