Microsoft 365 Developer Program: September 2023 updates
We recently conducted an end-to-end review of the Microsoft 365 Developer Program to help us identify challenges our customers face. We have started to address the feedback provided. Here, we highlight the recent updates and share ideas for new features and benefits.
Enhanced Visual Studio integration
One of the benefits of a paid Visual Studio subscription is the option to get a Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription that includes 25 users and renews automatically. Previously, to activate this benefit, you had to start from the Visual Studio benefits portal. Customers who activated their subscription from a different location did not receive the subscription benefit that renews automatically. Now, we check your email in the background and if you’re an active Visual Studio subscriber, we ensure you receive a subscription that is linked to your Visual Studio account and renews automatically.
To check if you have the right subscription, log into your Dashboard – Microsoft 365 Dev Center and associate your existing subscription with Visual Studio. If you need to change the association to a different subscription, you can visit the Accounts Linked section of your profile to manage your linked accounts.
Community contributions
Do you contribute to the Microsoft 365 community on GitHub? Those contributions now accrue toward your Microsoft 365 subscription renewal. To get credit for contributing to the community, go to the Accounts Linked section of your profile and associate your developer program membership to your GitHub account.
Microsoft 365 developer research panel
We are building a research panel of Microsoft 365 developers who can help shape and influence the program evolution. By participating, you have the opportunity to help us prioritize upcoming features, share pain points, walk through design prototypes, and provide ideas to improve the program. When you become a participant, we’ll contact you to show you designs or other study types and request your feedback.
As a member of the research panel, you will receive invitations to participate in user research studies. You can decide how frequently you want to participate and which studies to complete. You can opt out of the panel at any time.
Features under investigation
We’re investigating new features to enhance the program, but we do not have a timeline for planned release dates. Research panel participants will help influence the development of these features.
- Start fresh: Request to immediately delete your current subscription and start fresh with a new instant sandbox.
- Azure: Easily attach an existing Azure subscription to the developer program Microsoft 365 subscription.
- Updated sample content: Include new sample content for the latest APIs.
- Support for special configurations: Unblock customer-requested scenarios beyond a “one size fits all” tenant (multiple tenants for a single customer, test tenants that mimic specific configurations like GCC, access to additional capacity for large-scale testing, and so on).
We’re happy to have you with us on this journey and we value your membership in the Microsoft 365 Developer Program. We look forward to continuing to partner with you to help you with your Microsoft 365 development process. Comments or questions? Please respond to this post and check back later for ongoing updates to the program.
For more information, you can visit our Microsoft 365 Dev Center.
Follow us on X | @Microsoft365Dev for the latest news and updates.
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6 comments
So how do i link Visual Studio to the Developer Program? There is no option for “Link your Visual Studio Subscription” like described here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/developer-program/join-with-visual-studio:
If you have already set up your Microsoft 365 developer subscription, you can link it to an active Visual Studio subscription. On the subscription tile on your Developer Program dashboard, click Link with your Visual Studio subscription.
Hi Daniel,
Did you join the program with the same email as that associated with your Visual Studio subscription? If you don’t have the option on the main profile page, try going here: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/profile/settings/accounts-linked.
Thanks
Kelly
No i did not use the same email. On the page you linked, there is also no option to add the subscription. My linked GitHub account is shown there.
Yep. Then this is expected behavior. You need to use the same email to make that link as the join is based on your email..
Currently, you cannot change the associated email for the developer program but that’s a fix that is high in our backlog to resolve. Unless you can change your associated Visual Studio email, for the short-term, I suggest you wait until we can make that change.
Technically, you could delete your Microsoft 365 developer profile and rejoin with your new email but you would be blocked from requesting a new M365 E5 dev subscription for 60+ days until the other one leaves our system. This is NOT ideal and is another issue on our must fix list.
Hope this clarifies things for you. I’ll definitely post when we fix the two challenges I mention.
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
I am a user in Chinese mainland, when I signed up for Microsoft 365 Developer Program, it shows that my mobile number is not verified, I learned that the Content Security Policy prevents the verification of reCaptcha, this may be because of Google’s restrictions on Chinese users, so I tried to use a VPN, but to no avail, so my phone number has not been verified, If the registration cannot proceed, please request your help
(I’m sorry I don’t speak English, this reply is translated by a translation tool, there may be many grammatical errors, the following is the original Chinese)
我是中国大陆的一名用户，当我注册Microsoft 365 Developer Program时，显示我的手机号码没有通过验证，我了解到是Content Security Policy阻止了reCaptcha的验证，这可能是因为Google对中国用户的限制，所以我尝试使用VPN，但还是无济于事，所以我的电话号码就一直无法通过验证，导致注册无法继续，请求您的帮助
Kelly,
I’m reaching out for trying to mitigate possible expiration of my M365 Free Developer Account that I’ve have been using since 2019. I tried a support ticket via my developer admin account and that was very unsuccessful in resolution. I was trying to find best way to contact you and this seems to be my best opportunity I could find. I’m hoping you can assist me with guidance or a possible contact to help review and allow me to be renewed for another 90 days. This is the first time since 2019 that I have every not gotten my email renewal notice 30 days before expiration. I’m now down to 24 days and really am sweating it that I’m going to loose all the learning and ability to go back to reference that learning. I appreciate your time and look forward to your response.
Thank you 😊