Cyral Data Access Portal
Enterprise database access, without passwords.
The Data Access Portal was a centralized interface for Cyral's enterprise customers to browse, search, and connect to their database infrastructure. Instead of managing individual passwords across hundreds of databases, users authenticated once through their existing identity provider and received a token-based connection string — granting access without credentials ever being stored or shared.
Informatica, Verisk, Vanguard — Cyral's enterprise customers were managing passwords across hundreds of databases. Every password was a compliance liability and an operational burden: 65% of users found existing access methods cumbersome, and password-based access was the leading cause of the security incidents their clients were paying to prevent.
Cyral already had a rudimentary access management surface, but it asked too much of users and offered no path to eliminating passwords entirely. As the first design hire, I wasn't brought in to redesign a screen — I was brought in to define whether design could make passwordless access adoptable at enterprise scale.
The solution was a centralized portal: one place to find, filter, and connect to any database — authenticated through existing identity providers, no passwords required.
Designing for density without creating chaos was the core UX challenge. Enterprise users navigate databases numbering in the hundreds, each carrying its own access level, type, and security restrictions. A table forces linear scanning; cards allow spatial scanning — database type, access level, and security policy visible at a glance. I validated this with users before committing, and the pattern scaled across the product.
The authentication layer was designed in close collaboration with Cyral's Chief Software Architect to integrate with the SSO and MFA systems users already trusted. Legacy password support was kept in for customers mid-migration — forcing a hard cutover would have killed adoption. The goal was to move users into the new system first and deprecate legacy access once the pattern was established.
Security policy visualization followed the same logic. Surfacing every restriction upfront created cognitive overload in testing. Progressive disclosure kept policies visible without overwhelming the default state — present at a glance, detailed on demand.
The portal became Cyral's most adopted feature and expanded to S3 buckets within the same quarter. The design patterns established here were adopted across multiple product areas — and directly contributed to closing larger enterprise deals.