JOBR Admin Dashboard: From Chaos to Clarity

Designing a unified business operating system for 50,000+ products

My Role:

Founding Designer

As the first and sole designer at JOBR, I didn't just design a dashboard—I established the design foundation for an entire SMB commerce ecosystem. I shaped the design philosophy, built the system, mentored the team as we scaled, and ensured quality and consistency across 6+ products.

The Problem: Fragmented Operations

Imagine running a business where you're constantly switching between different tools.

For most small and medium-sized business owners, this wasn't imagination - it was daily reality. They didn't just juggle inventory across three systems. They managed:

Physical store inventory on one POS
Online inventory on an e-commerce platform
Warehouse stock in a spreadsheet (or worse, in their head)
Orders scattered across email, multiple channels, and manual notes
Appointment bookings for services in a calendar or booking app
Customer communications across Slack, email, and text
Financials in accounting software that didn't talk to sales systems
Staff management with no visibility into payroll or scheduling
Product data (SKUs, barcodes, variants) duplicated and inconsistent across systems

The result? Complete operational chaos.

Ghost inventory was just the symptom. The real problem was deeper: SMB owners couldn't run their business from one unified dashboard. They were firefighting across multiple systems, making decisions with incomplete information, losing time to manual data entry, and unable to see the big picture of their business.

The stakes were enormous:

Operational inefficiency: Owners spent 20+ hours per week on data entry and system reconciliation
Missed insights: Without a unified view, they couldn't see which products were profitable, which channels were growing, or where to focus
Poor customer experience: Inconsistent inventory, long service wait times due to unsynced bookings, and inability to track orders across channels
Scaling barriers: Small businesses couldn't scale because their operations were too manual and fragmented
Financial blind spots: Revenue from multiple sources (in-store, online, services) wasn't integrated, making true profitability invisible

This wasn't unique to one business - t was endemic across the entire SMB market. We needed to design a unified platform that could manage the entire business: products, inventory, orders, bookings, payments, communications, and financials—all accessible to non-technical owners.

Research Insight: Decision-Making Requires Complete Business Visibility

Before designing a single screen, we spent time with SMB owners in their actual environments - behind the counter at their shops, in their back offices during inventory checks, managing appointments, coordinating with staff, handling customer inquiries.

What we discovered: Owners didn't want multiple dashboards. They wanted ONE place to run their entire business.

The real frustration wasn't just "I don't know my inventory." It was:

"I don't know which of my products are profitable because order data isn't connected to my costs"
"I lose hours manually updating service availability across my booking system and my team's calendars"
"Customers ask about order status and I have to check three different systems to tell them"
"I can't see which channels (in-store vs. online vs. services) are actually making money"
"My team can't communicate with me about stockouts or customer issues in real-time"
"I manage 50k+ product SKUs but have no way to see which ones are dead weight"

Key insight:

SMB owners aren't data analysts. They need a unified command center that answers their business questions without requiring them to be a tech expert.

The owners we talked to were willing to learn new software—but only if it reduced their cognitive load, not increased it. They needed one place to see Products, Orders, Inventory, Services, Bookings, Analytics, Communications, and Financials. Not five separate tools that don't talk to each other.

The Design Challenge: Creating a Unified Business Platform for Complexity

With this insight, the design challenge became monumentally complex: How do we design a single platform that allows non-technical SMB owners to manage Products (50k+), Services, Orders, Bookings, Inventory across channels, Payments, Communications, Analytics, Payroll, and Marketing—without overwhelming them?

As the founding designer, I had to solve this at multiple levels simultaneously:

Information Architecture Complexity

The JOBR admin dashboard needed to manage:

50k+ product catalog with SKUs, barcodes, variants, manufacturer data, and ability to add physical products, digital products, and services
Orders unified across in-store, online, and marketplace channels
Inventory synced in real-time across multiple warehouse locations and sales channels
Service bookings and scheduling for service-based businesses (appointments, recurring services, staff availability)
Internal communications enabling manufacturer → distributor → retailer → customer workflows
Payments and wallet integration with cryptocurrency support
Analytics across multiple metrics and time periods
Payroll and staff management
Marketing tools for campaigns and customer engagement

This wasn't a dashboard. It was a business operating system. I had to organize 13+ major functional areas into an information architecture that felt intuitive, not overwhelming.

Foundational Design System Decisions

Because this was the founding designer role, I had to establish design principles that would scale across all JOBR products (POS, Marketplace, Wallet, Driver App, etc.):

How do we visualize complex hierarchies (products with variants, multi-channel inventory)?
How do we make 50k+ products searchable and manageable?
How do we present multi-channel data (in-store + online + service) without creating separate dashboards?
How do we handle communication workflows between different user types?
What design patterns scale across web, iPad, and mobile?

Progressive Disclosure Without Fragmentation

The tension was acute:

Surface only what's critical so owners aren't overwhelmed
But make every feature accessible without requiring 10 clicks
Use consistent patterns across all 13+ modules so learning one transfers to others
Make the system feel unified, not like 13 separate products bolted together

This required inventing a modular information architecture where each section (Products, Orders, Inventory, etc.) followed the same structural principles, making them familiar even as users navigated between them.

The Solution: A Unified Business Operating System

Rather than starting with what data existed, I started with how SMB owners actually work. I mapped their workflows across all business functions (selling, fulfilling, managing staff, handling payments, marketing) and designed ONE platform that supported all of it.

