Delancey Haig / BB-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Delancey Haig: documents · 2024-08-14 15:00
Holly Tranter agreed the connector plan with Callie Brennan: CRM, helpdesk and accounting in phase one, mailbox deferred. Usage is two or three people on forty licences, with Holly as the only admin.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Holly Tranter agreed the connector plan with Callie Brennan: CRM, helpdesk and accounting in phase one, mailbox deferred. Usage is two or three people on forty licences, with Holly as the only admin.
What happened: Callie and Holly met on 14 Aug 2024 to plan the CRM, accounting and helpdesk connectors, the client mapping table and credentials. Nothing is switched on yet.
Customer view: Holly wants a plan she can see, and the mailbox archive is out of phase one because some directors would be touchy about it. She is also worried that a connector breaks and nobody tells them.
Commercial: Usage is low on the Growth subscription, and Holly expects the managing director to ask what it is worth. Callie suggested a single keen director as pilot and keeping a record of questions asked.
Watch: Holly is the only admin. The accounting credentials need the financial controller and will land after the CRM and helpdesk ones.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Connector plan and handover
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- Holly Tranter provides CRM and helpdesk service users and the CRM client export by Friday.
- Holly Tranter gets accounting credentials and the customer export from the financial controller early the following week.
- Callie Brennan sends the note for the finance team after the call and tests each connection the day credentials arrive.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Holly is the only admin, a single point of failure before directors rely on the brain.
- Accounting credentials depend on the financial controller and will arrive after the CRM and helpdesk ones.
- Only two or three people use a Growth subscription with forty licences, and the managing director will ask what it is worth.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A pilot with one keen director on her own client review can create the value story for the others.
- The mailbox archive can be revisited later once the directors have discussed it internally.
Transcript
Callie Brennan NoneHello, Holly, can you hear me all right? I've got you on screen but no sound yet.
Holly Tranter NoneHi Callie. Yes, I can hear you. Sorry, I was on mute. Is that better?- Callie Brennan NonePerfect. Good afternoon. Thanks for making the time, I know it's a busy week for you.
- Holly Tranter NoneIt is, a bit. We've got a lot of contract renewals going through on the recruitment side, so everyone's heads are down. But this is one of the things I actually want to get moving, so, yeah.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood, that helps. So here's the plan for the next forty minutes or so. First I'll recap where we are with the connectors, then I want to go through the field mapping for the client records, because that's the bit that decides whether your directors trust what they see. After that, what I need from your side is access, and I'll tell you exactly what and who. And at the end I'll talk about the first refresh and who runs things once I step back. Does that sound right?
- Holly Tranter NoneThat sounds right. Can I add one thing at the end? I'd like to talk about the users. We've got forty licences and I think about two or three people are actually logging in.
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, absolutely, we'll park that for the end and give it proper time. It's a really common pattern at this stage, so don't worry about it.
- Holly Tranter NoneOkay, good. I did feel a bit embarrassed about it.
- Callie Brennan NoneNo, no. You signed at the start of July, you've had the workspace for a few weeks and nothing's flowing yet. Of course nobody's using it. Right, so, where we are. The workspace is set up inside your Snowflake account, the structure is there, and the brain is empty, essentially. Nothing is switched on. Before we switch on the refresh I want every source to have written access in place, and I haven't started anything without that.
- Holly Tranter NoneYes, I saw that in your note. You said you wouldn't touch the CRM until we'd confirmed it in writing.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's right. It's just safer for both of us. If something looks odd later, we can both point to what was agreed and when. So, there are four things for the brain to read from, as I understand the order. Your CRM, which holds the clients and the vacancies. The accounting system, for invoices. The helpdesk or wherever complaints get logged. And the shared mailbox thread archive, which you said was optional.
- Holly Tranter NoneMm. The mailbox one I'm less sure about. Some of the directors would be quite touchy about that. I'd want to be careful.
