SharePoint: Add Owners, Members, and Visitors to Your Site

Site Permissions Overview

SharePoint offers three levels of permission and access. You will need to determine who will administer and contribute content to your site as part of the development process. 

  1. Site Owners (full control)
    • Site owners have full control of site content, theme, permissions, and hub associations. These individuals will have administrative privileges to the site.    
  2. Site Members (limited control, edit)
    • Site members can edit and view site content. These individuals will contribute content to the site.
  3. Site Visitors (no control, read)
    • Site visitors can view the site's content. These individuals will be able to access the site once it's live.

View Current Users on a Site

Before adding additional users to your site, it’s wise to verify who already has access. 

  1. Navigate to the site you want to add an administrator on.
  2. In the top right corner, click the Gear button.
  3. In the Settings menu that opens up, click Site permissions.
  4. Click the down arrows next to Site owners, Site members, and Site visitors to see who currently has access to the site at each permission level.

How to Add Administrators, Editors and Viewers on a Site

  1. Navigate to the site you want to add user on.
  2. In the top right corner, click the Gear button.
  3. In the Settings menu that opens up, click Site permissions.

    Image Caption: Example showing settings menu in SharePoint with Site permissions link highlighted.
  4. To add a user, click the Share site button.
  5. Enter the email address of the individual or active directory group you want to add and choose their name from the drop-down list. If you need to add multiple people, repeat this step.
  6. SharePoint will automatically assign the new person Read permissions. Click the down arrow next to Read and choose Full control to make them a site owner, or choose Edit to give them limited control.

    Image Caption: Example showing permission options after selecting a person to invite to a SharePoint site.
  7. Check or uncheck the Send email option to let the user(s) know they have been granted access to the site; you can add a message if you choose to send an email. 
  8. Then, click Add. Your new site users will be listed under the permission level you chose for them. 
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