Make it easier to discover and use EE features
We have only 2% of the people upgrading. Partially that is because CE is a great product and that will stay that way. But talking to with users I've found 3 things:
- They are not aware of the features EE offers
- They are hesitant to swap out CE with EE
- They think the purchasing process is tedious (license per email, etc.).
The solution would be to:
- Make the EE download the default https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/1336
- Give the EE download all the CE features when there is no subscription (EE subscriptionless)
- Promote EE features in EE when there is no subscription ('Try LDAP group sync 30 days for free')
- Have a free 30 day trial form in the product (only needs an email address and company information, no creditcard)
- Have an EEP order screen in the product (after your trial expired, no license download needed, it works completely within the product)
Keeping in mind that:
- For people that just want the CE features (EE subscriptionless) there are no drawbacks, no nag screens, etc.
- We make it a single path: download => use as CE => see EEP feature => start trial => get EEP subscription. So no selection screen after you installed it, always go through a trial, and always EEP.
- When the trial expires your are prompted to purchase EEP but you can opt to revert back to CE features.
- When a subscription expires we have the same behaviour as currently when a subscription expires.
- Apart from that we have to see if we can make https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/update/README.html#from-community-edition-to-enterprise-edition simpler.