- Callie Brennan NoneUnderstood. Then we leave it out of the first phase entirely. It doesn't hold anything up. We can add it later once you've had a conversation internally, and nobody will ask you for it before then.
- Holly Tranter NoneGreat. Thank you. That takes some pressure off.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood. So that leaves three. Let's take the CRM first, because that's the spine. Everything else hangs off the client record. Can I check something with you? When your directors say 'client', what do they mean? Is it the company that pays the invoice, or the hiring manager's team, or the group?
- Holly Tranter NoneAh. That's actually the problem, honestly. It depends who you ask. In the CRM, a client is the company. But in accounts, some of them are billed through a parent or a different entity. So the same client can show up under two names.
- Callie Brennan NoneRight, and that's exactly what I was hoping you'd say, because it's where we earn our keep. So what I'd propose is this. We take the CRM company as the master record. Then we build a small mapping table that says, this accounting name belongs to that CRM client. It's a lookup, nothing clever. But somebody on your side has to own it, and that's probably you.
- Holly Tranter NoneHow big is it? Is it hundreds of rows?
- Callie Brennan NoneI won't know until I see the exports. My guess is that most clients match by name straight away, and it's the awkward minority that need a human. I'd rather not give you a number I haven't checked.
- Holly Tranter NoneFair enough. I'd rather that than a made-up one.
- Callie Brennan NoneExactly. So what I need from your side is two exports. One, the list of client companies from the CRM with whatever unique ID it uses. Two, the list of customer names from the accounting system, again with its ID. Plain spreadsheets are fine. I'll do the first pass of matching and send you back only the ones I couldn't settle.
- Holly Tranter NoneI can do those. The CRM one is easy. The accounting one I might need to ask our finance team, because I don't have a login with that much visibility.
- Callie Brennan NoneOkay, that's worth knowing now. Who in finance would normally do that, in terms of role?
- Holly Tranter NoneIt would be the financial controller. I'd just email and ask. They're quite responsive, they just like to know why.
- Callie Brennan NoneThen tell them it's a read-only export of customer names and IDs for a reporting project, and that nothing is being written back. That's true and it's usually all they need. I can write a two-line description for you if that's easier.
- Holly Tranter NoneYes please, that would actually help. They like things in writing.
- Callie Brennan NoneDone, I'll send it straight after the call. Now, vacancies and placements. In the CRM, are those two separate objects, or is a placement just a vacancy with a status?
- Holly Tranter NoneSeparate. A vacancy is the role the client wants filled. A placement is the person we've put in, so it links a candidate to a vacancy. Contract placements have an end date, permanent ones don't.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat maps cleanly, that's a good structure. And for the contract ones, is the end date reliable, or is it something recruiters fill in when they remember?
- Holly Tranter NoneHa. Sometimes the second one. It's mandatory in theory. In practice I'd say it's mostly right but I wouldn't swear to it.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's honest, thank you. I'll flag it in the setup note as a field that's known to be patchy. The brain will still show it, but I'd want the directors to know not to rely on it for anything contractual until it's cleaned up.
- Holly Tranter NoneYes. I'd rather they knew. Otherwise someone will quote it to a client.
- Callie Brennan NoneExactly the risk. Okay. Now, can we go through the third one, complaints? Where do those live? I've got a note that says the helpdesk, but I want to check it's the only place.
- Holly Tranter NoneMostly the helpdesk. But I'll be honest, some are logged as notes on the CRM client, because a director has a call and types it in. So there are two places and they don't match.
- Callie Brennan NoneRight. So I'd want to bring in both, and label which came from where, so nobody mistakes a note for a formal complaint. That's easy to do. The harder bit is that someone has to decide what counts. Is it the directors who decide, or you?
- Holly Tranter NoneProbably the directors, but they've never agreed on it. I'd guess I end up writing the rule and asking them to approve it.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's usually how it goes. Write it as simply as you can. One sentence is better than a policy. Something like, a complaint is anything logged in the helpdesk under the complaints category, or a CRM note tagged as one. Then we can build to that and change it later.
