Sign up and sign in
Applies to the Plane Cloud from December 12, 2023, and Plane self-managed editions, v0.14 and above
Starting v0.14, you will see changes to our sign-up and sign-in flows on both Cloud and self-managed editions. Designed for security while balancing flexibility and convenience, our new sign up and sign-in flows allow greater control over self-managed instances, make it easy for Cloud users to spot existing workspaces, and prep us for billing controls when pricing for paid plans kicks in.
What’s changed
Cloud
Up until now, you could only sign up and sign in via a unique code + magic link. While it worked for most of you, we saw requests for an easier sign-in experience, especially from users who logged out frequently or were logged out by the system.
Now, while you will still get a unique code to sign up, you will be asked to choose a password that you can use going forward.
Want to continue using unique codes? We got you. Just ignore the Choose password button and click Go to workspace. If you are already using Plane, you have to sign in using a unique code once and can choose a password going forward.
Self-managed
To enhance security and offer greater control over authorization and access, we have now introduced a special self-managed-only role called Instance admin with access to features that live on the path /god-mode on yoursubdomain.yourdomain.tld .
An instance is a single self-managed installation of Plane on a private cloud or server that the Instance admin controls and administers. A single instance can house multiple workspaces.
There may also be cases where a user IRL is running multiple instances, e.g., when using Plane for several clients. An Instance admin role will have to be declared for each of those instances, but it is okay to use the same email address for all of them.
This screen will help you get set up with an e-mail and a password and get access to God Mode features. Learn more
To prevent misuse of these features, you can’t access these screens without going through our secure set-up first, which will start when you upgrade to v0.14.
Cloud users will get their own set of God Mode in a later update for authorization and billing controls. Subscribe to be notified.
Completing set-up will lead you to a success screen that should look like ↓.
New instances that complete set-up let you skip God Mode and invite your team or land inside the product. Existing instances will mandatorily lead you to God Mode so you can immediately set up essential features like SMTP to administer and authorize existing users.
FAQs
Why this change
TL;DR We are growing and we need to wear some big-person pants.
Plane is now adopted across the size-and-shape range of businesses. As we build up to the launch of our paid plans, we have already heard from our more advanced users for out-of-the-box administration, authorization, access, and billing controls.
For starters, there isn’t an Instance admin role today which makes it nigh impossible for us to inform them of essential upgrades, send security notices, introduce paid upgrades for self-managed instances, and everything else that will follow. We are starting with declaration of that role in your own Plane instance. Soon, we will let you opt in to urgent and other comms.
What’s next
As we continue to grow, we will evolve our authorization and access controls even further, especially on self-managed instances. With the introduction of Instance admin and God Mode features, we anticipate several requests for more security features like Custom SAML, OAuth 2.0, and Granular Access Controls—features we plan to bring to our Cloud, too, to ensure the highest possible parity between our Cloud workspaces and self-managed ones.
We will soon separate out our sign-up and sign-in screens, too, so existing users, especially those with passwords, have a simpler sign-in experience than today’s.
As always, please reach out to us with more feature requests, to report a sub-par experience, or throw brickbats. We will humbly take them all. This release, and Plane itself, wouldn’t have been possible without all of them.
Thank you a million times over.