Manage lab users in Azure Lab Services

Important

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027. For more information, see the retirement guide.

This article describes how to manage lab users in Azure Lab Services. Learn how to add users to a lab, manage their registration status, and how to specify the number of hours they can use the virtual machine (VM).

Azure Lab Services supports different options for managing the list of lab users:

• Add users manually to the lab by specifying their email address. Optionally, you can upload a CSV file with email addresses.
• Synchronize the list of users with a Microsoft Entra group.
• Integrate with Microsoft Teams or Canvas and synchronize the user list with the team (Teams) or course (Canvas) membership.

When you add users to a lab based on their email address, lab users will first need to register for the lab by using a lab registration link. This registration process is a one-time operation. After a lab users registers for the lab, they can access their lab in the Azure Lab Services website.

When you use Teams, Canvas, or a Microsoft Entra group, Azure Lab Services automatically grants users access to the lab and assigns a lab VM based on their membership in Microsoft or Canvas. In this case, you don't have to specify the lab user list, and users don't have to register for the lab.

By default, access to a lab is restricted. Only users that are in the list of lab users can register for a lab, and get access to the lab virtual machine (VM). You can disable restricted access for a lab, which lets any user register for a lab if they have the registration link.

Azure Lab Services supports up to 400 users per lab.

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

• An Azure account with permission to manage a lab, such as the Lab Creator, Owner, Contributor, or Lab Services Contributor Azure RBAC role. Learn more about the Azure Lab Services built-in roles and assignment scopes.

• An Azure lab plan. If you don't have a lab plan yet, follow the steps in Quickstart: Set up resources to create labs.

Manage lab users

Add users manually

Important

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027. For more information, see the retirement guide.

Add users

You can add lab users manually by providing their email address in the lab configuration or by uploading a CSV file.

Azure Lab Services supports different email account types when registering for a lab:

• An organizational email account that's provided by your Microsoft Entra instance.
• A Microsoft-domain email account, such as outlook.com, hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com.
• A non-Microsoft email account, such as one provided by Yahoo! or Google. You need to link your account with a Microsoft account.
• A GitHub account. You need to link your account with a Microsoft account.

Learn more about the supported account types.

Add users by email address

1. In the Azure Lab Services website, select the lab you want to work with.

2. Select Users, and then select Add users manually.

   

3. Select Add by email address, enter the users' email addresses on separate lines or on a single line separated by semicolons.

   

4. Select Add.

   The list displays the email addresses and registration status of the lab users. After a user registers for the lab, the list also displays the user's name.

   

Add users by uploading a CSV file

You can also add users by uploading a CSV file that contains their email addresses.

You use a CSV text file to store comma-separated (CSV) tabular data (numbers and text). Instead of storing information in columns fields (such as in spreadsheets), a CSV file stores information separated by commas. Each line in a CSV file has the same number of comma-separated fields. You can use Microsoft Excel to easily create and edit CSV files.

1. Use Microsoft Excel or a text editor of your choice, to create a CSV file with the users' email addresses in one column.

   

2. In the Azure Lab Services website, select the lab you want to work with.

3. Select Users, select Add users, and then select Upload CSV.

4. Select the CSV file with the users' email addresses, and then select Open.

   The Add users page shows the email address list from the CSV file.

5. Select Add.

   The Users page now shows the list of lab users you uploaded.

   

Send invitations to users

If the Restrict access option is enabled for the lab, only listed users can use the registration link to register to the lab. This option is enabled by default.

To send a registration link to new users, use one of the methods in the following sections.

Invite all users

You can invite all users to the lab by sending an email via the Azure Lab Services website. The email contains the lab registration link, and an optional message.

Tip

When you register for a lab, you aren't given the option to create a new Microsoft account. It's recommended that you include this sign-up link, https://signup.live.com, in the lab registration email when you invite users who have non-Microsoft accounts.

To invite all users:

1. In the Azure Lab Services website, select the lab you want to work with.

2. Select Users, and then select Invite all.

   

3. In the Send invitation by email window, enter an optional message, and then select Send.

   The email automatically includes the registration link. To get and save the registration link separately, select the ellipsis (...) at the top of the Users pane, and then select Registration link.

