🛠 Designing the Admin Panel That Kept Mentorpedia Running Smoothly

A case study on building backend tools for trust, control, and growth operations

TL;DR

Behind every smooth user-facing platform is a powerful back office. In Mentorpedia, the Admin Panel was the central control tower — enabling us to verify mentors, monitor sessions, issue credits, manage categories, and handle operational edge cases. I designed and built this tool to balance automation with manual oversight, ensuring scalability without losing quality.

🧠 The Problem

As the number of users, bookings, and mentors grew, we faced new challenges:

• How do we verify mentor credibility without delays?

• How can we track and act on session issues (no-shows, misbehavior)?

• How do we manage credit refunds, content moderation, or edits?

• How do we add new skills/topics or update featured mentors?

There was no control layer — everything had to be done from the database or by contacting devs.

We needed a secure, role-based Admin Panel that scaled with trust and speed.

🎯 Goals of the Admin Panel

• Enable non-tech team members to manage platform ops

• Maintain moderation + quality control without bottlenecks

• Track key session + booking metrics in real time

• Build tools to manage: mentors, sessions, credits, feedback, and categories

• Secure, mobile-friendly, and easy to learn

🛠 Features We Built

1. Mentor Verification Dashboard

• View mentor applications: bio, LinkedIn, resume, expertise tags

• Approve / reject / flag profiles with 1 click

• Assign “featured” badges or category labels (e.g., Product, Design)

2. Session Monitor

• Live list of all upcoming + completed sessions

• View session status: confirmed, missed, canceled

• Manually issue credit refunds or ban users in case of abuse

• Audit trail for edited or flagged sessions

3. Credit Control

• Add/remove credits manually (for campaigns, apology gestures, bugs)

• View credit history by user ID

• Set referral bonus amounts (configurable)

4. Platform Settings

• Add/edit/remove:

  • Categories (e.g., “Portfolio Review”)

  • FAQ content

  • Hero banners and promotional sliders

• Control whether bookings are open globally or locked (e.g., holiday mode)

5. Analytics Overview

• See mentor leaderboard (most booked, highest feedback)

• Track active mentees, sessions per day/week/month

• View referral performance and onboarding completion

🔧 Tech Stack

• Admin panel built in React

• Connected to Firebase Firestore and Cloud Functions

• Role-based access: Admin, Content Manager, Ops Support

• Logged all actions for traceability (who made what change, when)

🧪 Process & Edge Cases We Solved

• Created safeguards: No double refunds, no overwriting mentor approvals

• Added confirmation modals for irreversible actions

• Built live alerts for flagged sessions (e.g., session marked "mentor didn’t show")

• Included fallback manual Meet link entry in case API failed

📈 Outcomes

MetricBefore Admin PanelAfter LaunchAvg. mentor onboarding time2–3 days (manual)<6 hours ↓Session issue resolution time~24 hrs (Slack-based)~4 hrs ↓Credit refund errors18% of cases<2% ↓Ops team loadHigh (dev dependency)Independent after 1-week ramp-up

💡 What I Learned

• Internal tools are real products. They need onboarding, UX, and care.

• Ops teams move fast — they need clear defaults and safe automation.

• A well-designed admin panel is like a cockpit: it should enable control, not overwhelm.

• The best admin tools balance manual power with preventive automation.

🔮 What I'd Improve

• Add AI-based session flagging (e.g., no feedback = prompt admin to follow up)

• Modularize dashboards per team: Content, Ops, Finance

• Live Slack notifications for specific triggers (e.g., mentor flagged ×2)

• Enable mentors to self-request edits (admin only reviews)

Final Thoughts

The Admin Panel made Mentorpedia operationally stable — and scalable. It turned a founder-run system into a platform that could handle hundreds of bookings, user flags, and mentor verifications daily — with speed and trust baked in.

It reminded me that sometimes, the most important design work is invisible to the user — but essential for the team.

Want to see the internal panel flow or permissions system?
→ Portfolio: amishsri.framer.website
→ Connect with me on LinkedIn