Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN

February 2016

Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center

Understanding Visual Studio

Standard subscriptions (MSDN

Subscriptions)

 
  
2   |   Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions) 
 
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3 
Benefits and limitations ........................................................................................................................ 3 
Inventory your pre-production environment ..................................................................................... 4 
Visual Studio Standard subscription administration for large teams and 
external contractors .............................................................................................................................. 5 
Internal teams ......................................................................................................................................................................... 5 
External contractors and partners .................................................................................................................................. 6 
Track user assignment changes and process orders on schedule ..................................................... 6 
High watermark of usage .................................................................................................................................................. 6 
Open License and Open Value ........................................................................................................................................ 6 
Enterprise Agreements ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 
Microsoft Products and Services Agreement ............................................................................................................. 7 
Resources for Visual Studio Standard subscription administrators ................................................. 7 
Using the MSDN Subscription Administration portal ........................................................................ 8 
Access the MSDN Subscription Administration portal ....................................................................... 9 
Set up your MSDN Subscription Administration access ........................................................................................ 9 
Go to the MSDN Subscription Administration portal........................................................................................... 10 
Search for a Visual Studio subscription using agreement information ......................................................... 10 
Search for a Visual Studio subscription using subscriber information.......................................................... 11 
Access the MSDN Subscription Administration portal using the subscriptions 
option .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 
Viewing subscriber details .............................................................................................................................................. 14 
Open the Subscriber Search tab ....................................................................................................................................... 14 
For more information ....................................................................................................................................................... 15 
 
   

3 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

Introduction

This guide was created to help Visual Studio administrators better manage and

understand their Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (formerly known as MSDN

Subscriptions). It describes the Visual Studio administrator roles and responsibilities,

and provides tools and information to help fulfill them.

A Visual Studio administrator has four primary responsibilities:

1. Understand the benefits and limitations of Visual Studio Standard

subscriptions. Correctly understanding your benefits can enable you to

eliminate hardware costs by using cloud services, and reduce software costs

with per-user licenses for pre-production environments.

2. Assign Visual Studio subscriptions to specific, named individuals. Your

contract requires that Visual Studio subscriptions be assigned to specific

individuals. Use the Volume Licensing Services Center (VLSC) website to

manage users and provide them with access to their subscription benefits.

3. Accurately inventory your pre-production environment. This is essential to

ensure that all users who interact with Visual Studio-licensed software have

appropriate licenses with their own Visual Studio Standard subscription.

4. Track user assignment changes and acquire additional licenses on

schedule. Microsoft Volume Licensing Agreements give you flexibility in how

you use and assign Visual Studio Standard subscriptions. In return, you are

expected to track changes to software usage and user assignments and process

orders for additional users on the schedule outlined in their agreement.

If you have questions or need help, please contact Microsoft Volume Licensing

support for assistance.

Benefits and limitations

Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (formerly MSDN Subscriptions) allow

development team members to install and use software to design, develop, test,

evaluate, and demonstrate other software. Visual Studio software is not licensed for

production environments.

The following table provides detail on when Visual Studio Standard subscriptions

may be used:

Use

Guidance

User-based

licensing

MSDN OS, MSDN platforms, and all levels of

Visual Studio with MSDN are licensed on a per-

user basis. Each development team member that

will interact (install, configure, or access) with the

software included with these products requires

their own Visual Studio subscription.

4 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

Unlimited

installations

Each licensed user may install and use the

software on any number of devices to design,

develop, test, evaluate, and demonstrate software.

The exception is Microsoft Office, which is licensed

for one desktop. Visual Studio-licensed software

can be installed and used at work, home, school,

and on devices at a customer’s office or on

dedicated hardware hosted by a third party.

Production

environments

Visual Studio software is not licensed for

production environments, including any

environment accessed by end users for more than

acceptance testing or feedback, an environment

connecting to a production database, supporting

disaster recovery or production backup, or used

for production during peak periods of activity.

Exceptions to this include specific benefits for

subscription levels, outlined on the Visual Studio

subscriptions website.