- Holly Tranter NoneOkay. I can draft that this week and send it round.
- Callie Brennan NoneBrilliant. Let me write these down so I don't lose them. Two exports, one description for your finance team from me, the complaints rule from you, and the mailbox left out for now. Have I missed anything?
- Holly Tranter NoneCredentials. You said you'd tell me exactly what and who.
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, thank you for holding me to it. For each system I need a service account or an API user, not a person's login, with read-only permissions. If it's a person's login and they leave, the refresh breaks and nobody notices for a week. So, a named service user for each. Can you create those, or does it go through somebody else?
- Holly Tranter NoneFor the CRM I'm an admin, so I can do it myself. The helpdesk too. Accounting I'd need the same controller again.
- Callie Brennan NoneThen bundle it into the same email. One ask, two things. And the credentials come to me through the secure share we set up, not email, not chat.
- Holly Tranter NoneUnderstood. I'll use the share.
- Callie Brennan NoneLovely. What I'd like is for those to be with me by Friday. Then I test the connection on each and tell you the same day whether it connects or what's wrong. That gives us the following week for the mapping.
- Holly Tranter NoneFriday's tight for the accounting one. Can I say the start of next week for that?
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, that's fine. We do the CRM and the helpdesk on Friday and the accounting system early next week. It means the first refresh slips by a couple of days, but I'd rather that than rushing a credential.
- Holly Tranter NoneThank you. I didn't want to promise something I couldn't do.
- Callie Brennan NoneQuite right. Now the first refresh. Let me explain what actually happens, because people are sometimes surprised. When I switch it on, the brain pulls everything from each source, which takes a while, and then it indexes it. For the first run it won't be pretty. There will be gaps, duplicates, names that don't match. That's normal. It's not a failure, it's how we find the mess.
- Holly Tranter NoneSo I shouldn't show it to the directors straight away.
- Callie Brennan NoneCorrect. Please don't. First run is for you and me. We go through what it found, we fix the mapping, we run it again. Only when I'm happy that a client page shows vacancies, placements, invoices and complaints together, and they agree with the source systems, do the directors get a look.
- Holly Tranter NoneHow will we know they agree? Do I have to check every client?
- Callie Brennan NoneNo, nobody checks every client. We pick a handful, and I'd say pick the awkward ones, the ones with two names, the ones with a complaint, one with lots of placements. You look at the brain's page next to the CRM and accounts. If those line up, I'm much more confident about the rest.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat's sensible. I can pick those. I know which ones are going to be a nightmare.
- Callie Brennan NoneHa, that's the useful knowledge. Okay. I'll also build in the nightly refresh, so after the first run it updates itself overnight and the directors see fresh data in the morning. I'll tell you how to look at whether it ran.
- Holly Tranter NoneIs that something I'd see? As in, if it fails?
- Callie Brennan NoneYes. There's an admin view that shows each connector, when it last loaded, and whether the number of records is moving. If the count stays flat for days, that's usually a source that's stopped loading, often because somebody changed something upstream. I'll show you where it is when we get there, and it goes in the setup note.
- Holly Tranter NoneOkay. That's helpful, because honestly that's what I'm worried about. Something breaks and nobody tells us.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's the right worry to have, and it's why I'm so fussy about handover. I don't walk away without a setup note. Everything I've connected, what the credentials are called, what the mapping rules are, where the patchy fields are, and what to do if a connector fails. So if you're off on holiday, someone else can read it.
- Holly Tranter NoneWho else would that be, realistically? I'm the only person who does this kind of thing.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's worth a conversation. At the moment you're the only admin. That's a single point of failure, and I'd gently suggest naming a second one, even if they only ever do the basics. Someone in IT, perhaps, or a colleague who's comfortable with systems.
