Dynamic Yield
2021
Role management
A role-based permission system for Dynamic Yield’s enterprise customers, giving admins control over hundreds of users across multiple sites.
Overview
Enterprise accounts had grown past manual permissions
Enterprise customers manage dozens of sites and hundreds of users, yet permissions were set one user at a time, with no overview of who could do what.
The Impact
All top 20 customers adopted the new system.
5 roles per account on average.
$231K ARR retained from two at-risk accounts.
Problem
Admins lost track of who had access to what
Every user was configured separately, site by site. As teams grew, admins couldn’t see roles, audit access or make changes at scale.
Old Design
Research
The problem grew with every new hire
I led interviews with enterprise admins and paired them with account data: 30% of customers manage 10+ sites with 50+ active users. The pain wasn’t any single task. It was losing visibility as teams grew.
Designs
Structure that scales with the team
Overview before details
Role cards at the top show who has what at a glance, before diving into the list.
Roles instead of individual permissions
The research pointed to a structural fix, not a better list. I proposed a role model: define access once, per site, and assign it to many.
Built for bulk
Batch actions handle changes at scale, and new teammates inherit permissions from their role.
Lessons
Access control is a retention lever
Permissions look like admin plumbing. For enterprise customers, they decided whether the product could grow with them, and two accounts stayed because of it.