License

reassignment

When a user leaves a team and no longer requires

a license, you may reassign the license if 90 days

have passed since the time of the original

assignment.

End

user exception

At the end of a software development project,

users typically review an application and, through

user acceptance testing (UAT) determine whether

it meets the criteria for release.

Team members such as a business sponsor or a

product manager can act as proxies for end users.

End users who do not have a Visual Studio

subscription may access the software for UAT if

use of the software otherwise complies with all

Visual Studio licensing terms. It is rare that

someone whose primary role is designing,

developing, or testing the software would also

qualify as an “end user.”

Inventory your pre-production

environment

Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (formerly known as MSDN Subscriptions)

simplify asset management by counting users rather than devices.

NOTE: Visual Studio administrators must assign Visual Studio subscriptions to

specific, named individuals. Naming conventions such as Dev1 or Dev2 are not

allowed.

Here are some ways to simplify the process of inventorying your pre-production

environment:

5 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

 Review your user assignments. The Microsoft MSDN Subscription

Administration Portal helps you track Visual Studio Standard subscription

(formerly MSDN Subscription) assignments. This portal is within the VLSC.

This guide will show you how to access it.

 Use Active Directory to list users. If you use Active Directory to manage

user access, you may be able to identify development and test users by their

directory membership.

 Use automated tools to inventory systems. You may also need to use a

software inventory tool to help manage your software assets and distinguish

pre-production environments from production ones. Customers using

Microsoft System Center create naming conventions to help automate this

part of the inventory process.

 Get help with manual reconciliation. Enlist your staff to help reconcile

your development and test users with your development and test

environment.

Visual Studio Standard subscription

administration for large teams and

external contractors

Visual Studio administrators are responsible for ensuring that each user who

interacts with Visual Studio software is appropriately licensed with their own Visual

Studio subscription.

Internal teams

Typically, modern software organizations include stakeholders from several groups.

Identify contacts from each group who can help you keep track of user inventory

and changes.

Every organization is different, but a typical list of teams involved in development

might include:

 Software engineering teams.

 Business teams, including product owners and business analysts.

 Project management teams.

 Quality teams, including QA staff and manual testers.

 IT operations, including pre-production and lab infrastructure managers.

6 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

External contractors and partners

External contractors may bring licenses to engage with your Visual Studio-licensed

environment. Microsoft Certified Partners may receive a number of free Visual

Studio subscriptions for their internal use. However, these subscriptions do not

cover revenue-generating activities such as developing custom software for a

customer. Ask partners to send you a certified letter that explains the licenses they

are providing and those that you need to procure.

Track user assignment changes and

process orders on schedule

Visual Studio administrators are expected to track Visual Studio Standard

subscription usage and process orders for any increases in usage on the schedule

outlined in their Microsoft Volume License Agreement.

High watermark of usage

Your company's obligation to purchase Visual Studio subscriptions takes effect

immediately when:

 A license is assigned to a user.

 A user interacts with Visual Studio software.

Your complete purchase obligation is determined by the high watermark of usage.

This watermark is the high point either in daily user assignments or in users

interacting with Visual Studio software, whichever is higher.

1. Visual Studio administrators may increase the high watermark of usage by

assigning Visual Studio subscriptions to individuals.

2. Visual Studio administrators may reassign Visual Studio Standard subscriptions

from one subscriber to another if 90 days have passed since the time of the

original assignment. To avoid an artificially high watermark, always do this by

removing the existing subscription before adding the new one.

3. Visual Studio administrators may change the assigned subscription level for an

individual, which would constitute a decrease in one assignment and an

increase in another. When you lower a subscriber’s assigned subscription level,

the individual must immediately stop using and uninstall anything that is in the

higher-level subscription.

Open License and Open Value

You may be assigning subscriptions through another Microsoft Volume Licensing

program like Microsoft Open License or Open Value. If so, then you must process

7 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

your order for additional users during the month in which users (employees or

external contractors) begin interacting with Visual Studio-licensed software.

Enterprise Agreements

Microsoft Enterprise Agreements (EA) give you flexibility in how you use and license

Visual Studio software over time. Visual Studio administrators must make an annual

True-Up order to bring their software licenses up to the high watermark of usage

established during the EA period.

