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Starting in Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC with a Project Template

Updated on Nov 11, 2025

Welcome to the Getting Started with Progress^® Telerik^® UI for ASP.NET MVC in Visual Studio tutorial!

The fastest way to start with Telerik UI is with a project template, but you can also manually add the Telerik controls to an existing application.

This tutorial guides you through implementing the Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC Grid and Datepicker in a new application. To create the application, you will use the project template provided by the Visual Studio Extensions that come with the Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC installation.

The Telerik extensions streamline the Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC setup by automatically adding the necessary references and configuration. These extensions also provide a wizard that can configure an existing ASP.NET MVC application for the Telerik controls.

Other popular approaches for starting with Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC include:

Setup with Telerik NuGet—this method allows you to download the Telerik controls by using the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio.
Manual setup with local files—with this method, you add the Kendo.Mvc.dll assembly to your project by using local files. This assembly enables you to use the Telerik UI components.

How about a free Telerik UI onboarding course? Check out the Video Onboarding article and learn how to take advantage of the Telerik and Kendo UI Video Courses.

Prerequisites

Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC requires the .NET Framework.
Visual Studio 2019, 2022, or later.
Telerik account.

Downloading and Installing

Follow these steps to download and install Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC:

Log in to your Telerik account.
Download the installation file:
- If you are new to UI for ASP.NET MVC and have not purchased a license yet, you can Start a Free Trial by downloading and installing the UI for ASP.NET MVC components. Once the installation completes, your free trial will be activated and you can continue with the next step.
- If you have already purchased a license:
  1. Click Downloads in the top navigation bar of your Telerik account.
  2. Click UI for ASP.NET MVC.
  3. Download the .msi installer file from the Installation section.
Close any running Visual Studio instances and run the Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC installer. The automatic setup will guide you through the rest of the installation. The Telerik Visual Studio Extensions are installed by default.

The default installation folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\Progress\Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC<version>.

Installing a License Key

Starting with Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC 2025 Q1 release, you must activate the UI components by providing a license key file. Previous versions require a script key instead of a license key file.

To download and install your Telerik license key:

Go to the License Keys page in your Telerik account.
Click the Download License Key button.
Save the telerik-license.txt file to:
- (on Windows) %AppData%\Telerik\telerik-license.txt, for example, C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Telerik\telerik-license.txt
- (on Mac or Linux) ~/.telerik/telerik-license.txt, for example, /Users/.../.telerik/telerik-license.txt

This will make the license key available to all Telerik .NET apps that you develop on your local machine.

The Telerik License Key article provides additional details on installing and updating your Telerik license key in different scenarios. Automatic license key maintenance is more effective and recommended in the long run.

Creating a Telerik ASP.NET MVC Application

After the Visual Studio Extensions are installed, create a Telerik ASP.NET MVC application by using the Create New Project wizard in Visual Studio.

In the Visual Studio toolbar, click File > New > Project.
Search for and select the Telerik ASP.NET MVC C# project template. Click Next.
Configure the project. Click Create.
Select the GRID AND MENU template. Click Next.

For more information on the additional predefined Telerik template options, refer to the Creating New Projects article.
Choose a Theme. Click Finish.

The newly created application already has a reference to the required Kendo.Mvc.dll assembly. The wizard also references the client-side resources (the Kendo UI script and theme-related CSS files) in the _Layout.cshtml.

You can now start adding components.

For more information on how to use the Visual Stuido extension to set up new projects, refer to the creating new Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC projects article.

Adding Components to the Application

As a result of selecting the GRID AND MENU template, a Grid component has been added to the Index.cshtml view, and a Menu to the _Layout.cshtml. The Grid is configured and binds remotely to the sample data returned by the GridController. The next step is to add an additional component to the application.

Add a DatePicker to the Index.cshtml view:

Razor

<h4>Telerik UI for ASP.NET MVC DatePicker:</h4>

@(Html.Kendo().DatePicker()
    .Name("datepicker") // The Name of the DatePicker is mandatory. It specifies the "id" attribute of the component.
    .Value(DateTime.Today) // Sets the value of the DatePicker.
)

Building and Running the Application

Press CTRL+F5 to build and run the application. As a result, the following sample page is created.

UI for ASP.NET MVC Sample page showing a Grid and a DatePicker