Basic vs Expert mode and the Features toggle

Overview

Use this article when the LoadGen platform's navigation menu does not show what you expect. Two toggles in the sidebar footer decide how much of the interface is rendered, and between them they explain almost every "that page is not in my menu" question.

Mode: Basic or Expert controls depth. Basic shows the operational pages, the ones you use to run and watch things. Expert additionally reveals the administration layer: every CONFIGURATION: section, plus a small number of other administrative entries. Features: All or Licensed controls breadth. All shows every module the platform has. Licensed hides the modules this appliance is not licensed for, so the menu lists only what you can actually use.

Both are display preferences, not permissions. Neither one grants access to anything, and neither one takes access away: what your account may do is governed by roles on Operations: Permissions, and what this appliance may run is governed by Infrastructure: Licensing. Every feature page enforces its own licence and role gate regardless of how these toggles are set. Both preferences are stored per browser, so they follow the browser profile on that device rather than your user account, and both survive a page refresh and a new session.

Key concepts

• Mode - The depth toggle in the sidebar footer, with positions Basic and Expert. Navigation entries flagged as expert-only render only in Expert mode.
• Expert-only entry - A navigation section or item that is hidden in Basic mode. All CONFIGURATION: sections are expert-only, as is Operations: LoadGen Tickets. In-page cross-links that point at an expert-only page are hidden in Basic mode too, so Basic mode never offers a link to a page it will not show.
• Features - The breadth toggle in the sidebar footer, directly beneath Mode, with positions All and Licensed. All is the default and shows everything.
• Licence module code - The identifier that a navigation section is matched against when Features is set to Licensed, for example LG055 for Insight or LG058 for Service Levels. Codes and their status are listed on Infrastructure: Licensing.
• Per-browser preference - Both toggles are stored in the browser rather than on your account, so switching to a different browser, a different device, or a private window starts again from the defaults.

When to use it

• When a page named in the documentation or in a support answer is not in your navigation menu.
• When you are an operator who only runs tests and watches dashboards, and the full menu is more than you need.
• When you are an administrator about to configure agents, datasources, scenarios, retention, or service levels.
• When your appliance is licensed for a subset of modules and you want the menu to stop offering the rest.
• When you are demonstrating the platform and want to show either the simplest possible menu or the complete one.
• When a colleague's screen shows entries yours does not, or the reverse, and you want to know why.

Before you begin

• You need to be signed in. Both toggles live in the sidebar footer of the main application layout.
• Neither toggle requires a permission to operate: any signed-in user can switch either one.
• Switching to Expert does not give you access to anything your role does not already allow. If your role lacks a permission, the page will still refuse the action.
• Switching Features to Licensed does not change your entitlements. It only stops the navigation menu from listing modules you are not licensed for.

Mode: Basic and Expert

What Basic shows

Basic mode renders the operational surface: Main (Home and the module overview pages), and the day-to-day pages of each module, for example Testing, API Testing, End-to-End Monitoring, Uptime Monitoring, Insight, SessionSight, Service Levels, Analyse, and Alerting. This is enough to create and run work, watch it happen, and read the results.

What Expert adds

Expert mode additionally renders the administration layer. The clearest example is that every CONFIGURATION: section is expert-only:

• CONFIGURATION: LOADGEN AGENTS
• CONFIGURATION: SYSTEMS UNDER TEST
• CONFIGURATION: TESTING
• CONFIGURATION: API TESTING
• CONFIGURATION: END-TO-END MONITORING
• CONFIGURATION: INSIGHT
• CONFIGURATION: SESSIONSIGHT
• CONFIGURATION: SERVICE LEVELS

The plain CONFIGURATION group (Datasources, Notification Accounts, Workloads, Add-in Machines, Credential Profiles, Virtualization, Global Variables), the SYNC group (Overview, Repositories, Collections, History) and, under Operations, Backup, LoadGen Tickets and Settings are also expert-only.

Diffing the sidebar in both modes shows that those are the only differences. Basic mode keeps Permissions and SSO Providers under Operations and every other group unchanged.

Expert mode also restores in-page cross-links whose target is an expert-only page. For example, the Manage Schedules button in the header of the End-to-End Monitoring: Schedules calendar jumps to the schedule definitions page; because that page is expert-only, the button is hidden in Basic mode rather than offering a dead end.

