PortalHow-to

Licensing Your Timebase Installation

Activate a Timebase installation: link its Pulse to your organization in Portal with the Instance ID, and the Free licence is issued on the spot. Includes the route for an air-gapped site and how to check it arrived.

Updated 12 Nov 2026Timebase Docs

Overview#

A new Timebase installation runs on a default tier for fourteen days, so you can install and evaluate before you register anything. To keep it running beyond that, link it to your organization in Portal. Linking issues a Free licence at once: there is no serial to type in, no file to copy and nothing to restart.

You link Pulse, not each component. Historian, Collector, Explorer, Atlas, Connect and Bridge all report through Pulse, so one link brings every component behind it into your organization and under its licence.

What you need:

A Timebase installation with Pulse running.
An organization in Portal in which you are an Admin. If you do not have one yet, Setting Up Your Organization in Portal creates it; the last step of that setup is this one.
For the online route, outbound HTTPS from Pulse to portal.timebase.com on port 443. There is nothing to configure: Pulse always connects there. A site that cannot allow it uses the air-gapped route.

Step 1: Copy the Instance ID from Pulse#

Open Pulse at https://<your-pulse-host>:4542 and sign in as an administrator.
Open Instance Info at the bottom of the sidebar.
Copy the Instance ID. It starts PULSE-. It has to match exactly, so copy it rather than retyping it.

Pulse has been reporting this ID to Portal since it first started. Linking is how you tell Portal which organization it belongs to.

Step 2: Link it in Portal#

Sign in to Portal.
On Home, the setup steps end with Link Timebase Pulse. Paste the Instance ID into the box and select Link Pulse.

If your organization is already set up and Home no longer shows the steps, open your organization from Organizations in the sidebar and select Add instance in the Instances section. Paste the ID and select Check Instance ID. Portal shows what it found; select Link.
The step turns to Pulse linked. Your installation, and every component behind that Pulse, now appears under Instances on your organization's page, with a Free licence.

Only an organization Admin can link a Pulse. A Member who tries is told so.

Step 3: Check it arrived#

The licence travels from Portal to Pulse, and Pulse serves it to every component.

In Pulse, the Overview page's Portal panel shows the link and its Last sync time. The Instances panel lists what Portal has issued.
On any component, open Instance Info. Its licence view now shows the licence, its type and its entitlements, instead of the unlicensed default tier and the days of grace left.

That is the installation licensed. Licensing and Entitlements explains what the default tier allowed and what changes now.

An air-gapped installation#

A Pulse that cannot reach Portal never reports its Instance ID, so there is nothing for Portal to match. Register it by hand and carry the licence across as a file.

Register it. In Portal, open your organization and select Add instance. Choose My system is air-gapped. Enter the Instance ID exactly as Pulse's Instance Info shows it, choose its type, give it a name, and select Create. On Home's setup steps the same route starts from My Pulse can't reach Portal. The instance is created in your organization with a Free licence.
Download the licence. Open the instance from the Instances table. In its Licenses section select Download .license. The file holds every active licence on that instance.
Load it into Pulse. Take the file to the site. In Pulse, open Instances, select the instance, and in its Licenses section select Load license file and choose the file. Pulse serves it to the components behind it, as it would a licence that arrived from Portal.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 whenever the licence is renewed, since an air-gapped Pulse never receives the update itself.

What you can do yourself, and what needs us#

Action	Organization Admin	Timebase support
Link a Pulse, which issues the Free licence	✅
Register an air-gapped installation	✅
Issue a Free licence on an instance that has none (New License)	✅
Renew a Free licence	✅
Renew a paid licence	Requests it: the renewal waits as a draft	Issues it
Trial, per-component or add-on licences		✅
Inactivate a licence, or transfer it to another instance		✅
Link a Pulse when some of its components belong to another organization		✅

For anything in the right-hand column, raise a support ticket and name your organization.

Troubleshooting#

What you see	What it means	What to do
No unclaimed instance matches that ID.	Portal has no unlinked Pulse with that ID. Either the ID was mistyped, Pulse has never reached Portal, or it is already linked elsewhere. Portal does not say which, on purpose	Copy the ID again from Instance Info. Check Pulse can reach `portal.timebase.com` on 443 (see Setting up Timebase Pulse, "Pulse cannot connect to Portal"). If the site is offline by design, use the air-gapped route
That Pulse is already linked to this organization.	It is done already	Nothing. Check its licence under Instances
Some components behind this instance belong to another organization and cannot be linked. Contact support.	One installation would be split across two organizations, so Portal refuses the whole link	Raise a ticket. Support sorts out which organization owns it
Only an administrator of this organization can link a Pulse to it.	You are a Member	Ask an Admin to link it
Portal lists the licence but a component still says unlicensed	Pulse has not synchronised since, or cannot reach Portal	Check Last sync on Pulse's Portal panel. A component reads its licence from Pulse, so it has to arrive there first
An air-gapped component still says unlicensed after loading the file	The file was loaded on the wrong instance in Pulse, or holds no active licence	Load it on the instance whose ID you registered. Download .license is disabled when the instance has no active licence

Licensing and Entitlements - what the default tier grants, and what a licence changes
Setting Up Your Organization in Portal - the full setup, of which linking is the last step
Setting up Timebase Pulse - the component that holds the link to Portal