Merriott Lyle Distribution / BB-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution: documents · 2025-03-20 10:15
Onboarding call on 20 Mar 2025. Branch system read access is stuck with the customer's infrastructure team. Deepa Chauhan will judge the £116,500 a year by how many spreadsheets stop circulating.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Onboarding call on 20 Mar 2025. Branch system read access is stuck with the customer's infrastructure team. Deepa Chauhan will judge the £116,500 a year by how many spreadsheets stop circulating.
What happened: Onboarding call on 20 Mar 2025 covering two open tickets, connector order and customer actions. The branch system access request is still queued with the customer's infrastructure people.
Customer view: Deepa Chauhan wants an honest sequence for when branch managers and credit control first see a single account view. She will not promise the regions a feature before it exists.
Commercial: Deepa will measure the £116,500 a year by how many spreadsheets stop being emailed around. Single sign-on and provisioning come with Enterprise, and Tariq Saleem asked about the security review support.
Watch: Callie Brennan is moving on, so the handover to Amara Obi and Lewis Kerr matters. Dashboards are parked until the data is trusted.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Onboarding, blocked access, value test
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Tariq to send the branch system table list to Callie today, copied to Deepa.
- Tariq to create the CRM service user, send the restricted fields list and introduce the IT identity contact.
- Callie to send the setup note and ask Amara Obi to join the next call.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Branch system read access is queued with the customer's infrastructure team and gates the combined account view.
- Deepa must justify the £116,500 a year internally and will count spreadsheets that stop circulating.
- The security review call has not been scheduled by the customer's IT security team.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A before picture of the circulating spreadsheets gives a measurable value case.
- Dashboards are a parked item that Amara Obi can pick up once the first load is trusted.
Transcript
Callie Brennan NoneHello, hello. Can you both hear me alright?
Deepa Chauhan NoneLoud and clear. Morning, Callie.
Tariq Saleem NoneMorning. Yes, I can hear you. Just give me a second, my camera's being slow to start.- Callie Brennan NoneNo problem at all. Take your time. How's the week been? Anything exciting up in Birmingham?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBusy, honestly. We had the regional directors in on Tuesday, so I've spent most of the week catching up on everything I said I'd do in that meeting. And it's raining, of course.
- Callie Brennan NoneOf course it is. Here too. Right, Tariq, are we good?
- Tariq Saleem NoneYeah, I'm here. Sorry about that. Before we start, can I just flag the open tickets? There are two, and I'd like to know where we are on them before we plan anything else.
- Callie Brennan NoneAbsolutely, and that's a good place to begin. Let me give you the plan for the next forty-five minutes first, then we'll go straight into those. I'd like to do three things. First, the open tickets. Second, agree the order we connect your sources in and who owns each one. Third, what I need from your side before we switch on the refresh, with a date against every step. Does that work?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat works. Can I add one thing? The one thing I need from today is a clear picture of when branch managers and credit control will first see a single view of a trade account. Not a promise, just an honest sequence.
- Callie Brennan NoneHonest sequence, yes. I'll make sure we come back to that at the end, Deepa. Tariq, tickets.
- Tariq Saleem NoneRight. So the first one is the high priority one. It's the access request for the service account on the branch system. We asked for read-only access to the order and delivery tables and it's still sitting with our infrastructure people. I raised it as high because it blocks everything else.
- Callie Brennan NoneOkay. And that's the one I'd expect to be the gating item. Have they come back with a reason, or is it just queued?
- Tariq Saleem NoneQueued, as far as I can tell. They've asked which tables exactly, so I'm going to send them the list today. I don't want them granting the whole schema, to be fair.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood, and that's what I'd want too. Narrow and written down. What I need from your side is the table list in writing and the confirmation that the account is read-only. I never start a connector without written access, so until I have that I won't touch the branch system.
- Tariq Saleem NoneUnderstood. I'll send you the list this afternoon and copy Deepa.
- Deepa Chauhan NonePlease do. And Tariq, if they push back, tell me and I'll ring them. I'd rather not lose a week to a queue.
- Tariq Saleem NoneWill do. The second ticket is smaller. It's a how-to, really. One of my team tried to add a person to the workspace and wasn't sure whether they should be a user or an admin.