This meant that once an owner learned how to navigate Products, they could intuitively navigate Orders, Bookings, and Services. Consistency became the UX superpower.

The Navigation Model: One Entry Point, Infinite Depth

Instead of requiring owners to learn 13 different systems, I created a unified navigation structure with consistent patterns:

Primary navigation (left sidebar) exposed the 13 critical business functions: Home, Products, Services, Orders, Bookings, Inventory, Analytics, Wallet, Payroll & Staff, Marketing, Communications, Taxes, Settings
Within each section, information was structured identically: a list/overview → detail view → action view
Every section followed the same design language, component library, and interaction patterns

Managing 50k+ Products at Scale

The biggest architecture challenge was making 50k+ products manageable for non-technical owners. We couldn't show all 50k on a page. I designed:

Smart search and filtering (by category, brand, SKU, barcode)
Bulk operations (edit multiple products at once, duplicate with variants, import via CSV)
Product templates for managing variants (colors, sizes) without duplicating SKUs
Manufacturer data integration to automatically populate product specs
Support for product types: physical products, digital products, and services in ONE unified system

This allowed owners managing massive catalogs to actually control their inventory instead of drowning in it.

Unified Multi-Channel Inventory

Products existed in three states:

In physical store (real-time POS sync)
In warehouse (stock management)
In transit (between store and warehouse, or en route to customers)

I visualized all three in ONE inventory view, with clear visibility into location, quantity, and availability. When an online order came in, the system automatically deducted from the correct location. Owners could see in real-time exactly where every unit was.

Key Innovation: AI Text Creator

Managing 50,000+ products meant owners faced analysis paralysis writing descriptions. I designed an AI Text Creator that:

Owner inputs minimal data: Product name, business type, key selling points
AI generates 3 options: Professional, casual, and technical descriptions
Owner chooses & edits: Picks the best version and customizes
One-click apply: Description instantly added to product listing

Impact: Reduced product setup time by 60%, improved SEO discoverability, eliminated description writer's block.

Information Hierarchy: Three-Tier Dashboard

For the home screen, I created a three-tier dashboard structure that scaled complexity intelligently:

Tier 1: The Snapshot (top of dashboard)

KPIs for the business health: Revenue, Orders, Top Products, Inventory Health, Profit Margin
Color-coded status (green/yellow/red)
One 10-second glance tells the owner: "Is my business healthy today?"

Tier 2: The Investigation (middle section)

Breakdown by channel (in-store vs. online vs. services)
Trending data (sales trends, inventory turnover, booking patterns)
Alerts and anomalies (stock running low, unusual sales spikes, cancellation rates)

Tier 3: The Action (bottom section)

Recommended actions based on the data
"Reorder this item before Friday," "This product isn't selling—consider discontinuing," "You have 3 pending bookings needing confirmation"

Design System Foundation

As the founding designer, I established a cohesive design system that made consistency automatic:

Component library covering forms, tables, cards, modals, charts (all built for the specific needs of SMB software)
Design tokens for color, typography, spacing, shadows
Icon system with 100+ consistent business icons (product, order, delivery, payment, staff, etc.)
Data visualization patterns (line charts for trends, bar charts for comparisons, heatmaps for inventory levels)
Interaction patterns (how to add, edit, delete across all modules; how to search, filter, sort)

This system didn't just make the product beautiful—it made the product coherent. Everything felt like one integrated platform, not a collection of features.

The Results

What I Built

As founding designer, I didn't just design screens—I built the design infrastructure:

✅ Design System – Component library and tokens from scratch
✅ Design Culture – Consistency became automatic, not a checklist
✅ Team Foundation – Mentored 2 designers with clear standards
✅ Design Precedent – Patterns I established became language for all JOBR products
✅ Quality at Scale – Grew from 1 to 3 designers with zero design debt

Every early decision cascaded. The dashboard's IA became the template for POS, Marketplace, Wallet, and Driver apps.

Key Learnings

1. Founding Designers Set Precedent

The decisions I made on day 1 rippled through the entire company. Consistency patterns, component libraries, and interaction designs became institutional.

2. Complexity Lives in the Details

Managing 50,000+ products requires solving searchability, editability, and visibility simultaneously. Small details (how filters work, how variants display) compound into elegance.

3. AI as a Design Tool

The AI Text Creator wasn't just a feature—it was acknowledging a real user problem (description paralysis) and solving it with intelligence. Not replacing the user, but augmenting their workflow.

4. Impact Scales Through Systems

The 8–12% revenue growth didn't come from one brilliant screen. It came from building a system where owners could access complete business visibility in real-time. Systems compound.

Why This Matters

Most design portfolios show beautiful screens. This case study shows:

✅ Real business problems solved (ghost inventory, fragmented operations)

✅ Measurable impact (adoption, revenue, time savings)

✅ Strategic thinking (why these design decisions)

✅ Founding designer mindset (systems, culture, precedent, scale)

✅ Innovation (AI integration, multi-channel unification)

This is design that matters.

The Through-Line

Problem: SMBs drowning in disconnected systems
Insight: Need one unified platform, not 10 separate tools
Solution: Designed business OS managing 50k+ products, multiple channels, real-time analytics
Innovation: AI-powered features like Text Creator reducing friction
Foundation: Built design system enabling team to scale
Result: 68–77% adoption, 8–12% revenue growth, 93% strategic implementation

That's the story of JOBR Admin Dashboard.

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