Merriott Lyle Distribution / BB-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution: documents · 2025-04-16 14:30
Second onboarding call. Connector owners and order agreed; a branch export leaving account references blank is rejecting loads. Wave two waits on clean directory groups, and accounting access depends on credit control.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Second onboarding call. Connector owners and order agreed; a branch export leaving account references blank is rejecting loads. Wave two waits on clean directory groups, and accounting access depends on credit control.
What happened: Laura, Deepa and Tariq agreed connector owners and order. The branch export was leaving the account reference blank on a block of rows, so the load rejected the file; Laura proposed holding blank rows rather than failing the night.
Customer view: Deepa will not promise the regions anything before it exists. Tariq's worry is the nightly refresh failing and a branch seeing yesterday's balances.
Commercial: Laura put the contract on the call at a hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred pounds a year, on Enterprise with two hundred licensed seats and about sixteen users. The seat headroom is large, but that figure is as spoken and the call does not show the executed order form.
Watch: Wave two depends on tidy directory groups, and accounting access depends on the credit control manager. The next account-data review is in about five weeks.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Onboarding load fault, owners
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
neutral
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Laura Penhaligon to review the load log and switch on the held-table setting for the branch connector.
- Tariq Saleem to ask the branch systems colleague what changed in the export and set up the shared load-status mailbox.
- Deepa Chauhan to confirm credit control access this week and send the pilot account names by the Friday after the call.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The branch export leaves account references blank, so overnight loads are rejected and the nightly refresh may miss its 07:00 target.
- Accounting access depends on the credit control manager and has not yet been confirmed.
- Directory groups are untidy, which holds back wave two and role-based access.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Only about sixteen of two hundred Enterprise seats are in use, so wave two to regional directors and branch managers is a clear adoption path.
- A held-rows count in the monthly review gives the customer a visible measure of data quality improving.
Transcript
Laura Penhaligon NoneHello, can you both hear me alright? I've got the recorder going, so we'll have a transcript afterwards.
Tariq Saleem NoneYes, loud and clear. Afternoon, Laura.- Laura Penhaligon NoneAfternoon, Tariq. Deepa, I can see you've just joined.
Deepa Chauhan NoneSorry, sorry. The meeting before this one overran, and then my headset decided it didn't want to be a headset. Can you hear me now?- Laura Penhaligon NonePerfectly. No problem at all, we've only just started. How's the week been?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBusy. Easter is coming and every regional director suddenly wants a number before the branches shut. But that's actually why I wanted this call, so can I say the one thing I need from it?
- Laura Penhaligon NonePlease do.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI need to leave this call knowing who owns each connector on our side, and which ones are going to be live before the first account-data review. Everything else is secondary. If I know the owners and the order, I can tell the regions something honest.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's a good test for the whole call, I'll keep us pointed at it. Tariq, I think you wanted to start with the tickets?
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes. There are two open at the moment, so let me do those first, then we can plan around them. One is marked high priority. That's the branch system extract, which failed on the first scheduled night and hasn't loaded cleanly since. The other is a how-to about the single sign-on setup, which is more of a question than a fault.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneRight. Which connector is the extract feeding, just so I've got the right one in my head?
- Tariq Saleem NoneThe branch system into the brain, the trading accounts and their order lines. I'll check the load log while we're talking, but from what I saw this morning the file arrives, and it's the load step that rejects it. I'm not going to guess at why until I've seen the rejection message.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's fair. If you can share the log in the ticket I'll look at it straight after the call. Can I ask, has anything changed on the branch side recently? A new field, a renamed export, anything like that?
- Tariq Saleem NoneNot that I've been told. Mm. Though that's a mapping question, not necessarily a source question. The account reference in the branch export and the one in the CRM have never been identical. We've always matched them with a lookup.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWhich account, which branch, though? Because if it's the same few accounts failing, that's one conversation, and if it's every branch, that's a different one.
- Tariq Saleem NoneFair question. Give me a second.
