License Management

Legend uses a tier-based licensing model that unlocks additional features as your organization grows. This guide explains the licensing tiers, how to apply and monitor your license, and how to handle special deployment scenarios like air-gapped environments.

License Tiers

Legend offers four license tiers, each providing progressively more features and higher limits:

Community Tier

The Community tier is free and provides core functionality for small teams or evaluation purposes.

Features:

• Up to 5 landmarks, 5 people, and 2 teams
• Up to 5 users
• Categories and tags
• Basic search and filtering
• Relationship visualization
• Documentation attachment
• Local authentication

Limits:

• No custom groups
• 1 day audit log retention
• No custom branding
• No OIDC/SSO integration
• No scheduled or recurring alerts
• No CSV export

When to use:

• Small teams (up to 5 users)
• Evaluation and testing
• Organizations that don’t need advanced features

Starter Tier

The Starter tier is designed for growing teams that need additional organizational features.

Features:

• All Community tier features, plus:
• Up to 50 landmarks, 50 people, and 20 teams
• Up to 25 users
• Custom logo upload
• OIDC/SSO integration
• Up to 5 custom groups
• 30 days audit log retention
• Scheduled alerts (non-recurring)
• CSV import

Limits:

• No OIDC group synchronization
• No custom favicons
• No recurring alerts
• No CSV export of audit logs

When to use:

• Growing teams (up to 25 users)
• Organizations that need SSO integration
• Teams that require custom branding

Professional Tier

The Professional tier is designed for larger organizations that need advanced collaboration and governance features.

Features:

• All Starter tier features, plus:
• Up to 200 landmarks, 200 people, and 50 teams
• Up to 50 users
• OIDC group synchronization
• Up to 15 custom groups
• 90 days audit log retention

Limits:

• No custom favicons
• No recurring alerts
• No CSV export of audit logs

When to use:

• Larger teams (up to 50 users)
• Organizations that need group synchronization from their identity provider
• Teams with longer audit retention requirements

Business Tier

The Business tier provides enterprise-grade features for large organizations.

Features:

• All Professional tier features, plus:
• Unlimited landmarks, people, teams, and users
• Custom favicon upload
• White-label branding
• Unlimited custom groups
• Unlimited audit log retention
• Recurring alerts (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual)
• CSV export of audit logs
• Priority support

Limits:

• None (all features unlocked)

When to use:

• Large teams (50+ users)
• Organizations with compliance requirements
• Enterprises that need full feature access

Accessing License Management

To access license management:

1. Click your user menu in the top-right corner
2. Select Admin Panel from the dropdown
3. Click License in the admin sidebar

Only users in the Admins group can access license management.

Applying a License Key

To apply a license key to your Legend instance:

1. Navigate to Admin Panel > License
2. In the License Key field, paste your license key
3. Click Apply License
4. Legend validates the license key and activates the corresponding tier
5. The new tier features and limits take effect immediately

License keys are typically provided via email after purchase or through the Legend customer portal. Each license key is tied to a specific tier and may have an expiration date.

License Key Security

License keys are sensitive credentials that unlock paid features. Never share them publicly or commit them to version control. If a license key is compromised, contact Legend support to revoke it and obtain a replacement.

Viewing License Status

The license management page displays:

• Current Tier: The active license tier (Community, Starter, Professional, or Business)
• License Status: Whether the license is active, expired, or in grace period
• Expiration Date: When the license expires (if applicable)
• Days Remaining: How many days until expiration
• Usage Statistics: Current usage of tier-limited features (groups, categories, tags)

This information helps you monitor your license status and plan for renewals or upgrades.

Understanding Grace Periods

When a license expires, Legend enters a 14-day grace period. During this period:

• All features remain active
• Users can continue to use the instance normally
• Administrators can renew the license without service interruption
• A warning banner appears on the dashboard reminding administrators to renew

After the 14-day grace period expires:

• The instance downgrades to the Community tier
• Features that exceed Community tier limits are disabled
• Entities that exceed limits are deactivated (not deleted)
• A notification is sent to administrators

Grace Period Is Not a Trial

The grace period is designed to prevent service interruption during license renewal. It is not intended as an extended trial period. Renew your license before the grace period ends to avoid service degradation.

