Calderbrook Housing Group / BB-Demo – Qbr
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group: documents · 2026-03-10 13:15
Director of Digital and Data Craig Oduya said Calderbrook is building one in-house data platform and asked about export and exit. Helen Marsden's concern is the board pack arrears reconciliation. Six daily active users against forty licences.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Director of Digital and Data Craig Oduya said Calderbrook is building one in-house data platform and asked about export and exit. Helen Marsden's concern is the board pack arrears reconciliation. Six daily active users against forty licences.
What happened: Helen Marsden opened on the arrears grouping in section four of the board pack not matching the housing system. Craig Oduya joined late and said the direction is one in-house platform on the Microsoft estate.
Customer view: Craig said he would not discuss commercials and made no commitments on renewal. He asked how derived data, pages, dashboards and question history would be exported.
Commercial: Growth tier, forty licences, about six active a day, and questions are down on last quarter. Craig said they are not looking to add users, and the platform review has no timetable.
Watch: The renewal is exposed to the platform decision. Helen is a value advocate, but the use is a small group building the board pack.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
In-house platform review, exit position
Importance
churn
Sentiment
negative
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Send Helen Marsden a written field-level mapping and column lineage for the arrears tables.
- Send Craig Oduya and Helen a written export position for pages, dashboards and question history, with format and tooling dependency.
- Amara Obi to arrange the analyst training session and send next QBR options.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Craig Oduya's platform review points to an in-house build, with no commitment on renewal of the Growth subscription.
- Active use is about six people against forty licences and questions are down, so value is hard to defend at review.
- The arrears grouping in the board pack does not reconcile, which weakens the case with Helen Marsden.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A walkthrough for Helen's analysts on their own arrears data could widen who asks the brain.
- A clear written lineage and export position could keep the board pack work on the brain.
Transcript
Amara Obi NoneHi Helen, can you hear me alright? I can see you but I'm not getting any sound yet.
Helen Marsden NoneYes, sorry, I was on mute. Good afternoon, Amara.- Amara Obi NoneAfternoon! Right, Sofia should be joining us too. Ah, there she is.
Sofia Marchetti NoneHello both. Apologies, my previous call ran over. Helen, good to see you.- Helen Marsden NoneAnd you. Craig said he may be a few minutes behind. He's in a session with our IT leads.
- Amara Obi NoneNo problem, we'll make a start and he can catch up. I should introduce myself properly, since we haven't spoken much. I'm Amara, I'm the Customer Success Manager looking after Calderbrook now. I picked the account up fairly recently, so I've been through the history, the tickets and the usage, but I don't have the years of conversations you've had with us, and I'm not going to pretend I do.
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's fair. Thank you for saying so.
- Amara Obi NoneSo before I put anything on screen, what does good look like for you this quarter? I'd rather start from your board calendar than from my slides.
- Helen Marsden NoneHonestly, it's the arrears section of the board pack. These don't reconcile. The arrears by tenancy type that the brain gives us doesn't match what the housing management system reports at month end. The total is close, but the groupings are different, and the board will ask. I'd like to understand why before the next pack goes out.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneHelen, let's be clear about what we're looking at, because I don't want to guess. Is the gap in the total, or in how the tenancies are grouped?
- Helen Marsden NoneGrouping, mostly. It's the table in section four. The brain puts some tenancies under one heading and the housing system puts them under another, and I can't show the board a table where the categories move depending on which system you ask. Can you show me the source for the grouping?
- Amara Obi NoneOkay. That's useful, and I'll take it as an action. I'd like our team to trace which source field each grouping comes from and send you the mapping in writing. Does that work as a first step?
- Helen Marsden NoneIt does. As long as it's the actual mapping and not a description of it.
Craig Oduya NoneSorry, apologies, I'm late. Craig Oduya. Can you hear me?- Amara Obi NoneLoud and clear, Craig, welcome. I'm Amara, I look after Calderbrook now, and Sofia, our Head of Customer Success, is with us. We've literally just started. Helen was telling us about the arrears section of the board pack.
- Craig Oduya NoneGood. Before we go further, let me set out where we are, so we're all working from the same picture. We've reviewed our supplier landscape against the platform strategy. The direction is one data platform, built in-house, on our existing Microsoft estate. We're building that capability in-house. So I'm here to understand our position and what the arrangement looks like, not to open anything new.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneCraig, thank you, that's clear and I appreciate you saying it up front. Here is what today is for. It's the quarterly review of how the brain is being used and what it's delivering, plus anything you need from us. If there's something you need that isn't on the agenda, say so and we'll deal with it.
- Craig Oduya NoneFine. Go ahead.
- Amara Obi NoneRight, here's what the numbers say. I'll share my screen, bear with me. Can you see that?
- Helen Marsden NoneYes, I can see the chart.
- Amara Obi NoneGood. You're licensed for forty users on Growth. Across the last month, an average of around six people were active on a given day. That's lower than the previous quarter, a bit lower, and I'd rather flag it than wait for you to spot it. Questions asked are also down on last quarter. Records indexed are still moving, so the nightly refresh is doing its job. And there were three tickets in the last month, none of them high priority.
- Helen Marsden NoneThree tickets, yes. I raised at least one of those, and it was about the arrears grouping.
- Craig Oduya NoneForty seats, six people. That's the headline for me.
- Amara Obi NoneIt is, and I'd say it plainly: that's headroom you're paying for, and it's not where I want it to be. So my question is, who else should have access? Repairs, complaints, the neighbourhood teams? Is there anyone who should be asking the brain things and isn't?