- Tariq Saleem NoneRight. It isn't specific branches. The rejections are spread across the whole file, so it looks like the lookup rather than particular accounts. I'll keep it at that until I've confirmed.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood, that's useful, and it narrows it. Let's park the fix and I'll take it as an action. What I'd like to do with the rest of the time is walk through the plan end to end, so we've got the connectors, the owners, and the order. Is that all right?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's exactly what I wanted.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneLovely. So just to set the scene. You're on Enterprise, two hundred licensed users, and the contract is a hundred and sixteen thousand five hundred pounds a year. Enterprise includes up to twenty connectors, so we have plenty of room, and I'd rather we don't try to use all of them in week one.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNo, God, no. Let's get the core ones solid first. Branch orders, the CRM, credit control, and then calls.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat order works for me. Can I read back what I've got from the order form, and you tell me if it's changed? The CRM, the branch system, the accounting system for invoices and disputes, the helpdesk, and the call recorder.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat's right, though the accounting system is the one I'd flag. Credit control use it, not me. I've got no write access and I don't think I should.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWhich is why I want credit control in the room. Let's get credit control in the room for that one, not have Tariq asking them for exports by email.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAgreed, and honestly that's better for us too. Read-only access is all the brain needs from the accounting system. Who would be the right person on the credit-control side?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI'd say the credit control manager, but I'll have to ask her whether she wants to do it herself or nominate someone. I'll find out this week.
- Laura Penhaligon NonePerfect. I'll note that as yours, Deepa. Now, the CRM. Tariq, you run that one, so I'd assume you're the owner.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI am, yes. The CRM is straightforward. It's the matching between the CRM and the branch system that gives me headaches, as you've gathered.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneRight, so let's talk about that properly, because I think it decides how the next few weeks go. When the brain brings in a trade account from the branch system, how does it know it's the same account as the one in the CRM?
- Tariq Saleem NoneToday, it doesn't, not by itself. There's a lookup table I maintain. Branch account reference on one side, CRM account on the other. A fair few accounts have more than one branch reference, because a builder will open an account at two or three branches and nobody links them.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneAnd that's the whole point of buying this, to be fair. One version of each trade account. If a builder is trading at three branches, credit control should see one customer with three delivery points, not three strangers.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYes. So what I'd suggest is that we don't try to fix the whole lookup before go-live. We take the accounts that already match cleanly, load those, and put the unmatched ones into a review list that you two can work down.
- Tariq Saleem NoneMm. I like that, as long as the unmatched ones are visible somewhere and not silently dropped. I don't want an account to just vanish from the brain because it didn't match.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneNo, they'd sit in a held table, with the reason. Nothing gets dropped. And you'd be able to see the list in your own Snowflake account, since everything runs inside it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneGood. That makes it feel a lot less like a black box.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCan I ask something slightly awkward? When Tariq changes a mapping, who tells me? Because last time we did anything like this a mapping changed and the regional reports moved overnight, and nobody could say why.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat's a fair hit. And no, I'm not going to change a mapping without telling you, Deepa. That's the rule I'd like us to write down.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneLet's do exactly that. A mapping change log, one line per change, who and why, and you both see it. It's a small thing, but it saves arguments later.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThank you. And to be clear, it's not about blame. The branches aren't doing anything wrong. The data's just come from a system that was never designed to talk to the CRM.
- Tariq Saleem NoneAgreed. They enter what they need to trade. It's our job to make sense of it.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneRight. Shall we sketch the order? I'll say what I'd propose and you push back.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneFirst, the CRM, because it's the simplest and it gives us the account spine. Second, the branch system, once we've sorted the load problem on the ticket. Third, the accounting system, once credit control have given us access. Fourth, the helpdesk, and last the call recorder, because the calls are the most useful but also the most personal, and I'd like us to be careful about who can see them.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneI'd swap the helpdesk and the calls, if I'm honest. The key-account managers talk about calls all the time. The helpdesk is mostly the internal IT queue for us, isn't it, Tariq?
