Team Foundation Server Default Groups, Permissions, and Roles

When you create a new project in Team Foundation Server, new project-level groups are created for that project, and are assigned permissions to access resources appropriate to that group. To customize projects to better suit your business needs, you must understand what permissions are assigned to which users and groups, and what permissions you might want to add to any users or groups you might add. Additionally, if you want to closely align users with the roles described for MSF for Agile Software Development or MSF for CMMI Process Improvement, you must understand how to align those roles with the default groups already assigned to the project. Alternatively, you can create groups that associate directly with each of those roles, and assign those groups the permissions appropriate to the role.

Default Groups and Permissions

Whenever you create a project in Team Foundation Server, groups are created at the project level. By default, each of those groups has certain permissions assigned to them. You can add permissions to these default groups in addition to any groups or users you want to add at the server or project level.

Server-Level Groups and Permissions

By default, the following groups exist at the server level when you install Team Foundation Server:

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Administrators   Members of this group can perform all operations for Team Foundation Server. This group should be restricted to the smallest possible number of users who need total administrative control over Team Foundation Server. By default, this group contains the Local Administrators group (BUILTIN\Administrators) for the server and the SERVER\Service Accounts group.

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Valid Users   Members of this group have access to Team Foundation Server. This group automatically contains all users and groups that have been added anywhere within Team Foundation Server. You cannot modify the membership of this group.

  Important Note:
  Do not unset or deny the View server-level information permission for this group.

• TeamFoundationServerName\Service Accounts   Members of this group have service-level permissions for Team Foundation Server. By default this group contains the service account supplied during installation. If you want to add new accounts to this group, you must add them using the TFSSecurity command-line tool. This group should only contain service accounts and not user accounts or groups (unless that group only contains service accounts). By default, this group is a member of Team Foundation Administrators.

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Licensed Users   (Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition only) Members of this group can connect to the server installed with Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition. Access to the server is permitted to members and no other permissions are explicitly set for this group. The group can have one to five user accounts but no group accounts as members. The user accounts can be domain accounts or members of a workgroup environment. The term "workgroup" in the product name refers to a group of the one to five users and not the workgroup environment. Only members of this group can connect to the server. By default, the user account used to install Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition becomes a member of this group. If you upgrade to Team Foundation Server Standard Edition, you can remove this group.

By default, these groups have the following permissions set for them. For a full description of each permission in the following list, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Project-Level Groups and Permissions

By default, the following groups exist at the project level:

• ProjectName\Project Administrators   Members of this group can administer all aspects of the team project, although they cannot create new projects.

• ProjectName\Contributors   Members of this group can contribute to the project in multiple ways, such as add, modify, and delete code, create and modify work items, and so on.

• ProjectName\Readers   Members of this group can view the project but not modify it.

• ProjectName\Build Services   Members of this group have build service permissions for the project. This group should only contain build service accounts and not user accounts or groups (unless that group only contains build service accounts).

Besides these project-level accounts, two of the server-level accounts also appear in every Team Foundation Server project:

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Administrators

  Note

  You cannot change the permissions for this server-level group.

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Valid Users

  Important Note:
  Do not remove or deny the View project-level information permission for this group.

By default, these groups have the following permissions set for them. For a full description of each permission in the following list, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Area-Level Groups and Permissions

By default, the following groups exist at the area level:

• ProjectName\Project Administrators

• ProjectName\Contributors

• ProjectName\Readers

• ProjectName\Build Services

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Administrators

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Valid Users

By default, these groups have the following permissions set for them. For a full description of each permission in the following list, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Iteration-Level Groups and Permissions

By default, the following groups exist at the iteration level:

• ProjectName\Project Administrators

• ProjectName\Contributors

• ProjectName\Readers

• ProjectName\Build Services

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Administrators

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Valid Users

By default, these groups have the following permissions set for them. For a full description of each permission in the following list, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Source Control Groups and Permissions

By default, the following groups exist at the source control level:

• ProjectName\Project Administrators

• ProjectName\Contributors

• ProjectName\Readers

• ProjectName\Build Services

• TeamFoundationServerName\Team Foundation Administrators

• TeamFoundationServerName\Service Accounts

By default, these groups have the following permissions set for them. For a full description of each permission in the following list, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Permissions Associated With the MSF for Agile Software Development Roles

If you created your team project using the MSF for Agile Software Development process template, you might want to assign users to groups that correspond with the roles for MSF for Agile Software Development. You can do this in one of two ways. You can assign users to the default group that most closely aligns to the permissions that are required for each role. Alternatively, you can create groups for each role, assign the appropriate permissions to that group, and then add the users who perform that role.

