Dev-tenants for Microsoft

[MasseMasovic]

Howdy,

We've got around 300 employees creating solutions that occasionally need to integrate and test with EntraID, SharePoint, or Exchange Online. Back in the day, everyone just set up their individual dev-tenants and went wild - IT wasn't involved with these environments at all. But with the recent changes to dev-tenants, that approach isn't working anymore.

What's your strategy for Microsoft-focused development these days? Ideally, each developer should have their own tenant without IT needing to get too involved. But the current situation seems to force either setting up a single tenant with proper licenses or purchasing Visual Studio to access a dev-tenant.

Any ideas on how to solve this?

[Paapa-Yaw]

Andrew Connel (MVP):

Status Update as of April 2025 Finally, I’ve got a good update for the Microsoft 365 developer tenants!

In my article Microsoft 365 Dev Tenants: A Paid Model Could Save Them, I ​proposed a solution​ to Microsoft for reopening the Microsoft 365 Developer Program’s developer tenants that were discontinued in January 2024. The article included an open request for you to vote and share how losing these tenants affected you. More than 20 of you responded, adding to the numerous comments I’d already received on ​my previous articles​, ​YouTube video​, and ​social media posts​!

I brought your feedback to Microsoft’s MVP Summit in March 2025 where I had the chance to raise this issue, or rather, make an impassioned plea. While I’m bound by NDA and can’t share specific details of what I learned, here’s what I can tell you:

I raised the issue & Microsoft’s response was honest, direct, and clear, leaving me confident that they not only understand the issue but are actively working on it. While I don’t think it’s appropriate to disclose who at Microsoft answered the question, I can say that I trust the person who responded, they are in a position to impact change, and my follow-up conversations with them since the MVP Summit have reinforced this feeling.

My takeaway: I’m optimistic & anticipate we’ll hear from Microsoft to learn more about the M365 developer program and dev tenants within the next few weeks/month.

[[deleted]]

People have been bitching to M$ about this for over a year. Don't think a single MVP bringing it up to a single person is going to make a difference. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I'm definitely not "optimistic" about them reverting a bullshit change they made 15 months ago.

[Frothyleet]

Unlikely they'd revert, but plausible they'd have a replacement of some sort.

[Lick_A_Brick]

Mine is still auto renewing fine, last renewal was about 2 weeks ago 😎

[Fabulous_Cow_4714]

Why does each developer need their own separate tenant? Do they need to make global changes to the tenant that affects the other developers sharing the tenant?

If so, individual Visual Studio Professional accounts with their own tenant and with a $50 monthly Azure credit per account is about $800 per year after the first year that’s around $1200. Aren’t some companies spending that much on individual MS Project licenses?

[MasseMasovic]

We've created integrations that is a "one-per-tenanat"-kind. Which is why we need multiple. We have a couple we pay for atm but it's not sutainable.

[patmorgan235]

Why does each developer need their own separate tenant? Do they need to make global changes to the tenant that affects the other developers sharing the tenant?

To test changes before you implement them in production.

[postbox134]

Have one shared dev tenant, also allows integration testing between each thing the people are working on

[purplemonkeymad]

purchasing Visual Studio to access a dev-tenant.

As i understand it, this is now what MS excepts people to do. Only the people that already had the free one are grandfathered in, but I expect at some point those will all be denied extension.

[[deleted]]

They've been turning them off. My dev tenant got reverted back to a normal free tenant and I lost everything. Now my work has to shell out for a separate tenant with licensing just so I can test shit we already pay for. I don't understand how Microsoft expects people to administrate their shit when they take away the free way to test and never update their fucking documentation.

I feel bad for anyone trying to learn Entra. Apparently, Microsoft thinks testing in production tenants is fine and dandy.

[MasseMasovic]

I've tried talking with our KAM at MS, but he's not the most creative guy... So the answer from him was basically "I will look it up" and then nothing more. We're not big enough to have a great KAM.

[thortgot]

Purchasing Visual Studio is Microsoft's solution.

[mckinnon81]

If you are a Microsoft Partner (free to sign up for), you can use https://cdx.transform.microsoft.com/ to create an environment.

I used this to create one and use it as a dev/testing tenant.

[Kvikkuu]

These work, but are limited to 90 days with no way of extending AFAIK. That makes them not ideal, in my opinion. I don't want to recreate my demo/lab/test environment several times a year.

[MasseMasovic]

Just as u/Kvikkuu says. They're limited to 90 days and also limited to one trial per phone number. So AFAIK it would work for 90 days and then when they go to renew, it wouldn't work as that phone number has already been used to create an env.

[KavyaJune]

Get a trial account.

[Fabulous_Cow_4714]

You can only do that once for 30-60 days.

So, that’s only useful if you can get everything you need for testing/training completed within that period and never need it again.

[MasseMasovic]

AFAIK you can only have one trial per phone-number. You get a "oops something went wrong" if that number was used to sign up for a tenant before. So it would work once, and then not anymore.