   

   The Invitation column of the Users list displays the invitation status for each added user. The status should change to Sending and then to Sent on <date>.

Invite selected users

To invite selected users and send them a lab registration link:

1. In the Azure Lab Services website, select the lab you want to work with.

2. Select Users, and then select one or more users from the list.

3. In the row for the user you selected, select the envelope icon or, on the toolbar, select Invite.

   

4. In the Send invitation by email window, enter an optional message, and then select Send.

   

   The Users pane displays the status of this operation in the Invitation column of the table. The invitation email includes the registration link that users can use to register with the lab.

Get the registration link

You can get the lab registration link from the Azure Lab Services website, and send it by using your own email application.

1. In the Azure Lab Services website, select the lab you want to work with.

2. Select Users, and then select Registration link.

   

3. In the User registration window, select Copy, and then select Done.

   

   The link is copied to the clipboard. In your email application, paste the registration link, and then send the email to a user so that they can register for the class.

View registered users

To view the list of lab users that have already registered for the lab by using the lab registration link:

1. In the Azure Lab Services website, select the lab you want to work with.

2. Select Users to view the list of lab users.

   The list shows the list of lab users with their registration status. The user status should show Registered, and their name should also be available after registration.

   Note

   If you republish a lab or Reimage VMs, the users remain registered for the labs' VMs. However, the contents of the VMs will be deleted and the VMs will be recreated with the template VM's image.

Microsoft Entra group

Important

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027. For more information, see the retirement guide.

You can manage the lab user list by synchronizing the lab with a Microsoft Entra group. When you use a Microsoft Entra group, you don't have to manually add or delete users in the lab settings. Add or remove users in Teams or Canvas to assign or remove access for a user to a lab VM.

You can create a Microsoft Entra group within your organization's Microsoft Entra ID to manage access to organizational resources and cloud-based apps. To learn more, see Microsoft Entra groups. If your organization uses Microsoft Office 365 or Azure services, your organization already has admins who manage your Microsoft Entra ID.

Lab users don't have to register for their lab and a lab VM is automatically assigned. Lab users can access the lab directly from the Azure Lab Services website.

Synchronize the lab user list with Microsoft Entra group

When you sync a lab with a Microsoft Entra group, Azure Lab Services pulls all users inside the Microsoft Entra group into the lab as lab users. Only people in the Microsoft Entra group have access to the lab. The user list automatically refreshes every 24 hours to match the latest membership of the Microsoft Entra group. You can also manually synchronize the list of lab users at any time.

The option to synchronize the list of lab users with a Microsoft Entra group is only available if you haven't added users to the lab manually or through a CSV import yet. Make sure there are no users in the lab user list.

To sync a lab with an existing Microsoft Entra group:

1. Sign in to the Azure Lab Services website.

2. Select your lab.

3. In the left pane, select Users, and then select Sync from group.

   

4. Select the Microsoft Entra group you want to sync users with from the list of groups.

   If you don't see any Microsoft Entra groups in the list, this could be because of the following reasons:

   • You're a guest user in Microsoft Entra ID (usually if you're outside the organization that owns the Microsoft Entra ID), and you're not allowed to search for groups inside the Microsoft Entra ID. In this case, you can't add a Microsoft Entra group to the lab.
   • Microsoft Entra groups you created through Microsoft Teams don't show up in this list. You can add the Azure Lab Services app inside Microsoft Teams to create and manage labs directly from within Microsoft Teams. Learn more about managing a lab’s user list from within Teams.

5. Select Add to sync the lab users with the Microsoft Entra group.

   Azure Lab Services automatically pulls the list of users from Microsoft Entra ID, and refreshes the list every 24 hours.

   Optionally, you can select Sync in the Users tab to manually synchronize to the latest changes in the Microsoft Entra group.

Automatic VM management based on Microsoft Entra group

When you synchronize a lab with a Microsoft Entra group, Azure Lab Services automatically manages the number of lab VMs based on the number of users in the Microsoft Entra group.

