Price Manager Permissions

Zilliant provides price optimization and management software for industries like manufacturing, distribution, high-tech, and industrial services. Their platform helps companies optimize pricing strategies to drive profitability and operational excellence.

Price Manager simplifies the management of pricing data by aggregating it in a user-friendly interface. It offers the processing power to handle massive datasets, enables pricers to understand the impact of price changes, and streamlines workflows for seeking reviews and approvals.

Team Plato

Product Designer: Tyler Mag

Product Manager: Christie Vick

Tech lead: Chris Mihalyi

User Need and Current State

Configurator and Pricing Personas needed an interface within Price Manager to manage individual and group permissions at folder, workbook, and worksheet levels. This functionality was critical to empowering users to control access without requiring external assistance or coding expertise.

Limitations: Only configurators could set permissions.

Process: Permissions were managed by writing code in Postman, a highly technical and inaccessible solution for non-technical users.

End User Challenges: Pricing end users needed to submit work orders to Zilliant just to make changes, causing delays and inefficiencies.

Discovery

I conducted initial research by interviewing a combination of external and internal users to understand pain points. The research highlighted a key opportunity: providing an industry-standard level of permission settings would significantly improve user autonomy. Allowing users to self-serve their workbook settings was identified as a minimum viable improvement.

I performed competitive research, analyzing both direct and indirect competitors, and collaborated with the product manager to define the following key requirements:

Role-Based Permissions: Introduce Administrator, Editor, and Viewer roles.
Granular Permission Management: Enable permissions management at the Folder, Workbook, and Worksheet levels.
Support for Individuals and Groups: Allow permissions to be assigned to both individual users and groups.

Design Process

Sketching:

Created initial sketches of the interface based on user research and competitive analysis.
Reviewed these sketches during weekly design reviews with the small design team for feedback and refinement.

Prototyping and Testing:

Developed a clickable prototype using UXPin to simulate the user experience.
Conducted usability testing with real users to validate the design and identify areas for improvement.
Incorporated iterative feedback to address gaps and enhance usability.

Final Design and Handoff:

Finalized the designs after multiple iterations.
Delivered a comprehensive handoff document to the engineering team, detailing the critical nuances and edge cases involved in setting permissions to ensure smooth implementation.

Here are some snapshots of the handoff document detail. View entire document [Here]

Final Design and Handoff:

Finalized the designs after multiple iterations.
Delivered a comprehensive handoff document to the engineering team, detailing the critical nuances and edge cases involved in setting permissions to ensure smooth implementation.

Here are some snapshots of the handoff document detail. View entire document [Here]