VISUAL STUDIO SUBSCRIPTIONS ADMINISTRATOR HANDBOOK ADMINISTRATOR HANDBOOK z Table of contents 2 3 5 Editor’s note Assigning Visual Why should I assign Visual Studio subscriptions Studio subscriptions? • Quick start • Super admin capabilities Editor’s note 7-16 17 20-21 This guide is designed to help you get What’s in a Visual Administrator Helpful links started managing subscriptions quickly, Studio subscription? best practices while providing a clear explanation of • Visual Studio • For admins what’s in a Visual Studio subscription • Azure dev/test individual credits • For subscribers and why assigning subscriptions is • Azure dev/test pricing • About subscriptions • DevOps important to your role. It also includes • Software & downloads • Services a comprehensive list of resources and • Training • Support support tools in one place to help you do what you need to do. Support tools in one place to help you do what HANDBOOK ADMINISTRATOR you need to do VISUAL STUDIO SUBSCRIPTIONS SUBSCRIPTIONS STUDIO VISUAL Oh Hello! 02 Assigning Visual To take a tour of the portal, check out the video for new 4 admins on the Visual Studio subscriptions administration page Studio Subscriptions at: https://aka.ms/VSSAdmin. Quick Start – Getting set up You can also read about all the functionalities in our administrator docs: https://aka.ms/AssignVSS This section is intended to help you get signed in and quickly begin managing Visual Studio subscriptions in four short steps. There are additional resources available in the helpful links section. In addition to assigning Visual Studio subscriptions, super admins have more responsibilities and control over what happens in the Visual Studio Go to the Visual Studio subscriptions administration page at: Subscriptions Administration Portal. They can: https://aka.ms/VSSAdmin, choose “Manage subscriptions” and sign in. 1 • Assign other super admins or administrators Bookmark https://manage.visualstudio.com for future use • Set agreement-level preferences to auto-populate Visual Studio 2 to take you directly to the portal. subscription assignment information such as subscription level, language, download access, etc. Read more about how to do this at: • If you can’t sign in, a super admin on your agreement will be able to add you. https://aka.ms/VSSAdminPrefs For information about being added, check out the FAQ section on the Visual Studio subscriptions administration page referenced above. To watch how to onboard as a super admin, check out the video for new administrators on the Visual Studio subscriptions administration page Once in the portal, you will be able to see available and assigned Visual Studio referenced above. You can also read about it in our administrator docs: 3 subscriptions for your organization’s agreement. Portal functionalities depend https://aka.ms/VSSAdminOnboarding upon your role, but all roles can: • Add, edit and delete individual users • Bulk add and bulk edit users using a simple Excel template • Assign Visual Studio subscriptions using Azure Active Directory (AAD) groups (available for organizations with Enterprise agreements) Read more at: https://aka.ms/AADgroupDocs • View reporting about Visual Studio subscription assignments and track maximum assignment levels 04 “Visual Studio Why should I assign subscriptions Visual Studio subscriptions? include so much more beyond the • Improve productivity – the benefits and services included in Visual Studio subscriptions provide a comprehensive set of resources to help your developers IDE to support work faster, smarter and deploy efficiently developers.” • Foster developer growth – the technical and professional training included in a subscription enables your developers to learn while Azure dev/test individual credits help them explore and experiment with using Azure • Realize your org’s investment – ensure your organization gets the most value out of their investment by assigning Visual Studio subscriptions Visual Studio helps your developers write code quickly, analyze, test, collaborate and deploy their applications. But there is so much more included in a Visual Studio subscription that doesn’t come with the Visual Studio license. This guide will explain all the different benefits included in detail. Why is my role important? Although your developers may use Visual Studio as a standalone license in your organization, without you to assign subscriptions to them, they won’t have access to all the benefits that are available. By assigning a subscription, you’re unlocking services and benefits for your developers allowing them to accelerate their growth, be more productive, and stay up to date with emerging trends and technologies. 