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Azure DevOps Services
An organization becomes orphaned when the organization owner and all Project Collection Administrators are inactive. Because no active administrator exists, you can't transfer ownership through the normal process. However, if the organization is connected to Microsoft Entra ID, an Azure DevOps Administrator in Microsoft Entra ID can claim ownership and assign it to an active user.
Note
If your organization isn't orphaned and you want to change the owner, see Change organization owner.
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.
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. |
Important
Only claim ownership when the current owner and all members of the Project Collection Administrators group are inactive in Microsoft Entra ID. For the definition of inactive, see What are inactive user accounts?.
Find your Azure DevOps Administrator
If you don't know who has the Azure DevOps Administrator role in your Microsoft Entra tenant, see Look up the Azure DevOps Administrator.
Note
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
Complete the following steps when the Azure DevOps Administrator is a member of the target organization.
Sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}) by using the Azure DevOps Administrator account.Select Organization settings > Overview.
In the warning message, select Change owner.
Select a user from the dropdown menu or search by name.
Enter a short justification, and then select Change.
The ownership transfer notification with your justification is sent to all Azure DevOps Administrators in your Microsoft Entra tenant.
When your Azure DevOps Administrator isn't a member of the target organization
Complete the following steps when the Azure DevOps Administrator isn't a member of the target organization.
Sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}) by using the Azure DevOps Administrator account.An error page appears because the account isn't a member of the organization.
Select Claim Ownership.
Enter a short justification, and then select Claim Ownership again.
A notification of the ownership transfer with your justification is sent to all Azure DevOps Administrators in your Microsoft Entra tenant. 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, so you can 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.