Case study · Platform UX
Unified experience: modernizing a decade-old product, then adding an agentic dashboard
Zuora is a decade-old product suite, and its navigation was something customers had learned by heart. I helped modernize and ship one navigation and experience across the portfolio, then rebuilt the dashboard as an agent.
- Role
- Product manager
- Company
- Zuora
- Domain
- Platform UX, entitlement-aware navigation
- Status
- Navigation in production; dashboard agent in early access
- All
- customers moved to the new navigation
- 0
- support tickets raised for the enablement
- ~200
- customers in the dashboard agent's early access
What shipped
The new navigation and unified experience went to production across the entire customer base, with no support tickets raised for the enablement.
One navigation across the portfolio
Global Navigation replaced separate product menus with a single way to move through Zuora, and a centralized home gave every user a common starting point.
Recommendations that respect permissions
Rule-based workflows let users pin pages and suggest pages to them based on their entitlements, roles and permissions. A user is only pointed to what they can actually use.
An application switcher for every Zuora application
From any page, in any product, a user can switch to any other Zuora application without going back to a launcher or re-navigating from scratch.
A widget framework, then a command center
The Universal Widget Framework gave teams no-code, drag-and-drop widgets with Salesforce and custom embeds, and the OneID Command Center put identity administration in one place.
Navigation
Pins and suggested pages
Application switcher
Any Zuora application, from any page
Dashboard agent
Ask what needs attention
One access model
Entitlements, roles and permissions, plus geography for the agent
The dashboard, as an agent
The product dashboard started as UI that users could assemble themselves from metrics across their Zuora applications, with custom widgets and Salesforce or Tableau dashboards embedded alongside. It then became an agentic experience. An admin can ask what needs their attention, and it answers with metrics scoped by their access, role and geography, and Gen-AI widgets.
It is in early access with about 200 customers.
Product decisions
Changing a decade-old product is a trust problem
Customers have years of muscle memory, and every navigation change risks a surge of support questions. The rollout was designed so enablement happened without tickets, not just so the new design shipped.
Recommend from entitlements, not guesses
Suggestions come from what a user is entitled to, their role and their permissions. The same model that governs access also shapes what the experience offers, so the two never disagree.
One switcher instead of many doors
Zuora is a portfolio of applications. A single switcher that works from wherever the user already is treats the portfolio as one product rather than a set of separate ones.
Build the experience as UI first, then make it agentic
The dashboard shipped first as a UI users could customize, and then became an agent. The agent reuses the access, role and geography scoping that already governed the rest of the experience, so it cannot show someone more than they are allowed to see.
Where it fits
The experience is where people meet the platform, and where agents increasingly will. Keeping access, entitlement and role at the center is what lets it grow from a navigation into an agent without a rebuild.
Read about the production agents →Read about the agent boundary →Read the OneID case study →Modernizing a product people already depend on?
I'm always glad to compare notes on rolling out core experience changes without disrupting customers.
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