Note that the expert-only flag is a per-entry decision that has changed over time as the navigation was reorganised. Testing: Load Profiles, for instance, used to sit under Configuration and was expert-only; it now sits in the Testing section and is visible in Basic mode.

Who should use which

• Basic suits load-test operators, analysts, and anyone whose job is to run work and read results. It is also the better default for a shared or demonstration environment, because it keeps destructive configuration out of casual reach visually.
• Expert suits administrators and implementers: anyone registering agents, wiring datasources, defining scenarios and test users, setting retention, or configuring service levels. If you are following a setup guide such as Getting started with the LoadGen Platform, you will need Expert mode, because most of its steps land on CONFIGURATION: pages.

If you are unsure, work in Basic and switch to Expert when a documented page is missing from your menu.

How the preference is stored

The mode is a per-browser preference held in the browser's local storage, and it is re-read when the layout first renders. It therefore survives a page refresh, a browser restart, and a new sign-in on the same browser profile.

This has not always been the case. On versions before 1.0.0.11830 the mode reset to Basic on every hard reload, which is why older notes and older habits may assume the toggle has to be set again after pressing F5. If you are on a current build and the mode still resets, treat that as a fault rather than expected behaviour.

Because storage is per browser rather than per account, the setting does not follow you to another machine, another browser, or a private window.

Features: All and Licensed

What the toggle does

Features sits directly beneath Mode in the sidebar footer.

• All (the default) shows every module regardless of licence. This is the standard view, and it is unchanged from how the platform behaved before the toggle existed.
• Licensed hides every navigation section whose licence module is absent, and also hides the corresponding activation cards on the Home dashboard.

The point of the toggle is to stop an operator who cannot use a module from repeatedly encountering it. If your appliance is not licensed for Insight, setting Features to Licensed removes the Insight section from the menu and its activation card from Home, instead of offering a route that always ends at an activation prompt.

Which modules it filters

The filter is driven by each section's licence module code. The codes it enforces are:

Both the main section and that module's expert-only CONFIGURATION: sub-section carry the code, so a module hidden by the Licensed setting is hidden consistently in both modes.

Alerting is not gated by this toggle. It stays available regardless of the setting, which also keeps the Home dashboard grid from collapsing to nothing on an appliance with very few licensed modules.

How it interacts with licensing

The toggle reads your licence state; it never changes it.

• Setting Features to Licensed does not disable or release anything. It filters the menu, nothing more.
• Setting Features to All does not unlock anything. Unlicensed module pages still show their activation card with Activate License and Learn More, a trial information line, and the feature tiles describing what the module does.
• If a licence expires or is added, the menu follows your current setting the next time the state is read: with Licensed, a newly licensed module appears and a lapsed one disappears.

To change what you are actually entitled to, use Infrastructure: Licensing, which lists each module's code, seat count, and expiry, and provides the binding and refresh controls.

How the preference is stored

Like Mode, the Features setting is held per browser in local storage, alongside the mode value. Switching it re-renders the navigation menu and the Home dashboard immediately, and the choice survives a browser refresh.

Both values are stored in the browser's local storage. Local storage survives a browser restart and belongs to the browser profile on that PC, not to the LoadGen account: signing out and in again does not reset it, and another browser or PC starts with the defaults.

How the two toggles combine

The toggles are independent and compose in one direction each:

The documentation in this category describes the platform as it appears with Expert and All, because that is the only combination in which every documented page is reachable.

The Home dashboard in each mode

The Home dashboard renders differently depending on what this appliance is licensed for. Where a module is not licensed, Home shows an activation card for it, with an Activate action, rather than live figures. Where a module is licensed, Home shows its live values, for example the concurrent-user capacity badge on the Load Testing panel. These activation cards are among the surfaces the Features toggle hides when it is set to Licensed.

Home renders the same eight panels (Dashboard, Load Testing, E2E Monitoring, Uptime Monitoring, Alerting, LoadGen Insight, System Health, Quick Actions) in both modes. Treat the Mode toggle as a navigation setting; activation cards follow the licence state and the Features toggle.