- Craig Oduya NoneWe're not looking to add users.
- Helen Marsden NoneCraig, if I may. The people using it are the people who build the board pack. It's a small group by design. Where it matters is section four, and a handful of questions there carry a lot of weight with the board. I don't think the number of seats tells the whole story.
- Craig Oduya NoneUnderstood, Helen. It's still a number the platform review will look at.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneThat's fair, and I'd not argue with it. A fall in active users is something we take seriously, and I won't dress it up. What I'd say is that the useful question is what the questions are worth, not just how many people are asking them. Amara, can you go to the contract view?
- Amara Obi NoneSure. So, for the record, you're on the Growth tier, forty-four thousand a year. The order form and the invoices agree, nothing is overdue, and the contract runs to 1 Sep 2026.
- Craig Oduya NoneI'm not going to get into commercials on this call. That sits elsewhere.
- Amara Obi NoneOf course. I only mention it because the renewal conversation is coming later in the year, and I'd rather it was no surprise to anyone.
- Craig Oduya NoneNoted. No commitments on renewal from my side, and none implied.
- Amara Obi NoneUnderstood. Shall I carry on with the rest of the usage, or is there something you'd rather cover first?
- Craig Oduya NoneLet me ask something practical. Hypothetically, if we were to take what the brain has produced, the derived data, the joined tables, the summaries, the dashboards, how would we export it? What's our exit position?
- Amara Obi NoneThat's a good question, and a fair one. Let me give you what I know and then Sofia can say where I should be careful. Because the brain runs inside your own Snowflake account, the tables it builds already sit in your account. They're yours. You can query them, copy them, point other tools at them, without us in the loop.
- Craig Oduya NoneRight. And everything that isn't a table? The pages, the dashboard definitions, the history of questions asked.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneThat's where I want to be careful and not guess. The tables, yes, that's straightforward. For the saved pages, the dashboards and the question history, I want our implementation team to confirm in writing exactly what comes out and in what format. I'd rather give you a correct answer in a few days than a fast, vague one today.
- Craig Oduya NoneIn writing, yes. And I'd want to know whether any of it depends on your tooling to read it.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneNoted. That goes in the note: format, and any dependency on our tooling. I'll own that.
- Helen Marsden NoneCan I ask the same thing from the board-pack side? If the tables are in our account, I need the lineage as well. Which source feeds which column. Otherwise I can't show the board where a figure came from.
- Amara Obi NoneThat's the same piece of work as the arrears mapping, Helen, really. I'll make sure the note covers both, the column lineage for the arrears tables and the export position.
- Craig Oduya NoneTo be clear, this isn't a comment on the product. It's about knowing our position on every contract we hold. Standard practice for the review.
- Amara Obi NoneUnderstood, and honestly I'm glad you asked it on a call rather than us finding out later. It's the right thing to ask.
- Helen Marsden NoneFor the record, the in-house direction is Craig's call, and it's a decision for his role. My concern is narrower. Whatever happens with the platform, the board pack still has to reconcile, and that's the part I'm accountable for.
- Craig Oduya NoneHelen's concern is noted, and it's a legitimate one. Continuity of the reporting comes first.
- Helen Marsden NoneThank you.
- Amara Obi NoneCan I come back to the usage for a moment, because there's one thing in the chart I haven't said yet. The people asking questions are a small group, and that's something I'd flag as a risk in its own right. If one of them is away, or moves on, the volume drops with them. Helen, is there someone else in your team who could be asking the brain things?
- Helen Marsden NoneThere is. A couple of analysts could do with a proper walkthrough. They've been working from my saved pages rather than asking directly.
- Amara Obi NoneThen let me offer a short training session for them. Nothing heavy. Half an hour, on your own arrears data, so it's useful rather than generic.
- Craig Oduya NoneThat's for Helen to decide. It doesn't change the platform review.
- Helen Marsden NoneI'd take it. It's a small thing and it helps the pack.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneGood. Amara will set that up with you directly, Helen. Craig, can I ask one thing in return, so we don't have to guess later? When your platform review reaches a view on the brain, would it be possible for us to hear it from you directly, rather than through the renewal paperwork?
- Craig Oduya NoneI'll say this. The review is ongoing. Where it lands will depend on the platform strategy and the exit position. I can't give you a timetable today.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneThat's honest, thank you. I'd rather know it's open than be told it's fine.
- Amara Obi NoneOkay. Let me go back through what we've agreed, because there are a few threads and I don't want to lose them. First, the arrears mapping and the column lineage, from our team to Helen, in writing. Second, the export position for pages, dashboards and question history, in writing, with the format and any tooling dependency, to Craig and Helen both. Third, a short training session for Helen's analysts. Have I missed anything?
- Helen Marsden NoneThat's everything on my side. I'd ask that the mapping comes with the actual field names.
- Craig Oduya NoneFine on mine. I'll review the note against the platform strategy when it arrives.
- Amara Obi NoneBrilliant. And let's get the next QBR in the diary, so it isn't left to drift. I'll send a couple of options after this call.
- Craig Oduya NoneSend them. I'm not committing to anything beyond the review.
- Amara Obi NoneCompletely understood. Send you options, nothing assumed.
- Sofia Marchetti NoneThank you both. I know this was a more direct conversation than a usual review, and I'm grateful for it. We'll get the written answers to you quickly and accurately.
- Helen Marsden NoneThanks, all. Speak soon.
- Craig Oduya NoneThank you. Goodbye.
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