Connect to a project

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

Learn how to connect to a project, from a client, to share code, build apps, track work, and collaborate with team members. You can connect to a project from any of the following clients:

A project defines a process and data storage in which you manage your software projects from planning to deployment. When you connect to a project, you connect to an organization or project collection. For more information, see About projects and scaling your organization.

Prerequisites

Connect from the web portal

  • Sign in to your project (https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}/{yourproject}).
  • Sign in to your project (http://ServerName/{DefaultCollection}/{ProjectName}).

For more information, see Web portal navigation.

Sign in with different credentials

  1. Open your profile menu and select Sign in with a different account.

    Screenshot of Sign in with a different account button selected.

  2. Choose Sign in and enter your credentials.

Open the web portal from Team Explorer

Open the web portal from the home page.

Screenshot showing Connecting to the web portal.

Connect from Visual Studio or Team Explorer

If you haven't already, download and install a version of Visual Studio.

If you're not a member of an Azure DevOps security group, get added to one. Check with a team member. You need the names of the server, project collection, and project to connect to.

  1. Select the Manage Connections icon in Team Explorer, and then Connect to a Project.

    Screenshot of Connect to projects highlighted for selection.

    All the projects that you can connect to are displayed, along with the repos in those projects.

    Screenshot of Connect to a Project dialog box.

  2. Select Add Azure DevOps Server to connect to a project in Azure DevOps Server. Enter the URL to your server and select Add.

    Screenshot of server URL field to connect to.

  3. Select a project from the list and then select Connect.

Change sign-in credentials

Visual Studio 2022

  1. Select the Manage Connections icon in Team Explorer, and then Connect to a Project.

    Screenshot showing Connect to projects highlighted for selection.

  2. Select a different user or select Add an account to access a project using different credentials.

    Screenshot of Connect with VS using different credentials to sign in.

  3. Sign in with a Microsoft or GitHub account associated with an Azure DevOps project.

Use different Visual Studio credentials

You can run Visual Studio with credentials different from your current Windows user account. Find devenv.exe under the Program Files (86) folder for your version of Visual Studio.

Select Shift and right-click devenv.exe, then select Run as different user.

Screenshot of Context menu for Visual Studio devenv.exe.

User accounts and licensing for Visual Studio

To connect to a project, you need your user account added to the project. The Organization owner for Azure DevOps or a member of the Project Administrators group usually adds user accounts. For more information, see Add organization users and manage access or Add or remove users or groups, manage security groups.

Azure DevOps Services provides access to the first five account users free. After that, you need to pay for more users.

You can also provide access to Stakeholders in your organization with limited access to select features as described in Work as a Stakeholder.

Configure Visual Studio to connect to Azure DevOps Proxy Server

If your remote team uses an Azure DevOps Proxy Server to cache files, you can configure Visual Studio to connect through that proxy server and download files under Team Foundation version control.

  1. Make sure you're connected to Azure DevOps, as described in the previous section.

  2. From the Visual Studio Tools menu, select Options, and then select Source Control > Plug-in Selection. Select Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

    Screenshot of Plug-in Selection page, Options dialog box.

  3. For Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, enter the name and port number for the Azure DevOps Proxy Server. Select Use SSL encryption (https) to connect.

    Screenshot of VS TFVC proxy configuration page, Options dialog.

    Make sure you specify the port number that your administrator assigned to Azure DevOps Proxy.

To associate a file type with a compare or merge tool, see Associate a file type with a file-comparison tool or Associate a file type with a merge tool.

Requirements and client compatibility

Some tasks or features aren't available when you connect to a later version of Azure DevOps than your client supports. For more information, see client compatibility.

Determine your platform version

See Look up your Azure DevOps platform and version.

Next steps