[META] 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 with users I've found 3 things:

1. They are not aware of the features EE offers
2. They are hesitant to swap out CE with EE
3. They think the purchasing process is tedious (license per email, etc.).

The solution would be to:

1. Make the EE download the default https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/1336
2. Give the EE download all the CE features when there is no subscription (EE subscriptionless) this is how it will run after you install it, there will be no nag screens, and no free trial prompts on installation
3. Promote EE features in EE when there is no subscription ('Try LDAP group sync 30 days for free'), kinda grey out features and have a trial button there
4. Have a free 30 day trial form in the product (only needs an email address and company information, no creditcard) but you don't have to activate the trial nor do you use it by default
5. 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:

1. For people that just want the CE features (EE subscriptionless) there are no drawbacks, no nag screens, etc.
2. 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.
3. When the trial expires your are prompted to purchase EEP but you can opt to revert back to CE features.
4. When a subscription expires we have the same behaviour as currently when a subscription expires.
5. 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.
6. If there is an EE starter feature that is hard to disable and that doesn't generate a lot of sales we can consider including this for free. This would be an additional benefit we can list. On the other hand it might be confusing.
7. We might still prompt people to directly start a trial on https://about.gitlab.com/products/ and have them sign up first and download second.

Text on the download page or linked from the download page:

1. The download of GitLab EE allows you to use all the features of GitLab CE without paying anything, registering anything, and without any time limit.
2. By downloading EE you can activate EE functionality without having to reinstall GitLab. This is why we recommend downloading EE even if you're currently not interested in getting a trial or subscription for the EE functionality.
3. If you want to test EE functionality you can request a 30 day trial for that without a credit card, if you don't like it you can revert to just using the CE functionality.
4. All of the CE functionality in EE is MIT licensed.
5. If you still prefer to use GitLab CE you can download that instead.

Sequence:

1. EE Features in settings shown with greyed out text with a trial button or link
2. Add an explanation the initial screen that you're using CE features right now, but never require an extra click, no interstitial.
3. EE Features in rest of interface shown that way

Related Issues

• GitLab CE features to work with unlicensed EE instance https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2500

• Free Trial license journey inside EE https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2501

• Change download experience on GitLab.com to just point at EE with a link for CE download instructions as a very secondary experience https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/1336

• Promote features to unlicensed users (gitlab-ee 9.5 timeframe, possibly over multiple releases depending on features. We had planned to do this with GitLab.com accounts too.) https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2624

/cc @JobV @markpundsack @stanhu @ChadMalchow @timanglade

@sytses I think this is a great flow. As you say, no downsides. For those that absolutely must have open-source only software, we'll have a link available (but severely downplayed) that lets them download it.

/cc @mydigitalself

Since the majority of this work is going to happen in the EE codebase, I'm going to move the issue to that project.

moved from gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com#1385 (closed)

@sytses with the work we are doing on GitLab.com subscriptions, we are effectively putting all EE functionality behind license checks and so this would certainly be very possible after 9.4 timeframe - i.e. we can look to do pre-ship with trial and change download flow around 9.5.

When I had previously discussed this with @JobV I was under the impression that the following was undesirable as lapsed licenses wouldn't have to migrate to EE. If that's not the case, and this is fine, we can certainly make EE the default download and activate a trial and downgrade back to CE.

• When the trial expires you 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.

One thing that is not really considered, is identifying which features are EE and which features are CE in the product itself. I.e. how will people know they are using an EE feature - they'll certainly notice when it stops working and effectively disappears. We need to do further work to "promote" EE features if you don't have an EE license - for example still display some of the UI, but it will prompt for a license. This may be somewhat controversial, but CE Community can install CE if they find this irritating, although not sure what the "downgrade" path looks like from a migration POV - @DouweM? This would still leave us in the CE/EE separate codebases, whereby some of the work we are doing almost makes it possible to have a single codebase, or at least make merging simpler if I understood that correctly @DouweM.

added shortlist label

mentioned in issue #2328 (closed)

@mydigitalself you bring up a good point and that raises for me the need for an product onboarding plan. Right now we give people a license and let them figure things out with very little guidance and education.

My suggestion is to have both in product messaging but also supported by a step-by-step guide we send via email (marketing) to generate awareness and usage. Focus on what the feature does (business problem or process it solves for), then make them aware of the feature and then how to use the feature. If we map out the flow with maybe the end in mind and back into the steps to get there, we have the map. We then build the content for each step of the journey and determine how to communicate the content (email and/or in product). Making it easy to use is great but if we do not teach them why they should use it, we are missing an opportunity.

As we learn what they are using and not using we can repurpose this content to educate the user in the future.

