Our admin is unable to get into the account (myself with another email) and the current entra id & dev ops admin only has a stakeholder role on the organization despite being an admin on the project. We need to enable billing.

Question

Our admin is unable to get into the account (myself with another email) and the current entra id & dev ops admin only has a stakeholder role on the organization despite being an admin on the project. We need to enable billing.

Shehryar Malik 0

Hello Azure DevOps Support Team,

I am writing to request a manual database override to change the Organization Owner attribute for our Azure DevOps organization. The organization has become inaccessible following a recent migration connecting it to our Microsoft Entra ID tenant.

Core Problem: The self-service "Claim Ownership" routine is completely unavailable to us. We are hard-blocked by a HTTP 403 Forbidden page instead of a 401 Unauthorized page, meaning the automated workflow is not offering the option to take ownership. This occurs because the previous administrator's metadata (Removed PII) is still flagged as active within the organization, despite being blocked from authenticating via the new Entra ID configuration.

Authorization & Role Verification: I am submitting this request using my corporate identity, which holds both the Global Administrator and Azure DevOps Administrator directory roles within our Entra ID tenant.

Organization Details:

Azure DevOps Organization URL: Removed PII
Target Account for New Owner Allocation: Removed PII
Locked-Out Current Owner Identity (MSA/Guest): Removed PII
Affected Admin Identity Keeping Org Active: Removed PII

Action Requested: Please manually reassign the Organization Owner attribute of https://azure.com to the verified corporate Microsoft Entra account: Removed PII.

Thank you, [Your Name] Global Administrator & Azure DevOps Administrator

Santhosh Kumar Machukuri 0 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-05-16T16:40:04.4+00:00
Hi Shehryar Malik,

It looks like you’ve run into two related issues: you can’t use the self-service “Claim ownership” flow (you’re getting a 403 because the old MSA is still marked active) and you need to make sure the new owner can manage billing. Here’s what we can do:

Manual override of the Organization Owner • Because the previous owner account is still attached, the 403 is expected and blocks the self-serve workflow. • As a Global Administrator + Azure DevOps Administrator in your Entra tenant, you already have the right directory role, but the org metadata needs a DB override from our side. • I’ve escalated this to the Azure DevOps support team to clear out the stale owner entry and set your shopcontroller.com account as the new Organization Owner. To speed that up, can you confirm: • Your Azure DevOps organization name or GUID (you can find this in Organization settings → Overview) • Your Microsoft Entra tenant ID • The objectID (in Entra) or exact email of the new owner: ****RemovedPII.com • The blocked MSA/guest UPN or objectID that’s currently stuck (****PII.com)

Grant billing access on the Azure subscription Once you’re Organization Owner, you’ll still need Azure subscription rights to turn on billing for your DevOps org. Make sure your shopcontroller.com account has at least the Owner or Contributor role at the subscription level:

Sign in to the Azure portal as a user with subscription-owner rights.

Browse to Subscriptions → select your subscription → Access control (IAM) → + Add → Role: Owner (or Contributor) → Select members → search for your user → Review + assign.

Have your user accept the invite if they aren’t yet in the directory.

After that, go back to Azure DevOps → Organization settings → Billing and enable your billing connection.

Let me know once you’ve shared those Org/tenant details, or if you hit any errors adding the subscription role. We’ll get that manual override done and then you’ll have full ownership + billing control!

References

• Look up Azure DevOps Administrator (claim orphaned orgs): https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/devops/organizations/security/look-up-azure-devops-administrator?view=azure-devops

• Resolve orphaned organization (claim ownership): https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/devops/accounts/resolve-orphaned-organization?view=azure-devops

• Give a user access to manage billing: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/devops/organizations/billing/set-up-billing-for-your-organization-vs?view=azure-devops#give-a-user-access-to-manage-billing.
Salamat Shah 420 Reputation points MVP

2026-05-16T21:32:15.7566667+00:00
Only Microsoft backend team can override owner in DB.

Root cause

Old owner still marked active internally

Entra ID migration broke authentication → ownership workflow fails
Raja Pothuraju 47,640 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2026-05-18T09:33:25.45+00:00

Hello @Shehryar Malik,

Are you restricted only to the Azure DevOps organization? Can you confirm if you’re able to log into the Azure Portal without any issues as a Global Administrator?

If the issue is limited to Azure DevOps, I’ll reach out to the DevOps team to assist. Please provide the following information over private message if you’re experiencing problems only with DevOps login.

Azure DevOps Organization URL