Designing the foundation for security

Context

Security begins with customer data

Security services had become one of the fastest-growing revenue categories in managed services. Microsoft provides the frameworks, but the data is scattered across every client tenant. A provider has no single place to view and audit it.

Multiple Microsoft admin portals open across client tenants — One provider covering Microsoft 365 across every customer tenant.

Problem

All integrations are equal

The integration was the most valuable thing we were building, and everyone assumed it would slot into the legacy marketplace. The marketplace treated every integration the same. Partners would miss the fastest way in, and every other team would miss what the data could do for them.

Legacy integrations marketplace with the Microsoft Partner Center card among many others — DRAFTThe default path, mocked up to make the case against it.

Approach

Turn on the data, for everyone

Building inside SaaS Security would have been faster and less political. I designed it at the platform level instead, where any team could draw on the data. No process existed for a call like that, so I audited the platform architecture and interviewed the teams who owned it before making the case.

Platform navigation architecture with the Microsoft integration above the product layer — The architecture I proposed, with the integration above the product layer.

Solution

Trust before speed

A partner connecting Partner Center is handing over every customer record they manage. I designed each step to show its work: what gets created, what gets changed, and how to undo it. Slowing them down at the right moments let them move faster overall.

1

Connect, self-serve

I put the integration on the Companies screen, where partners already work, so they could find and connect it without a service rep. It became the first product-led onboarding motion on the platform.

Companies screen with the Microsoft Partner Center connect prompt — One connection imports every company a partner manages and keeps them current.

2

Company mapping

Setup runs as a four-step flow, and mapping was the hard step. A partner already on the platform has years of company records, and the sync proposes matches against them. I designed for the misses: no-match and ignore as valid choices, every match reversible, nothing written until a final confirmation.

3

Connecting the data

Connecting a tenant meant four separate authorizations, one per Microsoft service. I made the optional connectors required and packaged them into a single request. Three steps saved on every tenant a partner connects, and most manage dozens.

Connect Selected Companies modal flowing into the Microsoft consent screen — Requirements up front, then Microsoft's own consent screen.

4

Light up the product

I designed the SaaS Security product alongside the integration, so the screens were ready the moment data started flowing. Overview, dashboards, and reports all read from the same source. The components under them went into the design system for other teams to build on.

SaaS Security overview and dashboard, both populated by the Microsoft integration — Redesigned SaaS Security screens activated by the Microsoft integration.

Outcomes

More than an integration

The integration shipped first, SaaS Security close behind. Before launch, leadership moved the product above the legacy security tools in the platform navigation. A new Defender product was built on the integration's data, and that team brought me in to guide its UX and technical direction. SIEM was queued behind it, and the wider cybersecurity org opened talks with our team.

“It took less than 10 minutes to roll it out to all my clients using the new Partner Center Integration.”
— Cloud Solutions Architect, early adopter

−75%

AuthorizationsFour connectors consolidated into one

+1

New productDefender built on the data, security org next

1^st

Platform integrationA new product-led pattern

With more time

There was no shared vision for the security suite. The product owner and I started building one, and I began mapping the partner journey across the Security org. Multiple products, one path from activation to full adoption. I'd have pushed that further.