Error "...needs the following permission(s) to perform this action: Edit collection-level information" changing owner of VSO account

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Scenario: You are the owner of a Visual Studio Online account. You want to change the owner of that account. You try and see an error like this:

"Access Denied: XXXXX needs the following permission(s) to perform this action: Edit collection-level information"

Fix: Check your group membership. You can see this by… 

 • Logging in to https://<ACCOUNT>visualstudio.com/DefaultCollection/_admin/_security
• Click USERS in the upper-left
• Click on the account owner
• Click MEMBER OF on the right

In order to change the account owner you need to be a member of PCA (Project Collection Administrators) and TFA (Team Foundation Administrators). It is likely you are not a member of the latter, in which case the only resolution currently is to contact us here are support*. We will add you to the TFA group manually. In the future any member of the PCA group will be able to change ownership of a VSO account, but for now only the owner can do it. 

 

 --Trevor

*Visit <www.visualstudio.com/support/support-overview-vs> and click the "Visual Studio Online" tile in section 3 ("Answer wasn't there? Talk to us")