About access levels
TFS 2018
Access levels control which web portal features are available or not. Access levels supplement security groups, which allow or deny certain tasks. Administrators provide their user-base access to the features they need and only pay for those features. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference and Manage users and access.
Important
Select the version of this article that corresponds to your platform and version. The version selector is above the table of contents. Look up your Azure DevOps platform and version.
Adding a user or group to a team or project gives them automatic access to the features of the default access level and security group. Most users can access most features by being assigned to the Basic access level and Contributors security group. For a simplified overview of the permissions assigned to the most common groups Readers, Contributors, and Project Administrators, see Default permissions.
To add user accounts or groups to specific access levels, see Change access levels. Make sure to set each user's access level based on what you've purchased for that user.
Supported access levels
Assign users or groups of users to one of the following access levels:
- Stakeholder: Provides partial access, can be assigned to unlimited users for free. Assign to users with no license or subscriptions who need access to a limited set of features.
- Basic: Provides access to most features. Assign to users with a CAL or with a Visual Studio Professional subscription.
- Advanced (legacy access level, deprecated in Azure DevOps Server 2019): Provides access to premium features. Only assign to users with a subscription to MSDN Platforms or Visual Studio Test Professional.
- VS Enterprise: Provides access to premium features. Assign to users with a subscription to Visual Studio Enterprise.
The following table indicates those features available for each supported access level. Visual Studio Test Professional and MSDN Platform subscriptions grant access to the same features as Visual Studio Enterprise.
Feature
Stakeholder
Basic &
Visual Studio Professional
Advanced &
Visual Studio Enterprise
Administer organization
Can configure resources when also added to a security group or role: team administrator, Project Administrator, or Project Collection Administrator.
✔️
✔️
✔️
Advanced backlog and sprint planning tools
Includes full access to all backlog and sprint planning tools.
✔️
✔️
Advanced home page
Includes access to projects, work items, and pull requests defined across projects you work in.
✔️
✔️
Advanced portfolio management
Includes full access to define features and epics from a portfolio backlog or Kanban board.
✔️
✔️
Agile boards
Stakeholders have limited access to Kanban boards and Taskboards. Stakeholders can't add work items, drag-and-drop cards to update status, update fields displayed on cards, nor view or set capacity.
✔️
✔️
✔️
Agile Portfolio Management
Includes limited access to portfolio backlogs and Kanban boards. Stakeholders can't change the backlog priority order, can't assign items to an iteration, use the mapping pane, or exercise forecasting.
✔️
✔️
✔️
Artifacts
Includes full access to all Azure Artifacts features, up to 2-GiB free storage.
✔️
✔️
✔️
Author Release Pipelines and Manage Releases
Includes defining release pipelines, multi-stage continuous deployment (CD) pipelines, and using approvals and gates to control deployments.
✔️
✔️
✔️
Basic backlog and sprint planning tools
Includes limited access to add and modify items on backlogs and sprint backlogs and Taskboards. Stakeholders can't assign items to an iteration, use the mapping pane, or forecasting.
✔️
✔️
Build
Includes full access to all features to manage continuous integration and continuous delivery of software.
✔️
✔️
Chart Authoring
Can create work tracking query charts.
✔️
✔️
Chart Viewing
Can only view work tracking query charts. Stakeholders can't view query charts from the Queries page, however can view them when added to a dashboard.
✔️
✔️
Code
Includes full access to all features to manage code using Git repositories or using Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC).
✔️
✔️
Delivery Plans
Includes full access to add and view Delivery plans.
✔️
✔️
Request and Manage Feedback Includes full access to request and manage feedback on working software.
✔️
✔️
Standard Features
Includes working across projects, View dashboards, View wikis, and Manage personal notifications. Stakeholders can't view Markdown README files defined for repositories and can only read wiki pages.
✔️
✔️
✔️
Test services in build and release
Includes running unit tests with your builds, reviewing, and analyzing test results.
✔️
✔️
Test Case Management
Includes adding test plans and test suites, creating manual test cases, deleting test artifacts, and testing different configurations.
✔️
Test Execution and Test Analysis
Includes running manual, tracking test status, and automated tests.
✔️
✔️
Test summary access to Stakeholder license
Includes requesting Stakeholder feedback using the Test & Feedback extension.
✔️
✔️
✔️
View My Work Items
Access to add and modify work items, follow work items, view and create queries, and submit, view, and change feedback responses. Stakeholders can only assign existing tags to work items (can't add new tags) and can only save queries under My Queries (can't save under Shared Queries).
✔️
✔️
✔️
View Releases and Manage Approvals
Includes viewing releases and approving releases.
✔️
✔️
✔️
VS Enterprise access
Visual Studio Enterprise subscribers are entitled to VS Enterprise access as a subscriber benefit. When you add those users, be sure to assign them the VS Enterprise access level.
With VS Enterprise access, users have access to any fee-based, Marketplace extension published by Microsoft Marketplace extension published by Microsoft that is included for active Visual Studio Enterprise subscribers.
Advanced access
Advanced access lets users manage test cases with Test Manager extension for Azure Test Plans. Advanced access user accounts gain full access to Web-based test case management tools.
Advanced access gives users all the Basic features, plus web-based test case management tools. You can buy monthly access or add users who already have a Visual Studio Test Professional with MSDN or MSDN Platforms subscription.
Programmatic mapping of access levels
You can manage access levels programmatically using the User Entitlement - Add REST API. The following table provides a mapping of the access level selected through the user interface and the AccountLicenseType, licensingSource, and msdnLicenseType parameters.
| Access level (user interface) licenseDisplayName |
accountLicenseType | licensingSource | msdnLicenseType |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | express | account | none |
| Advanced | advanced | account | none |
| Stakeholder | stakeholder | account | none |
| VS Enterprise | none | msdn | enterprise |
What features are available to users who are added to two different access levels?
If a user belongs to a group that has Basic access and another group that has VS Enterprise access, the user has access to all features available through VS Enterprise, which is a superset of Basic.
Service account access
Azure DevOps service accounts are added to the default access level. If you make Stakeholder the default access level, you must add the service accounts to Basic or Advanced/VS Enterprise access.
Service accounts don't require a CAL or other purchase.