When a user is added to the Microsoft Entra group, Azure Lab Services automatically adds a lab VM for that user. When a user is no longer a member of the Microsoft Entra group, the lab VM for that user is automatically deleted from the lab.

You can't manually add or remove lab users, or update the lab capacity when synchronizing with a Microsoft Entra group.

Teams

Important

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027. For more information, see the retirement guide.

When you create a lab in Teams, Azure Lab Services automatically grants users access to the lab based on their team membership in Teams. When you use Teams, you can't manually add or delete users in the lab settings. Add or remove users to a team to assign or remove access for a user to a lab VM.

Lab users don't have to register for their lab and a lab VM is automatically assigned. Lab users can access the lab directly from within Teams.

Before you can use labs in Teams, follow these steps to configure Teams for using Azure Lab Services.

Synchronize the lab user list with Teams

Azure Lab Services automatically synchronizes the membership information with the lab user list every 24 hours. Lab creators can select Sync in the Users tab to manually trigger a sync, for example when the team membership is updated.

Automatic VM management based on team membership

When you create labs in Teams, Azure Lab Services also automatically manages the number of lab VMs based on the number of users in the team.

When a user is added in Teams, Azure Lab Services automatically adds a lab VM for that user. When a user is no longer a member, the lab VM for that user is automatically deleted from the lab.

You can't manually add or remove lab users, or update the lab capacity when creating labs in Teams.

Canvas

Important

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027. For more information, see the retirement guide.

When you create a lab in Canvas, Azure Lab Services automatically grants users access to the lab based on their course membership in Canvas. When you use Canvas, you can't manually add or delete users in the lab settings. Add or remove users for a course in Canvas to assign or remove access for a user to a lab VM.

Lab users don't have to register for their lab and a lab VM is automatically assigned. Lab users can access the lab directly from within Canvas.

Before you can use labs in Canvas, follow these steps to configure Canvas for using Azure Lab Services.

Synchronize the lab user list with Canvas

Azure Lab Services automatically synchronizes the membership information with the lab user list every 24 hours. Lab creators can select Sync in the Users tab to manually trigger a sync, for example when the course membership is updated.

Automatic VM management based on course membership

When you create labs in Canvas, Azure Lab Services also automatically manages the number of lab VMs based on the number of users in the course.

When a user is added in Canvas, Azure Lab Services automatically adds a lab VM for that user. When a user is no longer a member, the lab VM for that user is automatically deleted from the lab.

You can't manually add or remove lab users, or update the lab capacity when creating labs in Canvas.

Set quotas for users

Quota hours enable lab users to use the lab for a number of hours outside of scheduled lab times. For example, users might access the lab to complete their homework. Learn more about quota hours.

You can set an hour quota for a user in one of two ways:

1. In the Users pane, select Quota per user: <number> hour(s) on the toolbar.

2. In the Quota per user window, specify the number of hours you want to give to each user outside the scheduled time.

   

   Important

   The scheduled running time of VMs does not count against the quota that's allotted to a user. The quota is for the time outside of scheduled hours that a user spends on VMs.

Set additional quotas for specific users

You can specify extra quota hours for individual users, beyond the quotas you define at the lab level. For example, if you set the quota for all users to 10 hours and set an additional quota of 5 hours for a specific user, that user gets 15 (10 + 5) hours of quota. If you change the common quota later to, say, 15, the user gets 20 (15 + 5) hours of quota.

Remember that this overall quota is outside the scheduled time. The time that a user spends on a lab VM during the scheduled time doesn't count against this quota.

To set additional quotas for a user:

1. In the Users pane, select one or more users from the list, and then select Adjust quota on the toolbar.

2. In the Adjust quota window, enter the number of additional lab hours you want to grant to the selected users, and then select Apply.

   

3. Select Apply to save the changes.

   Notice that the user list shows the updated quota hours for the users you selected.

Export the list of users to a CSV file

To export the list of users for a lab:

1. Select the lab you want to work with.

2. Select Users.

3. On the toolbar, select the ellipsis (...), and then select Export CSV.

   

Next steps

• Learn how to add lab schedules
• Learn how to manage lab VM pools
• Learn how to access a lab VM