Introduction
Subscriptions are now managed via a new portal called the Visual Studio Subscriptions Administration Portal. Typically, the primary or notices contact for your organization's volume licensing agreement completes this process. If not, the following information helps you gain access to managing subscriptions. In this post, we are going to learn how to onboard to the new Visual Studio Administration Portal and how to set up administrator access.
How to Onboard to the New Visual Studio Administration Portal
Microsoft recently presented the Visual Studio Administration Portal for Volume Licensing Customers (Image 1). On this portal, administrators will manage your organization's Visual Studio subscriptions by unlocking user benefits, software, services, and support to fuel your team's innovation.
Image 1 - Visual Studio Administration Portal
If your Public Customer Number (PCN) was created before August 27th, 2018
You will need to take some actions to gain access to the portal. To get started, as the agreement's Primary Notices Contact, you will need to sign in using the unique link that you received via email (Image 2).
Image 2 - Link in the agreement's Primary Notices Contact
From there, you will need to input your organization's PCN. With that, you will become a Super Admin, allowing you to control administrator access to managing subscriptions (Image 3).
Image 3 - Enter your PCN
After you have entered the PCN, you will be able to add other administrators to help with the assignment and management of the Visual Studio subscriptions (Image 4).
Image 4 - Add other administrators for management of the Visual Studio subscriptions
You can assign them to a Super Admin role by checking the checkbox for Super Admin shown in the popup window, like you, or just an Administrator role. Once you have set up your administrators, they will receive an email letting them know that they can access the portal and begin managing subscriptions (already displayed in Image 2). It is that simple.
Locate Your Organization's PCN
Need help locating your organization's PCN? To find it, sign in to the Volume Licensing Service Center at microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter. Navigate to Subscriptions, and select Visual Studio Subscriptions from the dropdown. The number will be located halfway down the page below the Agreement Public Customer Number results (Image 5).
Image 5 - Visual Studio Subscriptions
With an open license, the agreement's primary contact, also known as the Business Email listed on the OLP order, will have direct access to the Visual Studio Subscription Administration Portal (Image 6).
Image 6 - Visual Studio Subscription Administration Portal
If you are a partner managing subscriptions for your customer through an open license, you will have to complete the following steps to gain access. Sign in to manage.visualstudio.com and click on New Open License. Then, enter the authorization and license number, as well as the business email of the customer. Select the checkbox and click on the Submit button (Image 7).
Image 7.1 - New Open Licence
You are all set.
Locate Your Authorization Number
Don't know your authorization number? Locate it by signing in to the Volume Licensing Service Center. Go to Licenses, then Relationship Summary. Locate the license number, and on that same row, under Open, you will find the authorization number (Image 8).
Image 8 - Locate the authorization number
If you have any challenges, check out the FAQs on https://aka.ms/vs-admin or contact Support at visualstudio.com/subscriptions/support.
Conclusion
I hope that this post helped Visual Studio Subscription administrators understand the importance of their role, as well as how to assign and manage their Visual Studio Subscriptions, ensuring that their organization gets the best value out of its Visual Studio Subscription purchases.
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