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Coinbase Cloud Admin

An internal tool for account managers that cut customer resolution time from days to minutes

The redesigned flow in two steps. An account manager types Flipside, picks the customer, and filters 87 clusters down to 2 with Ethereum and Mainnet chips. Then, on the chosen cluster, they rename it, transfer it or delete it in one place.
Role
Solo Designer
Team
Product Manager, Full Stack Engineer
Scope
0→1
Status
Designed and shipped in 3 weeks

The problem

Coinbase Cloud had zero admin tooling. When a customer needed a rename, transfer or delete, account managers DM'd engineers in Slack and waited days.

Coinbase Cloud has ~30 account managers handling $30B in customer assets. They help customers set up clusters, move from trial to paying, and take care of requests like renaming a cluster, debugging errors or transferring clusters. However, they couldn't execute any of it so requests got passed on to PMs and engineers to run in their terminals. Turnaround time was in days, led to bad CX, and wasted engineering time.

$30Bin customer assets

Mapping it out

I interviewed 2 account managers to map the request lifecycle. It surfaced the friction points and made sure we were prioritizing the right things.

What info does a customer provide? How is a cluster searched for? How is the request handed off between people? How many tools are involved?

  1. SlackCustomer DMs the account manager
  2. CUSTOMER LIST PAGEAM looks up the customer on the customers page + copy their org ID
  3. CLUSTER LIST PAGECtrl+F that ID on the clusters list page
  4. CLUSTER LIST PAGEManually map the highlighted clusters to details in the DM
  5. JiraFile a ticket including cluster details
  6. PM or engineerWait for them to change in CLI, anywhere from hours to days

Users rewrote the brief

Finding the right cluster was the most time-consuming part. The actions themselves were easy enough.

  • Customers didn't always give the exact cluster details, so searching for a cluster was difficult because they needed to piece together different slices of information.
  • Handoff between tools and people meant information got lost and errors crept in.
  • Renaming a cluster was a common action missed in the PRD which I pushed to prioritize.
  1. SlackCustomer DMs the account manager
  2. Cloud AdminSearch by customer name
  3. Cloud AdminFilter clusters by details from the DM
  4. Cloud AdminFind and open cluster
  5. Cloud AdminTake action

Explorations

I tested a few directions for search early with account managers. Search by customer was strongly preferred: a simple starting point that matched the information they got from customers.

Exploration one: a single search field for the customer name and a Search button.
Search by customer
Exploration two: a query builder with a search field, a dropdown to pick cluster name, resource ID or customer, and an add a filter button.
Query builder
Exploration three: search for a cluster name on the left, or search for a customer name with an optional protocol filter on the right.
Split search

Solution

Search by customer name, filter down to the cluster, take action. All in one place.

Find cluster

Search by customer name and view details
View clusters and filter on columns: protocol, network, product and status to find the right one
Open cluster, view details and take action

Take action on it

Rename cluster
Transfer the organization through simple search
Delete with safeguards built in

Do what it takes to QA

Timelines were tight and I couldn't get access to the test environment. So I asked for screenshots and sent QA notes over Slack. Not ideal, but we needed to ship quickly.

Outcomes

Resolution timeDays → mins

People per request3 → 1

Tools per request4 → 1