News

Azure Portal's Account Manager Coming to More Services

• By Kurt Mackie
• 11/28/2018

Microsoft this week said it is bringing its new "account manager" multiple sign-in capability to various online services sometime next year.

"The account manager will start appearing inside other Microsoft online services within the next 6-9 months, including Azure DevOps, Office.com, the Microsoft Store and more," Microsoft explained.

Microsoft first introduced account manager earlier this month as a capability within the Azure Portal, which is used for managing Azure services. The account manager is described as working with both Azure Active Directory accounts and Microsoft accounts. It allows users to sign in or sign out of those accounts, or they can use account manager to switch between accounts (see screenshot).

Account manager is particularly designed as an aid for IT pros that must use different accounts for management purposes or for developers, according to Microsoft's announcements.

Apparently, it's a much smoother experience to switch accounts using the new account manager function.

"Until now, managing multiple accounts has required signing into each account when you want to use it, which signs out the previous account, or using multiple browsers and incognito/InPrivate tabs," Microsoft explained. "Both aren't ideal."

Basically, users click on their account name in the Azure Portal located at the top right side of the portal. Doing so will pop up the account manager box. It shows a list of existing account sign-in names and e-mail addresses, along with a "Sign in with a different account" option at the bottom.

The accounts listed in account manager appear in plain type. However, after they get verified by Microsoft, they'll appear in a bold type.