Microsoft Seller Tools

Designing for scale

Year

2019 - 2025

EmployeR

Microsoft

SERVICES

Product/UX Design

I was brought on as a consultant to work on the internal Microsoft Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) tool to revamp for sellers with the goal of driving greater clarity in the experience while making it more appealing overall. This was a newer initiative that would replace the previous tool Microsoft sellers were working on that was a tied to an earlier customer agreement structure that was bloated required constant agreement signing by customers for any new software. This wasn’t aligned to the subscription and consumption based approaches Microsoft was moving towards, as well as the greater flexibility and speed required of a modern tool. One year after proving to the team my value as a consultant I was hired full time to help grow the tool to match Microsoft’s ambitions for it. Due to the fact that this is an internal tool supporting Microsoft's sellers I am unable to show designs on this page, but I am more than happy to walk you through the work in a more direct manner.

Early on the product and teams were structured more like a start-up with the goal of moving fast to provide immediate value. Another product designer and I were primarily focused on the main CPQ tool, but as the size of the tool grew I took ownership over the CPQ tool while the other product designer transitioned to the research tool we were developing alongside it. Prior to the broad organizational restructuring, I was supporting five engineering teams, around 40 engineers, that each owned a different section of the CPQ tool to ensure they could have a depth of knowledge in a single area while I managed the user experience for the tool.

New features were predominantly focused on meeting business needs as the landscape shifted over the 5 years working on the product. This required flexibility to manage multiple projects with differing timelines and to effectively prioritize what features are most impactful. Features varied in size, clarity, and impact that meant that it was incumbent on me to determine the optimal process for each feature and what research tasks I needed to take on to ensure I had the right insights to craft the experience for our Microsoft sellers. I would also put together quality of life features for our sellers in combination with the business features to continuously improve the experience for our sellers in a multitude of ways.

One particularly complex feature that had a longer runway focused on providing clear navigation and selection of Azure workloads, with limited support for adjustment to the underlying API’s driving that configuration. After a round of user interviews, data analysis of the types of Azure workloads, collaboration with engineers and PM to test our understanding, iteration on different designs and user studies to highlight areas for improvement I was able to land at a design that struck a balance of supporting complex customizations for the deals that required them, but also improved clarity for the sellers that only needed simpler customizations. Through this process I was particularly proud of the time spent understanding the APIs in use allowing me to find a creative solution to the limited data available.

Early on the product and teams were structured more like a start-up with the goal of moving fast to provide immediate value. Another product designer and I were primarily focused on the main CPQ tool, but as the size of the tool grew I took ownership over the CPQ tool while the other product designer transitioned to the research tool we were developing alongside it. Prior to the broad organizational restructuring, I was supporting five engineering teams, around 40 engineers, that each owned a different section of the CPQ tool to ensure they could have a depth of knowledge in a single area while I managed the user experience for the tool.

New features were predominantly focused on meeting business needs as the landscape shifted over the 5 years working on the product. This required flexibility to manage multiple projects with differing timelines and to effectively prioritize what features are most impactful. Features varied in size, clarity, and impact that meant that it was incumbent on me to determine the optimal process for each feature and what research tasks I needed to take on to ensure I had the right insights to craft the experience for our Microsoft sellers. I would also put together quality of life features for our sellers in combination with the business features to continuously improve the experience for our sellers in a multitude of ways.

One particularly complex feature that had a longer runway focused on providing clear navigation and selection of Azure workloads, with limited support for adjustment to the underlying API’s driving that configuration. After a round of user interviews, data analysis of the types of Azure workloads, collaboration with engineers and PM to test our understanding, iteration on different designs and user studies to highlight areas for improvement I was able to land at a design that struck a balance of supporting complex customizations for the deals that required them, but also improved clarity for the sellers that only needed simpler customizations. Through this process I was particularly proud of the time spent understanding the APIs in use allowing me to find a creative solution to the limited data available.

To ensure a feature was ready I would present it to PM and engineering counterparts, leadership and key business stakeholders as well as sellers and their readiness counterparts making sure to provide different ways people could provide feedback in the meetings or after the fact. I was consistently commended for the clear delivery of these presentations and deep understanding of the feature and capabilities we were trying to release.

At times for larger features across many different touchpoint for sellers, customers and IT admins, I would work with designers from other teams to ensure consistency in the language and display of information across all of the different tools. This was important to ensure that a seller would be using the same terminology the customer would see in their management experiences, or alignment with the display to the customer in the checkout experience. These interactions helped build trust with some of the design teams working on customer-facing tools and were great opportunity for collaboration and connection.

It was important to support the engineers through delivery to ensure a successful launch. My approach was multifold starting with clear documentation covering component usage, accessibility annotations, specifications covering the changes being made and any edge cases that might arise. While the engineers were working on the feature I made sure to make myself available to help clarify any confusion and to navigate them through the complexity of space. This resulted in fostering strong relationships with members of the engineering team building a trust through alignment in our shared goals. This was also commended by my managers as they could see the impact it was having on new team members and their ability to quickly grow in the space.

The CPQ tool supported different levels of authorization adjusting capabilities within the tool for the different user types that were required for a deal from creation through agreement customization and approval. It supported creation of customer accounts, migration from legacy systems, as well as the designation of more complex organizational structures feature parent and child relationships or affiliate connections. These accounts allowed our sellers to generate credit checks for their customer and provide a white-glove service to adjustments to their customer’s existing subscriptions, letting them move seats across different subscription, convert a subscription into a new plan, or completely adjust the details of the subscription as part of a negotiation.

A seller could search available promotions that their customer was eligible for, configure purchases the customer was making, or establish discounts across the full suite of Microsoft products with capabilities to define it down to a regional data center level. Based on the contents of the deal the system would inform and route the deal for approval from the right level of authorization within the company. For users that had authorization to customize agreements, they could add and edit the language of the agreement itself, and could access approvals received for funding agreements within other portals. The seller could then dynamically generate the agreement to share with the customer for additional negotiation or signing.

I was able to shepherd the user experience of the tool being used by a small group of sellers focused predominantly on referrals and small Azure deals to a complex tool supporting Azure, Copilot, and Microsoft’s suite of enterprise subscriptions with agreement customization that was closing in on handling 99% of Microsoft business deals. This occurred while also guiding the tool through migration to two separate portals, and shifting design systems within each portal. It was essential to Microsoft’s business and over a billion dollars was transacted through out system with more resulting from the consumption of cloud based resources.

Target

Design

About Me

Design

About Me