What is a SharePoint site collection administrator?

In this tutorial, we will learn about, what is a SharePoint site collection administrator, what is the role of a SharePoint site collection administrator and how to add users as a SharePoint site collection administrator.

What is the SharePoint site collection administrator?

• The SharePoint site collection administrator has unlimited controls over the features, permissions, both contents and technical management, and many more.
• We can call the SharePoint site collection administrator as a super owner of a SharePoint site collection.
• We can add multiple users as SharePoint site collection administrators but, the primary and secondary administrator receives email notifications for the site collection.
• The primary and secondary site collection admins are automatically added to the site collection administrator group.
• All members in the SharePoint site collection administrative group having full permission to the site collection.

What are the roles of a SharePoint site collection administrator?

The SharePoint site collection administrator plays important role in managing the SharePoint site collection. The roles of the SharePoint site collection administrator are:

• Have access and control over everything in the site collection that can be managed in the web interface.
• Can configure search setting and site directory setting and allocate storage space of the site collection.
• The sharePoint site collection administrator has full control permission level. This means site collection admins can add or delete sites, and change the settings of any sites within the site collection.
• Additionally, the site collection admin can view, add, delete or change all content within that site.
• SharePoint site collection administrator can access all the lists, libraries, subsites, etc.
• To manage the functionality of features such as the recycle bin (administrator can view the deleted items which are deleted by the end-user. When you delete an item from the Sharepoint site recycle bin(Second stage) then it will be permanently deleted. Then in the SharePoint site, Quick launch -> recycle bin), Documents ID setting(Site collection administrator can enable Document ID setting in site collection features. Document Id helps in managing documents or records and document Id assigns automatically to the uploaded document), and many more site collection features.
• Can view the audits log reports, work with site collection policies, manage the site collection caching and activate and deactivate the site collection features.
• Can also add, change or remove the site collection administrator.
• Even as an organization, we need to contact the site collection administrator for anything related to that particular site collection. Suppose the SharePoint site storage quota is getting over, then an email will be sent to the site collection administrator.

How to add and remove SharePoint site collection administrator

Here we will learn to add and remove SharePoint site collection administrator in 2 ways.

From SharePoint admin center

• Open SharePoint admin center
• Under sites -> Active Sites
• Select the SharePoint site in which you want to add a site collection administrator.
• Then in the command bar, click on the drop-down arrow next to the permission icon.
• Select Manage additional admins.

• Enter the name of the user whom you want to make administrator.
• Click on save to add and if you want to remove site collection administrator, then click on the cross icon next to the user/site collection admin name.

From SharePoint site

• Open SharePoint modern site
• Click on Gear icon/settings-> Site permission

• Click on the Advanced permission settings

• In manage column click on Site collection administrator.

• Then enter a user name whom you want to add as a site collection administrator.
• Click on OK to add and if you want to remove then click on the cross icon next to the user name.

In above picture, you can see the User2 and user3 added as a SharePoint site collection administrator.

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In this SharePoint tutorial, we learned about SharePoint collection administrator like:

• What is a SharePoint site collection administrator?
• Roles of a SharePoint site collection administrator
• How to add a new site collection administrator
• How to remove a SharePoint site collection administrator, etc.