Microsoft Products and Services Agreement

The Microsoft Products and Service Agreement (MPSA) is a licensing agreement that

provides a consolidated licensing agreement for all your software, online services,

and Software Assurance purchases. MPSA replaces the Select Plus licensing program

(retired July 1, 2015). Although no new agreements can be created on Select Plus,

you retain all licensing rights and Software Assurance coverage for the products

purchased under your current Select Plus agreement.

Customers with an MPSA agreement:

 Must use the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center to manage their volume

licensing.

 Can still use the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) to manage volume

licensing under other Microsoft agreements.

 Have access to a new portal for administering Visual Studio Standard

subscriptions.

For additional information on understanding and managing Visual Studio Standard

subscriptions under an MPSA, see the MPSA MSDN Administrator Guide.

Resources for Visual Studio Standard

subscription administrators

Here are additional links and resources for Visual Studio Standard subscription

administrators:

 Manage non-MPSA licenses: Sign in to Volume Licensing Service Center

 Visual Studio (formerly MSDN) Licensing

 Visual Studio subscriptions overview

 Compare Visual Studio subscription benefits

 Visual Studio subscriptions (formerly MSDN) help

8 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

For a complete explanation of licensing requirements for common deployment

scenarios, see the Visual Studio 2015 Licensing White Paper.

Using the MSDN Subscription

Administration portal

The MSDN Subscription Administration portal gives you a central location for

managing your Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (formerly MSDN Subscriptions)

and allows you to:

 Assign Visual Studio Standard subscriptions to your organization’s end users

 Change benefit assignment and contact information

 View summaries of license and benefit assignments

 Change Visual Studio subscription levels for your users

 Allocate, track, and manage media assignments

NOTE: The MSDN Subscription Administration portal is a section within the VLSC.

Keep this in mind when you use the MSDN Subscription Administration portal:

 Visual Studio subscriptions are licensed per user. Each subscriber can use

the software on as many computers as needed for development and testing.

 Leave all the component benefits (Subscriber Downloads, Technical

Support incidents, Priority Support in MSDN Forums, and MSDN Online

Chat) selected when assigning a subscription. If you make Subscriber

Downloads unavailable, subscribers cannot access the Visual Studio

subscriptions portal. This will prevent them from downloading software or

accessing e-learning, Microsoft Azure, Visual Studio Team Services, and

other benefits that may be included with their subscription.

 Assign only one subscription level for each subscriber, corresponding to

the Visual Studio subscription your organization purchased. If you have

subscribers with more than one subscription level assigned to them, edit

their settings so that they only have one.

 A subscriber’s subscription level will need to be updated when the

subscription is upgraded (after the purchase of a “step-up” license) or

renewed at a lower level.

 Do not share subscriptions between subscribers. You must assign a

subscription to anyone who uses all or part of the subscription benefits

(software for development and testing, Microsoft Azure, e-learning, etc.).

9 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

Access the MSDN Subscription

Administration portal

To access the portal, your organization’s VLSC Online Administrator must assign a

Subscription Manager role to you. Your Administrator must assign permissions to

your business email address before you attempt to register for access to the VLSC

site. If you are a VLSC Online Administrator, you will automatically be able to use the

MSDN Subscription Administration portal.

Questions? See VLSC Frequently Asked Questions.

Set up your MSDN Subscription Administration access

You can skip this step if you are already registered on VLSC and have the correct

permissions. If this is the first time you are accessing the VLSC, then you will see a

registration screen asking you to provide your business email address.

1. Go to the VLSC.

2. To begin the registration process, select Sign In.

3. Type your Microsoft account and password, and then select Sign In.

4. Type your business email address, confirm the Business E-mail fields, and then

select Submit.

IMPORTANT: You must type the exact business email address that your Online

Administrator associated with your VLSC Subscriptions Manager permissions.

5. You will see a screen that acknowledges receipt of the business email address

you provided. Follow the on-screen instructions to validate your email address.

