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Azure DevOps Services
When the organization owner and all project collection administrators are inactive, the organization is considered orphaned. An orphaned organization doesn't have an administrator, so there's no way to transfer administrator rights to another user.
Tip
You can use AI to help with this task later in this article, or see Enable AI assistance with Azure DevOps MCP Server to get started.
But, organizations connected to Microsoft Entra ID can transfer ownership to an active user.
Note
If your organization isn't considered orphaned and you want to change the owner, see Change organization owner.
Prerequisites
| Category | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Permissions | Azure DevOps Administrator in Microsoft Entra ID. If using Privileged Identity Management, the Azure DevOps Administrator should be of type Active. |
Note
Claim ownership of organizations only when the current owner and all members of the Project Collection Administrators group are inactive in the backing Microsoft Entra ID. Azure DevOps and Microsoft Entra ID define inactive user accounts the same way. For more information, see What are inactive user accounts?.
Find your Azure DevOps Administrator
The Azure DevOps Administrator can change the Azure DevOps owner to claim ownership of the target Azure DevOps organization.
Note
Any changes to role membership might take up to an hour to propagate to Azure DevOps.
When your Azure DevOps Administrator is a member of the target organization
When your Azure DevOps Administrator in Microsoft Entra ID is a member of the target Azure DevOps organization, do the following steps.
As the Azure DevOps Administrator, sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}).Select Organization settings > Overview.
In the warning message, select Change owner.
Select a user from the dropdown menu, or search for a user by entering the user's name, provide a short justification, and then select Change.
A notification of the ownership transfer with your provided justification gets sent to all Azure DevOps Administrators in your Microsoft Entra ID.
When your Azure DevOps Administrator isn't a member of the target organization
When your Azure DevOps Administrator in Microsoft Entra ID isn't a member of the target Azure DevOps organization, do the following steps:
Sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}) using the credentials granted to the Azure DevOps Administrator role in Microsoft Entra ID.An error page appears where you can claim ownership.
Select Claim Ownership, provide a short justification, and then select Claim Ownership once again.
A notification of the ownership transfer with your provided justification gets sent to all Azure DevOps Administrators in your Microsoft Entra ID.
You're redirected to the organization overview page. To transfer ownership to another user, see Change organization owner.
Use AI to resolve orphaned organizations
If you have the Azure DevOps MCP Server configured, you can use AI assistants to investigate orphaned organizations and gather ownership details using natural language prompts. The MCP Server provides your AI assistant with secure access to your Azure DevOps data, allowing you to check organization ownership, list administrators, and verify Microsoft Entra connections without navigating through the web interface.
Example prompts for resolving orphaned organizations
| Task | Example prompt |
|---|---|
| Check organization owner | Who is the current owner of the <organization-name> organization? |
| List administrators | List all Project Collection Administrators in the <organization-name> organization |
| Check Microsoft Entra connection | Is the <organization-name> organization connected to Microsoft Entra ID? |
| List organization members | Show me all users in the <organization-name> organization and their last access dates |
| Verify your role | What is my role and permissions in the <organization-name> organization? |
| List all organizations | List all Azure DevOps organizations I have access to |
Tip
If you're using Visual Studio Code, agent mode is especially helpful for investigating organization ownership and identifying inactive administrators.
- To avoid using stale or cached data from previous queries, add to your prompt,
Do not use previously fetched data.