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, I saw that one. I answered it yesterday afternoon. Short version: admins can connect sources and see the load status, users can ask questions and use the pages. For now I'd keep admins to you and one deputy, so there's always a second person who can run things.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat's sensible. Mm. I'd had my colleague down as a user anyway. I just wanted to check.
- Callie Brennan NonePerfect, so that one can be closed from your side. Right, then. Connector order. Can I share my screen? I've got a checklist I'd like us to edit together.
- Deepa Chauhan NonePlease. I love a checklist.
- Callie Brennan NoneOkay, can you see it? There's a column for the source, a column for who owns it at your end, what I need, and a target date. I've pencilled in the CRM first, because it's the spine. Every other source has to match back to an account there. Then the branch system for orders and deliveries, then the accounting system for invoices and credit notes, then the call recorder, then the helpdesk.
- Tariq Saleem NoneWhich connector goes live first, though? Because the CRM we can do almost immediately, but the branch system is blocked, as we've said.
- Callie Brennan NoneThe CRM, and that's deliberate. We get the first refresh landing there and we check the account records before anything else comes in. If the spine's wrong, everything hangs off the wrong thing.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCan I ask about that? Which account, which branch? Because the thing that has always bitten us is that one trade account might sit in the CRM once, but in the branch system it's got an entry per branch that serves it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneYeah, that's the matching problem. There's a parent account in the CRM and then a handful of branch-level account codes in the branch system. Some match on a customer number, some only on name and postcode, and a few don't match at all.
- Callie Brennan NoneRight, and that's the bit I want to be careful with. That maps cleanly when there's a shared key, and when there isn't, I don't want to guess. So what I'd suggest is we take the CRM's account list and the branch system's account list and produce a match table. The ones that match on a key, we accept. The ones that don't, we put in a short list for you to look at.
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes, that's a mapping question, and I'd want to do it properly rather than quickly. I won't change any mapping without telling Deepa, because the key-account managers rely on those codes.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThank you. And let's not turn the unmatched ones into a blame list. The branches did what the system let them do. If we find forty odd accounts with no clean key, that's information, not a telling-off.
- Callie Brennan NoneCompletely agree. I'll label the list as unmatched, with no branch names against it unless you ask for them. Okay, so for the CRM, what I need from your side is a service user with read access and the written confirmation, same as the branch system. Tariq, is that something you can raise yourself?
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes, I run the CRM, so that one's mine. I can create it today. I'll check which fields are marked as restricted, because there are a few we keep out of anything that leaves the platform.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood. Send me those as a list too, because it's easier to exclude them at the start than to remove them later. Now, the accounting system. Who owns that at your end?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's credit control, really, and the finance systems team behind them. I'd rather bring them in properly than have Tariq chasing them. Let's get credit control in the room. Could we do a short session with them before the connector goes in?
- Callie Brennan NoneI'd welcome that. What I'd want from them is quite specific: which invoice and dispute fields matter, and what a dispute looks like in the data. Because otherwise I'll connect it and it will load, but it won't mean anything to them.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneShow me where that number comes from, that's what they'll say to me. If a credit controller sees an overdue balance in the brain, the first question is which invoice, and who has agreed it.
- Callie Brennan NoneAnd it should be able to answer that, because every answer points back to the source record. That's the point of putting it all in one layer, and it all stays in your own Snowflake account. Nothing leaves it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat was one of the things the security people were happy with, to be honest. Can I ask about the security review, though? Because there was a note that the Enterprise implementation includes support for it.
- Callie Brennan NoneIt does, yes. It's part of the twelve weeks. I can help you complete whatever questionnaires your team has and walk your reviewers through how it's deployed. What do you have in place at the moment?
- Tariq Saleem NoneA standard supplier questionnaire, and our IT security team wants a call. They haven't scheduled it. I'll find out who's picking it up and get back to you.
- Callie Brennan NonePlease. And I'll put it on the checklist as a line of its own, so it doesn't get lost behind the connectors.
- Callie Brennan NoneDone, it's in. Okay, Deepa, I want to ask about people, because we've got two hundred licensed users and that's a lot of seats to fill. Who is in the first group?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneSmall, to begin with. A few key-account managers, a couple of people from credit control, Tariq's team, and me. Under ten, I'd say, which is about what you'll see logging in. Then branch managers by region once we trust the data.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's the right shape, honestly. Small group, trusted data, then widen. Can I suggest the first group are people who'll tell you when an answer looks wrong? That's worth more than twenty people who nod.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. Yes, I know exactly who. I'll write the names down this week.
