Connecting App Center Organizations to Azure Active Directory

Important

Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.

Learn more about support timelines and alternatives.

Connect your AAD tenant to App Center

To connect your App Center organization to Azure Active Directory, click on your organization, click Manage, and then click Azure. On the Azure page, click Connect and sign in to Azure Active Directory if you're not already signed in.

A list of your Azure Active Directory tenants will be shown. Select the one you want, and click Connect.

Azure Active Directory service principal

When you connect your App Center account to Azure Active Directory, a service principal is created in your AAD tenant that allows App Center to read your users and security groups. The service principal is created with minimal permissions.

Inspecting the App Center service principal

You can inspect the service principal using Microsoft Graph Explorer, by submitting a GET request against https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/servicePrincipals. (You'll need Directory.Read.All permission to see service principals.)

You can also retrieve the service principal using Get-AzADServicePrincipal.

Get-AzADServicePrincipal -DisplayName 'App Center'

Example service principal

Here is a service principal created to connect App Center to a sample Azure AD tenant.

• The displayName attribute is "App Center"
• The appID attribute is "6201c56d-46d7-4152-bdb6-e0c77193784b", which is the GUID of App Center in Azure Active Directory
• The publisherName is "Microsoft Services"

{
      "id": "3bd7a1a6-a74a-f5ed-9721-51ecxxxxxxxx",
      "deletedDateTime": null,
      "accountEnabled": true,
      "appDisplayName": "App Center",
      "appId": "6201c56d-46d7-4152-bdb6-e0c77193784b",
      "applicationTemplateId": null,
      "appOwnerOrganizationId": "f3cdef31-a31e-c3c9-443a-5f57xxxxxxxx",
      "appRoleAssignmentRequired": false,
      "displayName": "App Center",
      "errorUrl": null,
      "homepage": null,
      "info": {
        "termsOfServiceUrl": null,
        "supportUrl": null,
        "privacyStatementUrl": null,
        "marketingUrl": null,
        "logoUrl": null
      },
      "loginUrl": null,
      "logoutUrl": null,
      "notificationEmailAddresses": [],
      "publishedPermissionScopes": [],
      "preferredSingleSignOnMode": null,
      "preferredTokenSigningKeyEndDateTime": null,
      "preferredTokenSigningKeyThumbprint": null,
      "publisherName": "Microsoft Services",
      "replyUrls": [],
      "samlMetadataUrl": null,
      "samlSingleSignOnSettings": null,
      "servicePrincipalNames": [
        "6201c56d-46d7-4152-bdb6-e0c77193784b",
        "https://applicationinsights.azure.com"
      ],
      "signInAudience": "AzureADMultipleOrgs",
      "tags": [],
      "addIns": [],
      "api": {
        "resourceSpecificApplicationPermissions": []
      },
      "appRoles": [],
      "keyCredentials": [],
      "passwordCredentials": []
}

Deleting your App Center account

When you delete your App Center account, the service principal remains in your Azure Active Directory tenant. To remove it, you can run Remove-AzADServicePrincipal.

Remove-AzADServicePrincipal -ServicePrincipalName 'App Center'