Cloud Service Admin Platform

Building an admin application from the ground up

Company
D-Wave Systems
My Role
Entire product design from research to conception, definition, visualization, and testing
Team
1 Product Designer, 1 Product Manager, 1 Software Architect, 3 Customer Support Technicians, 1 Technical Lead, 6 Developers, 3 Test Engineers
Duration
1 year +

Business Context

D-Wave sells access to quantum solvers that can solve computationally complex problems faster or find better-quality solutions than conventional computers. When I joined as the first creative hire, the company was in the process of shifting focus beyond individual quantum application developers, toward targeting firms with large-scale computing problems. This was done via professional services contracts and by securing third-party consulting and solver-time resale partnerships. This strategy relies on the company's ability to create flexible contracts, and delegate the creation and administration of projects to control access to quantum solver resources. This would be accomplished through the creation of a capable admin interface for Leap, D-Wave's quantum cloud platform.

Problem

D-Wave had been operating on an accretive admin platform, primarily interfaced through scripts and a limited UI. This setup presented a significant bottleneck for business growth due to its limited system functionality and reliance on the tacit knowledge of a few originating developers and support technicians. This complexity resulted in a challenging user experience for support and sales teams who had to grapple with a system that couldn't keep up with evolving sales practices and the demands of a growing customer base.
A critical aspect of this project also involves managing D-Wave's transition from selling physical quantum computing systems to offering cloud-only access. This transition necessitates a user-friendly, common admin platform for existing customers who previously purchased physical systems. As these customers are converted to nodes on the quantum cloud, they will need an intuitive platform to manage their projects' quantum solver resources effectively.

Process Overview

This is the general design process I used including meetings I owned. Not shown are all the other project meetings to align on the work including business and technical requirements documentation, business vision review and approval, regular scrums and other development-stage specific meetings.
The admin panel would become the backbone of how we deliver our product since it controls many aspects such as project creation, user access and role management, terms of service agreement presentation, reporting, system monitoring, solver time division, and problem prioritization, to name a few. In order to deliver a system that met the needs of internal stakeholders and customers alike, my process focused on establishing a cadence for gathering input from the right stakeholders at the right time.

Discovery

For the discovery phase of this project, I engaged with internal and customer stakeholders. To understand the needs of customers, I teamed up with a senior development director to conduct an initial round of interviews. In tandem with this effort, I spent a lot of time consulting with internal sales and customer support reps to document existing processes and system characteristics. I documented much of this input in a flow-diagram format and revised it iteratively, incorporating additional input to refine the process flows that had evolved in an accretive manner. Stakeholder needs, pain-points, and insights yielded a business vision document containing a list of prioritized requirements for further review. So much review! But seriously, the admin panel is foundational and business critical, so we had to get it right!"

Discovery Themes

Theme # 1

Lack of flexibility in the current admin platform

The current system was limited in its ability to adapt to changing sales practices and a growing customer base. Flexible contract start dates and solver time increments would help close deals.
Theme # 2

Reliance on tacit knowledge

The existing platform relied heavily on the knowledge of a few originating developers and support technicians, making it difficult for other team members to understand and use the system. Processes needed to be generalized and simplified.
Theme # 3

Inadequate project management

This was a must-have feature for our customers. The current system did not provide any functionality for customers to manage their own projects, including solver time division, and problem prioritization. Creation of new projects on customers' behalf was time consuming for D-Wave support.
Theme # 4

Limited reporting capabilites

Reporting tasks took up a lot of support time requiring manual customization of database queries and trial-and-error to ensure the correct data had been procured.

Features

Project Invitations

Global Search

Global Search

Find any entity in the system.

Global Search: This powerful feature offers a streamlined approach to navigate the system efficiently. By using the global search functionality, users can quickly locate any entity within the system, whether it's users, projects, organizations, or problems. It provides a comprehensive search solution, thereby enhancing user productivity and system navigation.

User Reception

The completion of this project brought about a significant transformation in the functionality and user experience of D-Wave's quantum cloud platform. Here are testimonials from key stakeholders who were directly involved in the process, giving their first-hand accounts of the improvements and benefits they've seen as a result of the admin panel redesign.
General Satisfaction and Improvement:
"The whole admin redesign is a lot more streamlined. We've been tweaking functionality as needed and lately haven't had any redesign bug tickets. The only really big things are changes to pricing model/sales techniques/business direction. We are all really happy with it." - Director, Service & Support
"Overall, the new Admin UI is working and is a major improvement from the old systems. The flows work well." - Staff Service & Support Specialist
Efficiency and Speed
"Setting up a new project is 3X to 10X faster, making updates due to a contract change is 10X faster, and troubleshooting a user's issue with solver usage or submitted problem is 2X to 10X faster." - Senior Service & Support Software Specialist
Enhanced Features
"Everything for project creation is now in a single page, automatic project code creation, no need to manually create users if they do not exist in Leap or adding users one by one and so many more features." - Software Support Specialist II

Business Impact

The redesign of the admin panel had an immediate and substantial impact on D-Wave's business operations. One of the most notable results has been the remarkable growth in our third-party consulting and solver-time resale partnerships, which now account for 30% of the total solver time sold by D-Wave. This expansion not only represents a considerable boost in sales but it also achieved a significant increase in operational efficiency. Despite the higher sales volume, the efficiency gains from the new admin panel have enabled us to handle this increased demand without requiring any growth in our support teams. Consequently, the project has played a crucial role in driving our business growth while simultaneously ensuring operational sustainability.
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