Related issues to onboarding I found are: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/issues/748 and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/issues/73

On another sales call today and heard again that this customer has been on CE for over 9 months. Very common theme for large/strategic accounts and validates the need for this issue and to resolve. Increasing awareness of EE and adoption of EE features as early as possible when they begin using GitLab helps decrease the sales cycle.

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@sytses Ahead of our next discussion, my thinking was as part of the post-install initial flow we want to try and capture sales lead information and easily activate the trial. This is entirely optional, but should be encouraged.

Why do you prefer not to ask for this?

@mydigitalself thanks for this. Suggestions. So as not to assume everyone knows what EE stands for and means, suggest changing the button to read "Try Enterprise Edition Features Free" and for Community Edition "Just Use Free Community Edition Features".

For the form, sales and marketing are working together to collect business emails and not webmail accounts. Can we say Business Email?

@ChadMalchow agreed, it's just to illustrate a concept rather than being any actual UX/design.

changed the description

Got it

An idea to help with the awareness and education of EE, a short video (embedded or pop up) demonstrating key EE features from the user perspective. Making it easy to use and discover is key but also need to make sure we help with the why they should use it, which is education.

@mydigitalself sequence we discussed is in the description

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@ChadMalchow we had a long conversation about this and updated the description with a sequence.

added UX label

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changed milestone to %9.4

assigned to @hazelyang

Thanks for jumping on this one @hazelyang. This is a big issue and we (UX) will need to look at and evaluate this at every stage: Download page, setup, activation, and user experience with EE issues that are not available without upgrade are all considerations. I think we should loop @luke into this conversation as well.

I would also like to think about incorporating an on-boarding experience to help users discover features. This should not be intrusive and users should have the ability to say "no-thanks" and get on with their work. We want users to navigate to important features so they can quickly get what they need from GitLab. This will aid us in up-selling EE features without interrupting the users natural flow.

I think there are probably quite a few moving pieces to this and want to approach it iteratively so that we can quickly ship EE as the default download, and then continue to improve the experience.

I'll most likely convert this into a meta, with the following sub-tasks that will appear on different Projects and releases

• GitLab CE features to work with unlicensed EE instance (gitlab-ee - 9.4 timeframe if possible)
• Free Trial license journey inside EE (gitlab-ee 9.4 timeframe)
• Change download experience on GitLab.com to just point at EE with a link for CE download instructions as a very secondary experience (www-gitlab-com 9.4 timeframe)
• Promote features to unlicensed users (gitlab-ee 9.5 timeframe, possibly over multiple releases depending on features. We had planned to do this with GitLab.com accounts too.)

I don't want it to get in the way of shipping something quickly, but I do also want to look more holistically at the GitLab.com and first-time user journeys and continue to measure and improve them.

• GitLab.com homepage
  • Download
    • First-time admin experience
    • First-time user experience
  • Cloud
    • First-time user experience
  • Learn more about GitLab

I like it but what about our install base? Is there a way to offer this to them while they upgrade to 9.x? Tell them about it or ask them if they want to try EE? That might be what we really need. This solution might only work for net new trials and we'd miss out on the best fans we have that don't know about EE today.

changed title from Make it easier to discover and use EE features to [META] Make it easier to discover and use EE features

mentioned in issue #2500 (closed)

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mentioned in issue #2501 (closed)

@jimash I like your thinking, but I think that's a lot more sensitive than this approach. The default EE instance will promote features in app (i.e. where relevant, not using nag screens). Users will still be able to find a completely vanilla CE instance without this promotion in place so not sure how we would distinguish that and I know @sytses is, rightfully, wanting to approach this switch being mindful of our existing CE install-base.

We can certainly consider this more in the future and how we can handle this in an elegant way, but for now it's not considered in scope for what we are doing.

removed milestone

FYI @sytses @hazelyang I've "converted" this into a META as there are a few subtasks that can be decomposed into separate issues and worked on in parallel. This is why you will see the milestone removed from this issue and the first two relevant issues in 9.4 have been created here: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2500 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2501

We may also need to create another issue in customers.gitlab.com for any required changes there in order to purchase and activate products from inside of EE via some sort of ajax api. cc @DouweM

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Thanks @mydigitalself I think my suggestion was coming from a bit of a biased view of what I see in the field every day. Without migration tools for the legacy SCM vendors, the CE install base seems like our best place have a chance to build the next phase of our business.

@hazelyang We need to start getting UX together for this issue in 9.4. I assigned the two issues, #2500 #2501, Mike created to you, please reach out if you have questions or would like @mydigitalself to walk you through the issue.

@sarrahvesselov @mydigitalself Thanks! I'll work on them.

Taurie put together a screenshot walkthrough of the initial login after installation on https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/2539. Helpful for this discussion.

Moved the walkthrough to CE project https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/33221