10 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

6. Go to your inbox and open the message from the VLSC.

7. Select the link in the message to confirm your ownership of the business email

address.

Go to the MSDN Subscription Administration portal

1. Go to the VLSC.

2. To begin the registration process, select Sign In.

3. Type your Microsoft account and password, and then select Sign In.

From the VLSC homepage, there are two ways to access the MSDN

Subscription Administration portal. When you select Subscriptions in the top

navigation menu, two choices appear on the submenu: MSDN Search and

Subscriptions.

Search for a Visual Studio subscription using agreement information

1. On the main navigation menu, select Subscriptions.

2. From the Subscriptions drop-down menu, select MSDN Search. The MSDN

Subscription Administration search page appears.

11 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

IMPORTANT: Some fields will only return search results if the input you provide is an

exact match for the information they contain. On the Agreement search screen,

Agreement number and Public Customer Number each require an exact match.

However, neither of these fields is required.

3. To search for an agreement, select the Search by agreement information

option.

4. Select Search.

5. When the results from your search appears, select an Agreement # or Public

Customer # to view detailed subscription information for the agreement.

The agreement information will display in the Agreement area of the MSDN

Subscription Administration portal.

Search for a Visual Studio subscription using subscriber information

1. On the main navigation menu, select Subscriptions.

2. From the Subscriptions drop-down menu, select MSDN Search. The MSDN

Subscription Administration search page appears.

12 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

IMPORTANT: Some fields will only return search results if the input you provide is an

exact match for the information they contain. On the Subscriber search screen,

Subscriber ID and Email Address each require an exact match. However, none of these

fields is a required field.

3. To search for an agreement using subscriber information, select the option to

Search by subscriber information.

4. Select Search.

5. When the results of your search appear, select an Agreement # or Public

Customer to view the detailed subscriber information for the agreement.

The agreement information will display in the Agreement area of the MSDN

Subscription Administration portal.

NOTE: When you search using subscriber information, the portal will display up to a

maximum of 5,000 agreements in the search results.

Access the MSDN Subscription Administration portal using the

subscriptions option

1. After you sign in to the VLSC Home page, select Subscriptions.

2. Select Subscriptions from the drop down menu.

3. Go to the section titled MSDN Subscriptions. Select Click here to visit the

Relationship Summary and select a License ID to manage your MSDN

Subscriptions.

13 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

4. The Relationship Summary page opens. Select a Licensing ID with the Visual

Studio subscriptions you want to manage.

5. After the License Details page opens, select the link next to Manage MSDN

Subscriptions.

6. The MSDN Subscription Administration portal opens.

NOTE: The MSDN Subscription Administration portal is a section within the VLSC. It is

not a separate website.

14 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

NOTE: If you previously purchased either Visual Studio Premium with MSDN or

Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN, you will see a notice indicating the change to

Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN.

Viewing subscriber details

Once you have selected an agreement, you can use the Subscriber Search tab to

view details about individual subscribers. The Subscriber Search tab is collapsed by

default.

Open the Subscriber Search tab

1. After you select an agreement, select the Subscriber Search tab.

2. The Subscriptions page appears with the Search area hidden. To open the

Search area, select the arrow

15 | Understanding Visual Studio Standard subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions)

3. From this screen, you can:

 View and edit the subscriber’s details by selecting the subscriber’s last

name.

 Remove a subscriber by selecting the check box next to the subscriber(s),

and then selecting Remove Subscribers.

 Resend an email invitation to the subscriber by selecting the box next to the

subscriber’s name, and then Resend Invitation. More details about the

invitation email are in step 8 of the “Assign a Subscription from an

Agreement” section in the Managing Visual Studio subscriptions (MSDN

Subscriptions) guide.

 View other subscribers that are not visible by doing one of the following:

o Export the entire subscriber list to a CSV file

o Sort your search results within the subscriber list

o Use the Search area to narrow the search results

For more information

For more information about how to use the MSDN Subscription Administration

portal, see the guide titled Managing Visual Studio subscriptions (MSDN

Subscriptions) on the VLSC training and resources page.