Assigning Users to Default Groups Based On Their MSF for Agile Software Development Roles

You can assign users to default groups based on their MSF for Agile Software Development roles. Although these groups do not directly correspond to each role, it is relatively simple to add users to these groups, and you do not have to create new groups and add permissions for the groups at the server, project, area, and source control levels. The disadvantage to this approach is that you lose some of the fine granularity of permission and control that you can have by adding groups specifically based on each role.

The following table provides suggestions for which default group best aligns with each MSF for Agile Software Development role. For more information about MSF for Agile Software Development and its roles, see the MSF for Agile Software Development Web site at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=55200.

Creating Groups That Correspond to MSF for Agile Software Development Roles and Assigning Permissions

You can create custom groups based on each MSF for Agile Software Development role and assign users to these groups. An advantage of creating these groups instead of using the default groups gives is that you have you more control over roles and permissions. The disadvantage to this approach is that you must create new groups and add permissions for the groups at the server, project, area, and source control levels.

Important Note:
You cannot manually create a custom group that has all the permissions of the Project Administrator or Team Foundation Administrator groups. For custom groups that require Project Administrator permissions, create custom groups in Active Directory or on the local computer and add those groups to the Project Administrators group.

The following table provides suggestions for which permissions are appropriate for each MSF for Agile Software Development role. For a full description of each permission, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Permissions Associated With the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Roles

If you created your team project using the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement process template, you might want to assign users to groups that correspond with the roles for MSF for CMMI Process Improvement. You can do this in one of two ways. You can assign the users to the default group that most closely aligns to the permissions that are required for each role. Alternatively, you can create groups for each role, assign the appropriate permissions to that group, and then add the users who perform that role.

For more information about MSF for CMMI Process Improvement and its roles, see the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=55203).

Assigning Users to Default Groups Based On Their MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Roles

You can assign users to default groups based on their MSF for CMMI Process Improvement roles. Although these groups do not directly correspond to each role, it is relatively simple to add users to these groups, and you do not have to create new groups and add permissions for the groups at the server, project, area, and source control levels. The disadvantage to this approach is that you lose some of the fine granularity of permission and control that you can have by adding groups specifically based on each role.

The following table provides suggestions for which default group best aligns with each MSF for CMMI Process Improvement role.

Creating Groups That Correspond To MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Roles and Assigning Permissions

You can create custom groups based on each MSF for CMMI Process Improvement role and assign users to these groups. These groups have much more granularity and control than just using the default groups. The disadvantage to this approach is that you must create new groups and add permissions for the groups at the server, project, area, and source control levels. Because MSF for CMMI Process Improvement has many roles, you should carefully consider what level of auditing, granularity, and control you need for your project before investing the time to create groups for each role.

Important Note:
You cannot manually create a custom group that has all the permissions of the Project Administrator or Team Foundation Administrator groups. For custom groups that require Project Administrator permissions, create custom groups in Active Directory or on the local computer and add those groups to the Project Administrators group.

The following table provides suggestions for which permissions are appropriate for each MSF for CMMI Process Improvement role. For a full description of each permission, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Set Team Foundation Server Administrator Permissions

How to: Set Team Foundation Server Project Lead Permissions

How to: Set Team Foundation Server Contributor Permissions

How to: Set Team Foundation Server Reader Permissions

How to: Create a Server-Level Group

How to: Create a Team Project Group

How to: Change Permissions for a Group or User

How to: View Permissions

Concepts

Adding and Removing Users from Groups

Team Foundation Server Permissions

Other Resources

Managing Groups

Managing Users

TFSSecurity Command-Line Utility Commands