06 Visual Studio What’s in a subscription? Visual Studio subscriptions ensure that your developers always have access to the latest version of Visual Studio on PC and Mac, in addition When people hear the name Visual Studio, they usually to all the previous versions. think of the Integrated Development Environment or IDE. But Visual Studio subscriptions include so much more Visual Studio Enterprise and Visual Studio Enterprise for Mac are the beyond the IDE to support developers. tools your developers can use to build applications. Visual Studio is an integrated, end-to-end solution for teams of any size with demanding quality and scale needs. In addition to writing code, Visual Studio • Tools – Powerful software that enable enables them to analyze, debug, test, collaborate and deploy. developers to innovate They can increase their productivity with IntelliTest, Live Unit Testing, and • Azure – An opportunity to learn and Live Dependency Validation which helps them deliver code with quality, explore cloud possibilities accuracy and speed. This enables them to spend more time writing code • Software Downloads – Access to thousands of by infusing code quality right from the first line. software downloads for development and test • Services – Access to apps and services that support IntelliTrace, Snapshot Debugger, Code Map, Xamarin Profiler and different unique developer scenarios Xamarin Inspector help your developers understand the root-cause of • Training – Resources to help developers improve issues quickly. They can fix bugs faster with these advanced debugging their technical and professional skills and diagnostic tools whether they are working on desktop, web, cloud, • Support – Help resolving any technical or mobile apps. issues along the way Visual Studio is cloud-connected helping your developers stay up to- date and in the know, and more efficiently with built-in and downloaded We’ll go more in depth for each of the benefits in the features. It also enables them to collaborate seamlessly without leaving following pages. Depending on which Visual Studio the development environment with Visual Studio Live Share. Live Share subscription your subscribers have, not all benefits are enables your developers to collaboratively edit and debug code in real- included. This handbook shares what is in the Visual time with anyone using their favorite tools. Pair programming, code Studio Enterprise Subscription with GitHub Enterprise reviews, and more are made easy with shared servers, terminals, diffs, because it’s the most comprehensive subscription and comments. available. But for a comparison of what’s included in the other Visual Studio subscription levels, visit the benefits page at:https://aka.ms/VSSBenefits What’s in a subscription? 08 Azure dev/test individual credits Azure dev/test pricing Get up to $150 in dev/test individual credits to use to learn and Your Visual Studio subscribers are eligible to receive discounted rates on experiment in Azure. This means that your developers can try running Azure to support their ongoing development and testing. They also receive virtual machines, storing data, and developing serverless apps in the cloud use rights of their subscription software on Azure to help their cloud with Azure. There’s no credit card required, so as an admin, Azure credits go farther. There are a few dev/test pricing options available you don’t have to worry about unexpected charges going to your depending on your organization. purchasing department. When your Visual Studio subscribers reach the monthly cap for their credits, their Azure services will stop until their Enterprise dev/test next monthly credits are added. If you choose to, you can remove the spending cap by adding a credit card. If your organization has an Enterprise agreement with an Azure subscription, you can get discounted pricing on Azure through our Enterprise dev/ The $150 limit resets automatically each month while their Visual Studio test offer. This is a specific Azure subscription type created in your Azure subscription is active, so you don’t need to do anything to make sure enrollment portal that automatically provides the Azure discounted rates. that they get their credits. Pay-As-You-Go Dev/test Curious to find out how far your subscribers’ $150 will stretch in Azure? There are several different scenarios on our Azure for Visual Studio If your organization doesn’t have an Azure Enterprise agreement, this is subscriptions webpage. For each scenario, the pricing calculator auto- a great way to get discounted Azure dev/test pricing. You can set this up populates the cost so your subscribers know exactly how far their through your Azure account with credit card billing (invoicing is credits will go. also available). To see for yourself, just visit our Azure for Visual Studio subscribers The Enterprise dev/test