Enterprise Limbo

I collaborated closely with the customer success team to align on a solution which would work well for new users and administrators alike. If we made it too easy for new users to get into a workspace, it may put too much of the load on the workspace admins to filter through the new users. But if we made it too involved for new users to get into a workspace, and they may decide not to move forward at all...

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There were a number of MVP solutions discussed

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👎 Disabling the ability to set all the settings to match either criteria‍

Pros:

• Ensures no user would ever be in limbo
• Lightest load on both admins and new users

Cons:

• Would require workspaces to change their settings, either manually or automatically
• While some workspaces were configured this way accidentally, many configurations were purposeful. Removing one of these configurations would be seen as a downgrade to many admins
• The most significant engineering lift of any solution discussed

This was the first option thrown around, and while a potentially good preventative measure, ultimately it was decided that admins should be able to configure their workspaces without limitations. How we'd move forward shouldn't enforce a change to workspace settings.

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🤷 Giving new users the ability to contact one or more admins directly for assistance

Pros:

• Give new users a path forward once they create an account
• Would allow those users to reach out to an admin they know through channels they were familiar
• The lightest engineering lift of any solution discussed

Cons:

• Didn't make it easy enough for admins to admit these users into the workspace
• Providing admin contact information was a murky solution at best

If the problem is that users cannot select a workspace themselves, an admin would need to admit them to one. This solution, devised with speed-to-market in mind, would provide newly created members with a screen prompting them to email an admin asking for admission to a workspace. While the email format would be ideal for allowing the users to communicate what their intention is for using Mural, it was generally decided that this required far too much work from the users. Additionally, an Admin would still have to go into Mural and admit these users to a workspace... that is, if they een knew how.

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🥇 Providing users with a way to request access to a workspace

Pros:

• Give new users a (trackable) path forward after they create an account
• Automated emails would give admins a direct route to add users to a workspace
• Automated emails could be used to educate novice admins as to why these users weren't able to join a workspace

Cons:

• No one-click way to add the new member to a workspace from this flow (at launch)
• No way to specify which admin would receive the request

The last solution discussed involved displaying a screen after a user finished creating their account. Here a user could click a CTA that would send an automated email to the admin requesting that they add the member to a workspace. Although not a perfect solution, giving users a concrete action to take and giving admins a direct route to admit these users felt like a huge step up from what came before.