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How licensing works
Two separate controls decide whether a person can open an HCM application. A person needs both.
| Control | Set by | Decides | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | Platform administrator (the vendor) | What your organization has bought: edition, term, features, limits | Platform administration console |
| Access | Your Tenant Owner, Tenant Admin or Security Admin | Which of your people may use what you have bought | Application Access in Studio |
The server checks both on every request. Hiding a menu in the browser is never the protection.
Editions
Your organization has one licence with one edition. Each edition includes the features of the one before it.
| Edition | Adds these features | Users | Branches | API calls | Devices | Concurrent sessions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community | Dashboard Designer, Form Designer, API | 5 | 1 | 1,000 | 1 | 1 |
| Starter | Entity Designer, Workflow | 25 | 3 | 10,000 | 3 | 5 |
| Professional | HCM, CRM, Inventory, Permission Designer, Print Designer | 100 | 10 | 100,000 | 10 | 25 |
| Enterprise | Payroll, Manufacturing, Accounting, POS, Report Designer, Offline Sync | 1,000 | 100 | 1,000,000 | 100 | 250 |
| Ultimate | AI Assistant, Mobile App | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
The numbers are the defaults when a licence is created. A platform administrator can change an individual feature or limit for your organization. A limit of -1 means unlimited.
New organizations start on a four-week trial of the Professional edition, with no credit card. The trial ends 28 days after registration, with no grace days. A platform administrator then sets the purchased edition and term. Organizations created before 16 October 2026 started on Community and keep their licence.
Status
| Status | Meaning | Can people work? |
|---|---|---|
| Trial | Evaluation licence. | Yes, until its end date. |
| Active | Paid and current. | Yes. |
| Grace period | Past the end date but inside the grace days set on the licence. | Yes. |
| Expired | Past the end date and the grace period. | No. |
| Suspended | Stopped by the platform administrator. | No. |
| Revoked | Cancelled. | No. |
| Invalid | The licence signature does not verify. | No. |
A licence with no end date does not expire. Every licence is signed by the platform; a licence that was changed by hand fails the signature check and is treated as invalid.
What a plugin needs
Every plugin (and so every HCM application built from plugins) declares a licence tier:
- free: installs on any edition.
- an edition (starter, professional, enterprise, ultimate): installs only when your edition is that high or higher.
- a per-plugin grant: for subscription, per-user or per-tenant pricing, the platform administrator grants the feature
plugin:<plugin id>to your organization. Example: HCM Communications is on thestandardtier and needs the featureplugin:hcm-communications.
If the licence does not cover a plugin, the install is refused with a message that says what is missing, for example: plugin "hcm-communications" requires license feature "plugin:hcm-communications", not granted for this tenant.
The same check runs every time a page of an installed plugin is opened. If your edition is lowered later, pages of plugins the new edition no longer covers stop opening, even though the plugin stays installed.
What the launcher shows
An application tile appears only when:
- its plugins are installed for your organization,
- its feature switch is on, and
- your Tenant Admin has not denied the person that application in Application Access.
So two people in the same organization can see different launchers.
Who changes what
| I want to... | Who | How |
|---|---|---|
| Buy or change a plan, extend the term, change a limit | Platform administrator | Licence console |
| Turn a licensed application off for one person | Tenant Owner / Tenant Admin / Security Admin | Application Access: Deny |
| Turn it back on | The same | Application Access: Allow |
| Find out why a page refuses me | Anyone | The message names the missing licence feature or the denied application |
Current limits of the system
- User and usage limits are recorded but not yet enforced. The licence stores a Users limit (and the others in the table above) and platform administrators can see it, but adding user number 6 on a Community licence is not blocked yet. Treat the limits as contract terms until enforcement is switched on.
- Expiry is all or nothing. After the grace period a licence is treated as expired; there is no separate view-and-export mode yet. Renew before the end date, or ask for grace days on the licence.
- Access is per schema, not per HCM application. Denying
hcmin Application Access blocks all five HCM applications for that person; you cannot allow Core HR and deny Talent yet. - Self-hosted installations use the same signed licence, validated with the platform's public key. Ask your vendor for the licence file.