- Tariq Saleem NoneIt's mostly internal, yes. Although the customer-facing disputes team does log things in it. Which helpdesk are we talking about, so we're sure we're not mixing them? We have the one for IT and a separate set-up for disputes.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThe order form names the disputes one, so that's the one in scope. Not the internal IT queue.
- Tariq Saleem NoneGood, that's the one I'd have wanted. In that case I'd happily bring it forward. It's cleaner than the calls.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBut the calls matter more to the account managers. I'm torn.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThey're not exclusive. Let me suggest this. We go CRM, branch, accounting, then disputes helpdesk and calls in parallel, with different people on each. Tariq wouldn't be the bottleneck, because the call recorder admin is someone else, I think?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes, it's someone on the sales operations side. I'll introduce them. I'd say we want them on the next call.
- Laura Penhaligon NonePlease. And while we're on people. Single sign-on. Tariq, that was your ticket.
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes. It's not a fault. I just want to understand the sequence. Do we set up single sign-on before or after we invite users? If I invite everyone and then turn it on, will they all have to re-register?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood question, and the answer's go with SSO first. Enterprise includes SSO and SCIM, so you can provision users from your directory rather than inviting them by hand. If you set it up first, people just sign in with their normal credentials the first time.
- Tariq Saleem NoneRight, so that's sensible. Then I'd rather do it properly once. I'd need to speak to someone in IT about the identity provider settings. I don't run that.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOf course. If you tell me who it is, I'll send them a short checklist, so they don't have to read the whole onboarding pack. Is that all right?
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes, please. I'll put you in touch by email tomorrow.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCan I ask about numbers of people? We've bought two hundred seats and at the moment there's, what, sixteen of us using it?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAbout that, yes, a little over a dozen on average over the last month, mostly the project team. So we've got a long way to go, which is normal at this stage. I'd say two hundred is the end state, not the starting point.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. Because Tariq and I were saying on the way in, the regional directors want it tomorrow, and I'd rather they wait and get something that works. I don't want to promise the regions anything before it exists.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's wise. Let me propose a rollout in waves. Wave one, the head office commercial systems team, credit control, and a handful of key-account managers. They try it on real accounts, and tell us where the matching is wrong. Wave two, the regional directors and branch managers, once the account view is trustworthy.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneYes. Yes, that's it. Pilot on the accounts we know best, so we can say whether it's right.
- Tariq Saleem NoneShow me where that number comes from, as Deepa says. If a key-account manager sees an overdue balance, they need to be able to see the invoices behind it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's my line, you've stolen it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI've been listening to you for years.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneIt's a good line. And it's how the brain's built, every answer links back to its source record, so that's in your favour.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneRight, so what's the account-data review? Deepa, you mentioned a first one. When's the first one, roughly?
- Deepa Chauhan NoneIt's monthly, with credit control and the regional directors. The next one is in about five weeks. That's the first one I'd want to open the brain in, even if it's just on a handful of accounts.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneFive weeks. That's achievable for the CRM and the branch system, as long as the load ticket doesn't drag. Accounting access is the thing I'd watch, since it depends on credit control.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThen that's the one I'll chase first. Let me write that down. Credit control manager, access, this week.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneSorry, I'm just writing as well. Okay. Tariq, back to the load. While Deepa's writing, do you have the log in front of you?
- Tariq Saleem NoneI do now. Let me read you the message, because I'm not going to paraphrase it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneIt says the join key is empty for a block of rows. So the file's arriving, the rows are there, but the account reference is blank on a chunk of them. That's the lookup failing, as I thought, but the cause is that the export is leaving the reference blank, not that the lookup's wrong.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's helpful, and it's a source-side change, then. Do you know who maintains the export?