- Tariq Saleem NoneAnd on the user side, we want single sign-on from the start. Is that part of what we've bought?
- Callie Brennan NoneIt is. Single sign-on and automated user provisioning both come with Enterprise. What I need from your side is a contact in IT who looks after your identity provider. I don't want to guess at settings.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat'll be a colleague in IT. I'll introduce you by email once I've confirmed he's got the time.
- Callie Brennan NoneLovely. Right, so that's four things on your side so far. The table list for the branch system, the CRM service user and restricted fields, a credit control session, and the IT contact. Anything I've missed?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThe monthly account-data review. I chair it with credit control and the regional directors, and the next one is coming up. I'd like to be able to say something to them about what's coming without overpromising.
- Callie Brennan NoneWhat would be fair to say? I'd keep it to this: the brain is being connected to the CRM first, then orders, then invoices. The first sight of a combined account view comes once the CRM and the branch system are both loading and matched. I won't give you a date I can't stand behind until the branch system access is in.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's fair, and it's what I'd say. I won't promise the regions a feature before it exists. I'd rather tell them it comes in stages.
- Tariq Saleem NoneCan I ask about the nightly refresh? Because the branches start early. If the data's stale by the time the first branch manager looks, it'll be the first thing they notice.
- Callie Brennan NoneThe refresh is built to complete by 07:00 your local time on business days, on every tier. So it's there before the branches open. If a source is slow or fails, you'll see it in the load status, and you can check which connector it was.
- Tariq Saleem NoneGood. I'll check the load log each morning for the first few weeks, then we can decide whether that's worth keeping up.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's exactly how I'd do it. And I'll show you where it lives, so you're not relying on me.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCallie, can I ask a slightly awkward one? Who's looking after us once the implementation's done? Because I know you're moving on from this work soon.
- Callie Brennan NoneNot awkward at all. It's a fair question. Amara Obi is your customer success manager, and she'll be your day-to-day contact once we're through setup. Lewis Kerr is your account owner for anything commercial. And before I hand over, I'll write you a setup note covering every connector, every mapping decision and every open item, so nobody has to ask me what we did.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat's good to hear. I'd want that note to say which fields we excluded and why, so I'm not reconstructing it from memory in six months.
- Callie Brennan NoneIt will. Restricted fields, match rules, the unmatched list, who approved what. I never hand over without one.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCould Amara join one of these calls? Just so we've met before it matters.
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, I'll ask her to join the next one, so you've got a face. I'll put that on the list.
- Callie Brennan NoneRight, let me read the checklist back. For you, Tariq: send the table list for the branch system today, copied to Deepa. Create the CRM service user and send the restricted fields list. Find out who's picking up the security questionnaire call. And introduce me to your IT colleague for single sign-on. For you, Deepa: names for the first group of users, and a slot with credit control. For me: I'll write up the match approach for the CRM and the branch system, I'll get the CRM connector ready for the moment access lands, and I'll send you all of this as a note this afternoon.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's everything I have. Tariq?
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes. Just one more, and it's probably for a later call. At what point do we talk about the dashboards, and who builds them? Because the key-account managers will ask.
- Callie Brennan NoneLater, once the data's trusted. The dashboards are only as good as the match underneath them. But I'll note it as a parked item, and Amara can pick it up when we're past the first load.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. Parked is fine. I'd rather get the account view right than build something pretty on the wrong numbers.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneAnd I'll say it plainly, since I need to justify this internally. At one hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred pounds a year, I have to be able to show the regional directors what it's replacing. So the first thing I'll want to count is how many spreadsheets stop being emailed around.
- Callie Brennan NoneWhich is the £116,500 a year, yes. That's a sensible test, and an easy one to start measuring now. Can you write down the handful of spreadsheets that circulate today, and who sends them? Then we've got a before picture.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI can do that. There are, ahem, more than I'd like. I'll list them.
- Callie Brennan NoneBrilliant. Thank you both, this was a useful one. Speak soon.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThanks, Callie. Thanks, Tariq.
- Tariq Saleem NoneCheers. Speak soon.
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