What are Permission Groups in SharePoint 2013/2016/Online

SharePoint Online training courses

This SharePoint tutorial we will discuss, what are permission groups in SharePoint 2013/2016 or SharePoint Online. Also, we will discuss:

  • What are SharePoint 2013 permission groups?
  • What are default permission groups in the SharePoint site?
  • How to add additional users to existing SharePoint groups?
  • How to create a new SharePoint group?
  • What is the difference between SharePoint groups and active directory groups?
  • How to check a particular user’s permission in a SharePoint site?
Table of Contents show

SharePoint permission groups

SharePoint Groups are security groups that can have a collection of users and you can assign permission to them.

By default, SharePoint creates some groups when you create a site in SharePoint.

  • Site Visitors
  • Site Members
  • Site Owners

But based on the site template it may create additional groups also.

Add user to existing SharePoint group

Now, let us see how to add an user to an existing SharePoint group.

To add a user to the SharePoint group follow below steps:

Click on the Settings icon and then go to the SharePoint site settings page.

Then in the site settings page, click on Site permissions link which is under User and Permissions. This will open the group names, click on the group into which you want to add the user. This will open group details.

There click on New -> Add Users like below:

Add user to sharepoint 2013 group
Add user to sharepoint 2013 group

Then put the user name in the share dialog box like below:

SharePoint 2016 add user to sharepoint group
SharePoint 2016 add user to sharepoint group

How to Create a SharePoint Group

To create a SharePoint group, go to the Site Permissions page as we have gone before. Then click on Create Groups icon as shown in the fig below:

Create sharepoint 2013 permission group
Create sharepoint 2013 permission group

In the create group page, give a name for the group, description for the group. Then it will take the logged in user as the group owner.

Then choose who can view the membership of the group as well as who can edit the membership of the group.

You can leave as it is in the Membership Requests section.

Then choose what permission you want to assign in the Give Group Permission to this Site section.

SharePoint 2016 Create SharePoint permission group
SharePoint 2016: Create SharePoint permission group

Then click on create which will create the SharePoint group.

Create sharepoint permission group
Create sharepoint permission group

SharePoint Groups and Active Directory (AD) groups

We have to consider few points to decide whether I should create an active directory group or a SharePoint group.

Check the below article for more: SharePoint Groups or Active Directory (AD) Groups which should we prefer?

Check user permission of a particular user in SharePoint

We can easily check the permission of a SharePoint user what access s/he has. For this go to the site permissions page and then click on Check Permissions as shown in the fig below:

Check user permission sharepoint 2013
Check user permission sharepoint 2013

Then in the Check Permissions dialog box, put the User name or email address whose permissions you want to check and then click on the Check Now button like below:

Check user permission sharepoint online
Check user permission sharepoint online

It will display the permission details for the user.

Read some SharePoint 2013 tutorials:

This SharePoint tutorial, we will discuss what are SharePoint groups? Also, we discussed:

  • SharePoint permission groups
  • Add user to existing SharePoint group
  • How to Create a SharePoint Group
  • SharePoint Groups and Active Directory (AD) groups
  • Check user permission of a particular user in SharePoint
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