- Tariq Saleem NoneA colleague in the branch systems team. I'll ask them what changed. I'd guess a schedule or a filter, but that's a guess, so I'll leave it there.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood. If you can get that, I can have the loader skip blank keys and hold them rather than reject the whole file. So worst case, the night's load goes through and the blanks wait in the held table.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat would take the pressure off. Honestly the thing that worries me is the nightly refresh. If it fails once, someone in a branch is looking at yesterday's balances.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneUnderstood, and it's why I'd treat the held-table change as the priority. On Enterprise the nightly refresh is meant to be complete by seven in the morning on business days, and I'd like us to be there before anyone outside the pilot is looking.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneAnd who tells me if it hasn't? I don't want to hear from a branch manager first.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneFair. I'd suggest the load status goes to a shared mailbox you both watch, plus Tariq as the named person. Then it's not down to one inbox on a day someone's off.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat works. I'll set up the mailbox.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThank you. Right, next thing. Can we talk about training? Because I know the first question from the key-account managers will be what do I actually ask it.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYes, always. What I'd do is run a short session for wave one, using their own accounts. Not slides. Five or six real questions, like which of my accounts have an open dispute and a call in the last month, and let them try it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's the kind of thing they'd actually use. Could you put together a list of the questions, so I can sanity-check them before the session? I'd like to see they're the ones credit control would also ask.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOf course. I'll draft them from the accounts you choose for the pilot. Which brings me to a favour. Could you pick the pilot accounts? Somewhere between a dozen and twenty, a mix of big and awkward.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneAwkward I can do. I have a list in my head already. Builders with three branches, one who always disputes, one who's changed their legal name.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThe legal name one is a nightmare in the lookup. I'd definitely include it.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneGood, those are exactly the ones that tell us whether the matching's working. Send me the names, Deepa, and Tariq can pull the references.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneBy Friday. Is that all right?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's more than fine.
- Tariq Saleem NoneOne more technical thing, and then I'll shut up. Permissions. Who can see what? Credit control will see balances, but I don't think every branch manager should see another branch's disputes.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneNo, that's a role question, and it's what the SCIM groups are for. If your directory has groups for region and for function, we map those to what each person can see. If it doesn't, we start simple, with head office, credit control and key-account managers, and add the regions in wave two.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThe directory has regional groups, but they're a bit of a mess. People who've moved branch and kept the old group. I'd want to clean that before we rely on it.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThen that's a reason to keep wave two honest. We don't switch the regions on until the groups are right.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneAgreed. I'll write that as a condition for wave two rather than a date.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. I don't want a date I can't keep.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneUnderstood. Now, the security review. Enterprise includes support with it, and I know you've had a questionnaire from us. Where's that got to?
- Tariq Saleem NoneMostly done. There are a couple of questions left on data residency and on retention, and those aren't mine. They need someone on the information security side.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's fine. The brain runs inside your own Snowflake account, so the data doesn't leave it. That usually makes the residency answers short. I can draft those two and you can have your security colleague check them, rather than starting from blank.
- Tariq Saleem NoneThat would be a help. They're stretched at the moment.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneDone. Draft to you early next week.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCan I come back to the money for a second? Not the contract. I mean the effort. I want to be able to tell our finance team that onboarding's on track, and I'd like to know what would make it not on track.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneSure, that's reasonable. Honestly there are three things. The branch load not being fixed. Accounting access not arriving. And the directory groups not being ready. The first one is on us together, the second is with credit control, the third is with IT. If those three hold, we're comfortable.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThat's a clear list. I'll use it.
- Tariq Saleem NoneAnd if the branch export turns out to be a bigger change than a filter?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThen we say so early. I'd rather tell you in week two that it's bigger than expected than have you find out in week five. And I'd bring in Lewis, our account owner, if it ever touched scope or commitments. I don't expect it to.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneGood. And Amara's the one for adoption, afterwards, isn't she?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's right. Amara, as your customer success manager, picks up once we're live and runs the reviews with you. I'll introduce you properly before I step back.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneLovely. I like to know who's holding what.