Controls reference

Mode: Basic

Renders the operational navigation only. Entries flagged expert-only, including every CONFIGURATION: section, are hidden, as are in-page cross-links that target them.

When to use: Day-to-day operation, running tests, watching dashboards, and reading results. Also useful on shared or demonstration environments.

Side effects: Display only. Persisted to this browser. No permission, licence, or configuration is changed, and nothing that is hidden is disabled.

Mode: Expert

Renders the operational navigation plus the administration layer, including every CONFIGURATION: section and Operations: LoadGen Tickets, and restores in-page cross-links to those pages.

When to use: Any setup or administration task, and whenever you are following a documented procedure that names a CONFIGURATION: page.

Side effects: Display only. Persisted to this browser. Does not grant permissions; role checks on the revealed pages still apply.

Features: All

Shows every module in the navigation menu and every activation card on the Home dashboard, regardless of licence. This is the default.

When to use: When you want to see the whole product, are evaluating modules you have not licensed, or are following documentation that references them.

Side effects: Display only. Persisted to this browser. Unlicensed pages still show their activation card when opened.

Features: Licensed

Hides every navigation section, and every Home dashboard activation card, whose licence module is absent. Alerting is unaffected and remains visible.

When to use: On an appliance licensed for a subset of modules, when the unavailable ones are noise rather than information.

Side effects: Display only. Persisted to this browser. Nothing is disabled, released, or de-licensed; the pages remain reachable by direct URL and still enforce their own gate.

Verify the result

After switching Mode to Expert, the navigation menu should show the CONFIGURATION: sections. Refresh the page: the mode must still be Expert. If it falls back to Basic, the preference is not persisting.

After switching Features to Licensed on an appliance with unlicensed modules, those modules' sections should disappear from the menu immediately, without a reload, and their activation cards should disappear from the Home dashboard. Switching back to All should restore both.

To confirm which modules should be visible under the Licensed setting, compare the remaining sections against the active module cards on Infrastructure: Licensing.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: A CONFIGURATION: page named in the documentation is not in your navigation menu. Fix: Switch Mode to Expert in the sidebar footer. All CONFIGURATION: sections are expert-only.
• Symptom: A whole module is missing from the menu, in both modes. Fix: Set Features back to All. If the module is still missing, it is not licensed on this appliance; check Infrastructure: Licensing.
• Symptom: A colleague sees menu entries you do not, on the same appliance and with the same role. Fix: Compare both toggles. They are per-browser, so two people on the same appliance routinely have different menus.
• Symptom: Your mode resets to Basic every time you reload. Fix: The preference is stored in the browser's local storage. Confirm the browser is not clearing site data on close and that you are not in a private window. Persistence across reloads was fixed in frontend 1.0.0.11830, so on an older build this is expected behaviour and the remedy is to update.
• Symptom: Your toggles are back to the defaults on another machine. Fix: Expected. Both are per-browser, not per-account, so set them once per browser profile.
• Symptom: You switched to Expert but a page still refuses an action. Fix: Expert mode is a display setting, not a permission. Check your role assignment on Operations: Permissions.
• Symptom: You set Features to Licensed and expected it to free up capacity or stop a module running. Fix: It does neither. It is a navigation filter. Licensing and module activation are managed on Infrastructure: Licensing.
• Symptom: A cross-link a colleague described, such as Manage Schedules on the End-to-End Monitoring calendar, is not on your screen. Fix: Cross-links whose target is an expert-only page are hidden in Basic mode. Switch to Expert.
• Symptom: The Testing: Schedules entry is missing while the rest of Testing is present. Fix: Test Scheduling is a separate add-on (LG053). With Features set to Licensed, its entry is hidden when the add-on is not licensed.

Related articles

• Prerequisite: Infrastructure: Licensing - which modules this appliance is licensed for, with their LG codes, seat counts, and expiry dates
• See also: Operations: Permissions - roles and permissions, which are what actually control access
• See also: Main: Home - the dashboard whose activation cards the Features toggle hides
• See also: How to use this documentation - how this category maps to the platform's navigation
• Next step: Getting started with the LoadGen Platform - the setup path, most of which needs Expert mode
• See also: What is the LoadGen Load Testing and Monitoring Platform? - the full module tour, including the modules the Licensed setting may be hiding from you