Trial and license purchases inside GitLab EE

Resources

FE @kushalpandya & @timzallmann

As part of making EE the default download on GitLab and simplifying the experience, we need to allow activation of a trial inside of GitLab, as well as the ability to purchase full licenses from inside of GitLab.

Also see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2500 for details on how GitLab EE functions without a license.

Proposal

Please note all new development should be done with i18n in mind such that the strings are externalised.

Activating a trial license

• When a GitLab EE instance does not have a license (this includes any previous license or a trial license) there should be a link to activate a trial
• The trial activation page should have basic form information as per https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/
• All trial licenses should send out a 10,000 seat license
• Submitting this form should automatically activate a trial, create sales leads and display confirmation to the user that the trial is activated

Purchasing a full license

• There should be a link inside of GitLab to purchase a full license if no full license exists
• Ideally, this is handled inside the product and the license is automatically installed and activated for the user without having to do anything

Renewing a license

• If the GitLab instance has had a full license and the license expires, there should be the option to renew the license inside the product

Open Questions

• How do we activate the trial experience, can we do an ajax submission over https from GitLab EE to the relevant systems and receive a license payload back that is automatically added and activated to GitLab?
• How do we implement the full license experience given how customers.gitlab.com works? Does the user need to create an account in customers.gitlab.com? Can we embed this inside the product in an iFrame?

---

Design

Activating a trial license

Note the following screens only apply to Admin users. Regular users should see the existing welcome screen.

First screen after installation	Empty states for the licence page
Copy for above image: Add users Add your team members and others to GitLab. Create a group Groups are a great way to organise projects and people. Configure your server Make adjustments to how your GitLab server is setup. Unlock more features with GitLab Enterprise Edition GitLab is free to use. Many features for larger teams are part of our paid Enterprise Edition products. You can try these out for free without any obligation or payment details. Start Free Trial	Copy for the above image: You do not have a license You can start a free trial of GitLab Enterprise Edition without any obligation or payment details. Start Free Trial

Note: In this iteration, I just added the 'Trial' section and followed the current design for the screen after installation. We will improve it much more on #1869 (moved).

Trial form

• Highlight some GitLab EE features to activate people on this page.
• People can go back to the previous page by clicking "Back" button.

Trial form	After clicking "Start free trial" button

Purchasing a full license

A message with a "Buy now" link

Trial license will expire	Trial license expires
Copy for the above image: Your Enterprise Edition trial license expires in X days. Buy now	Copy for the above image: Your Enterprise Edition trial license has expired. Buy now

• This message should only be shown to admin users
• When the trial license remains 7 days, there is a message to remind users of this above the header.
• If the trial license expires, there will be a message to show the status of trial license expires above the header.
• Once users click X, the message will disappear.
• Once the license has expired, the message should display again until the user clicks X again

License page

• In the trial period, the primary button on license page will be Buy license button.

• In "Details" table, it will show Free trial remains X days to indicate this is a trial license and remind of when the license will expire.

Purchase license page

• In this phase of development, we will link to https://customers.gitlab.com/plans for license purchases

Modal - Install license

Default	Show license

SVGs

New users	Configuration	New groups	Trial	Check