- Tariq Saleem NoneCould we take ten minutes, if there's time, on the connector configuration itself? I'd like to see the CRM one on screen, so I know what I'm approving.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYes, definitely. Let me share my screen. Can you see it?
- Tariq Saleem NoneYes. A bit small. That's better.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneSo this is the connector list. The CRM is first. You can see the objects it reads on the left: accounts, contacts, opportunities, activities. And on the right, what it writes into your Snowflake account. It never writes back to the CRM.
- Tariq Saleem NoneGood, that's the bit I wanted to be sure of. Read only. And the custom fields? We've got a lot on the account object that were added over the years.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneYou choose. By default it brings everything, but I'd suggest we deselect the ones you know are dead. Do you have a list of which fields people actually use?
- Tariq Saleem NoneRoughly. I could pull a usage report. I'd say half of them haven't been touched in years.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneHalf of them were mine, I think. Let's leave them out and see whether anyone complains.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's a perfectly sensible way to do it. We can always switch one back on, and it's much harder to explain a hundred fields nobody uses.
- Tariq Saleem NoneFine. I'll make that list tomorrow and send it across. Can you tell me what happens to the old data if I deselect something and then reselect it?
- Laura Penhaligon NoneIt back-fills on the next run. You wouldn't lose history from the source, because it's re-read.
- Tariq Saleem NoneGood. That settles it for me.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOkay. Let me show you the branch connector, so you can see where the blank keys end up with the new setting.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneHere. This option is the held table. With it switched on, any row with a blank key goes into a separate table with the reason, and the rest carry on. You'd see a count of held rows next to each night's load.
- Tariq Saleem NoneRight. So a night with a few held rows is a warning but not a failure.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneExactly. Whereas a night where nothing loads at all is a failure, and you'd be told.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneCould that count go on the monthly review? If we can see held rows going down each month, that's a nice thing to show the regions. It proves the data's getting cleaner without anyone getting blamed.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneI'd be glad to. It's one of the cleanest measures of progress you'll have. I'll add it to the review pack.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI'd want it split by branch, but not as a league table. Just so I know where to look.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneNot a league table. Agreed. That would only make people defensive.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneUnderstood, I'll label it as a working list for you two, not for the regions.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneI'll stop sharing. Let me recap actions, and you can tell me if I've got them wrong.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneMine. One, look at the load log in the ticket and switch on the held-table setting for the branch connector. Two, draft the two security answers on residency and retention. Three, draft the sample questions for wave one once I have the pilot accounts. Four, add held rows to the review pack.
- Tariq Saleem NoneMine. Ask the branch systems colleague what changed in the export. Send you the list of unused CRM fields. Put you in touch with someone in IT for the identity settings. Set up the shared mailbox for load status. And pull the references for the pilot accounts when Deepa gives me the names.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneMine. Credit control manager and access, this week. Introduce the call recorder admin before the next call. And the pilot account names by Friday.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThat's all of it, and it's all small, which is a good sign. Is there anything I've missed?
- Tariq Saleem NoneOne. Could we have a short call on the same day each week for now? Twenty minutes. Just the open items. I find it easier than email.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneOf course. Weekly, short, open items first. I'll send an invite for the same time next Wednesday and we can move it if it clashes.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneWednesday afternoons are good for me. Though not after four.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneThen half past two it is, same as today.
- Deepa Chauhan NonePerfect. Honestly, this has been more useful than I expected. I came in thinking I'd be nodding at slides.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneNo slides. I'm glad it helped. And it's your plan as much as mine, so please keep pushing back.
- Tariq Saleem NoneI'll check the load log tonight and put whatever I see in the ticket, so you've got it first thing.
- Laura Penhaligon NoneBrilliant, thank you. Then I'll leave you to the rest of your afternoon. Thanks both.
- Deepa Chauhan NoneThanks, Laura. Speak next week.
- Tariq Saleem NoneCheers, Laura. Bye both.
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