# Restricting Access to Specific ADO Projects

**Prerequisite:** The Arnica application user should **not** be an organization-level admin, as Microsoft grants unconditional access to all ADO projects within an organization to org admins. As a best practice, create a dedicated application user for Arnica within the ADO organization and assign access only to the necessary ADO projects.

To restrict Arnica's integration user to specific ADO projects, follow these steps:

1. Login to ADO with a user that have **Org-level Admin** permissions
2. Click on the relevant ADO organization, and then "**Organization settings**"
3. Under "**Security**" click on "**Permissions**", then click on the "**Users**" tab
4. Locate the Arnica service account, click on it, and then click on the "**Member of**" tab
5.
6. Click on the project you'd like to be excluded, and then click on “**Project Settings**” at the lower left side of the screen
7. Under “**Project Settings**" -> "**General**” -> “**Permissions**” -> “**Users**” -> Click on the Arnica Service Account, a list of permissions will be listed
8. Change all of the permissions to "Deny"

Additional Microsoft Documentation references:

1. [Use security groups to manage users and groups](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/security/add-remove-manage-user-group-security-group?view=azure-devops\&tabs=preview-page)
2. [Project-level permissions](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/security/change-project-level-permissions?view=azure-devops\&tabs=preview-page)
3. [Add users or groups to a team or project](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/security/add-users-team-project?view=azure-devops\&tabs=preview-page)
4. [Security groups, service accounts, and permissions reference](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/security/permissions?view=azure-devops\&tabs=preview-page#permissions)
5. [User and permissions management FAQs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/accounts/faq-user-and-permissions-management?view=azure-devops)


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