Updating Job Creator to Service Principal

[ramsai]

Regarding data governance best practices: I have jobs created by a user who has left the organization, and I need to change the job creator to a service principal. Currently, it seems the only option is to clone the job and update it. Is this the recommended approach, or is there an alternative?

[stbjelcevic]

Only workspace admins can edit the job owner, and exactly one owner must be assigned. The owner can be a user or a service principal. I recommend also updating run-as to be the service principal as well.

In the job’s details panel, click Edit permissions, select the service principal, and set Owner; then Save. Only workspace admins can change the job owner.

In the workspace sidebar, open Jobs & Pipelines, select the job, then in Job details click the pencil next to Run as, search for the service principal, and Save.

[ramsai]

I know that we can change the owner to a service principal and keep 'run as', but the main point is: is it possible to change the creator name?

[stbjelcevic]

Ah, I overlooked the part about "creator" - my bad. Creator doesn't really have any implications on running/ownership. @nayan_wylde gave a great answer, in my opinion.

[nayan_wylde · Accepted solution]

In Databricks, the creator field for a job is immutable—it’s used as part of an audit trail, so you cannot change it once set. Databricks support confirms this, and their recommended workaround is to clone the job, which creates a new job under the correct creator (“service principal”) with identical configuration.

https://github.com/anhassan/Automated-Switching-of-Databricks-Job-Ownership

While you can't change the creator, you can effectively transfer ownership by adjusting resource permissions:

Grant the service principal "IS OWNER" permissions on the job using the Jobs API.

Adjust the job’s “Run as” user so it executes using the service principal identity.

Confirm the service principal has all necessary cluster and notebook permissions.

There's even a GitHub project that automates this process—registering the service principal, granting manage rights, enabling run permissions, and reassigning ownership.

[Sanjeeb2024]

I agree with @nayan_wylde , for auditing, creator is important and it should in immutable by nature.