What Happens When Limits Are Exceeded

If your usage exceeds your license tier’s limits:

Exceeding group limits:

• You cannot create new custom groups
• Existing groups remain active
• Users can still be added to existing groups

Exceeding category limits:

• You cannot create new categories
• Existing categories remain active
• Landmarks can still be assigned to existing categories

Exceeding tag limits:

• You cannot create new tags
• Existing tags remain active
• Entities can still be tagged with existing tags

Downgrading from a higher tier:

• Features that exceed the new tier’s limits are disabled
• Entities that exceed limits are deactivated (not deleted)
• You can reactivate entities by reducing usage or upgrading your license

Deactivated entities are hidden from the dashboard and search results but remain in the database. They can be reactivated if you reduce usage or upgrade your license.

Revoking a License

To revoke your license and downgrade to the Community tier:

1. Navigate to Admin Panel > License
2. Click Revoke License
3. Confirm the revocation
4. Legend downgrades to the Community tier immediately
5. Features that exceed Community tier limits are disabled

Revocation Is Immediate

Revoking your license takes effect immediately. Features that exceed Community tier limits will be disabled, and entities that exceed limits will be deactivated. Ensure you understand the impact before revoking your license.

Revoking a license does not delete your data. It only disables features that exceed the Community tier’s limits. You can reapply a license key at any time to restore access to higher-tier features.

Air-Gapped Licensing

Customers who require air-gapped deployments may purchase that option with their license. Air-gapped deployments do not require outbound connectivity to validate the license. Contact Legend support to discuss air-gapped licensing for your environment.

License Validation

Legend validates your license regularly to ensure full functionality is available for your instance. This validation requires outbound HTTPS connectivity to the Legend license server. No entity data, user information, or organizational content is transmitted during validation.

License Validation Data

License validation transmits only an instance identifier, license token, version number, and seat count. Your entity data, user information, and documentation content are never sent to the license server.

License Renewal

To renew your license before it expires:

1. Contact Legend support or use the customer portal to obtain a renewal license key
2. Navigate to Admin Panel > License
3. Paste the new license key in the License Key field
4. Click Apply License
5. The new license replaces the existing one and extends the expiration date

Renewing your license before expiration prevents service interruption and ensures continuous access to all features.

Upgrading Your License

To upgrade from one tier to another:

1. Purchase an upgrade through the Legend customer portal or contact sales
2. Receive the new license key via email
3. Navigate to Admin Panel > License
4. Paste the new license key in the License Key field
5. Click Apply License
6. The new tier features and limits take effect immediately

Upgrading your license does not require a restart or downtime. All new features become available immediately.

Troubleshooting

Cannot apply license key:

• Verify the license key is correct and not expired
• Check that you have administrator privileges
• Ensure the license key matches your Legend instance ID (if applicable)
• Contact Legend support if the license key is invalid

License shows as expired:

• Check the expiration date on the license management page
• Renew the license before the grace period ends
• Contact Legend support if you believe the license should still be valid

Features disabled after downgrade:

• Review the tier limits to understand which features are affected
• Reduce usage to within the new tier’s limits
• Upgrade your license to restore access to disabled features

Heartbeat failures:

• Verify outbound network connectivity to the license server
• Check firewall rules to ensure port 443 is open
• Review Legend logs for detailed error messages
• Contact Legend support if the license server is unreachable

Best Practices

License Management:

• Monitor your license status regularly
• Renew licenses before expiration to avoid service interruption
• Keep license keys secure and do not share them publicly
• Document your license key in a secure location for disaster recovery

Usage Monitoring:

• Review usage statistics periodically to anticipate limit increases
• Plan license upgrades before reaching tier limits
• Monitor audit log retention to ensure compliance requirements are met

Air-Gapped Deployments:

• Use air-gapped licensing only when network isolation is required
• Maintain a process for manual license renewal
• Document the air-gapped deployment procedure for future administrators
• Test license application in a staging environment before production deployment

Next Steps

After managing your license, proceed to Audit Logs to monitor system activity, or Backups and Recovery to protect your data.