- Holly Tranter NoneThere's a colleague in IT who might be willing. I'd have to ask. I don't want to volunteer someone.
- Callie Brennan NoneOf course. Just think about it. It doesn't have to be this week. But I'd say before the directors start relying on it, so not much later than the first review.
- Holly Tranter NoneOkay. Noted. I'll raise it.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood. Now, users, which you wanted. You've got forty licences on Growth, and only a couple of people logging in so far. Tell me what's in your head.
- Holly Tranter NoneSo the reason we bought it was for the client-account directors. They're the ones who need to see everything about a client in one place before a meeting. There are not forty of them, obviously. I think the idea was the directors, then their account managers, then maybe some of the senior recruiters. But right now it's me and one other person poking at it.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's a reasonable shape. Forty is headroom, you don't need to fill it. What matters is that the right few people use it every week. Do you know which director would be the best first user? Someone who'd actually try it and tell you honestly if it's rubbish.
- Holly Tranter NoneYes, there's one who's very keen. She's always complaining that she can't get a straight answer before a client review. She'd be the one.
- Callie Brennan NoneThen she's your pilot. Not the whole group. One person, one real use, her next client review. We build her a view, she uses it before a meeting, and we ask what was missing. That's far more useful than a big launch.
- Holly Tranter NoneI like that. It's less scary than telling everyone at once.
- Callie Brennan NoneAnd it gives you a story to tell the others. 'She used it before the review and it saved her an hour.' That persuades people better than any training session from me.
- Holly Tranter NoneFair point. Should I tell her yet, or wait until it's working?
- Callie Brennan NoneTell her it's coming and roughly when, so she's expecting it, but don't give her a login until the data's ready. A bad first look is hard to recover from.
- Holly Tranter NoneRight. Yes. That's happened to us before with another tool. People looked once, saw rubbish, and never went back.
- Callie Brennan NoneExactly that. So we protect the first impression. Can I ask about the ticket that came in recently? I saw one from you.
- Holly Tranter NoneOh, yes. That was a small thing, I wasn't sure who to ask. It's been answered, I think. It wasn't urgent.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood. I'll double check it's closed on my side too. And if anything feels urgent, you can reach me directly during onboarding, you don't have to go through the queue.
- Holly Tranter NoneThanks. That's good to know.
- Callie Brennan NoneRight, let me share my screen and show you the admin view, so it's not abstract. Can you see it?
- Holly Tranter NoneYes, I can see a list. It's quite small, can you make it bigger?
- Callie Brennan NoneSorry, better? So this is the connectors page. Each row is a source. Name, status, last loaded, records indexed. Right now yours are all empty because we haven't connected anything, but this is where you'd look.
- Holly Tranter NoneOkay. And the records column, that's the one that shouldn't go flat?
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's the one. Growing slowly is healthy. Flat for a week and you want to look. It's not always a problem, a quiet source might genuinely have nothing new, but it's your prompt to check.
- Holly Tranter NoneMm. Right. And is there somewhere I can see what people are asking it? Once they're using it?
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, there's a usage page, questions asked and who's asking. It's useful for you because it tells you where the interest is, and it's useful in the review later on, when someone senior asks what the thing is worth.
- Holly Tranter NoneAh, yes, they will ask that. Our managing director is quite direct about it.
- Callie Brennan NoneThen it's worth having from the start. Even a small number of questions from a real director before real meetings makes a decent case. Don't wait until the end of the year to find the evidence.
- Holly Tranter NoneOkay. I'll keep notes. I'm not very good at that, but I'll try.
- Callie Brennan NoneI'll put a prompt in the handover note. Now, one more mapping question and then I'll leave you alone. Invoices. Do your invoices carry a reference back to a CRM client, or is it only the name?
- Holly Tranter NoneOnly the name, I think. Sometimes there's a purchase order number but that's the client's, not ours.
- Callie Brennan NoneOkay, that confirms we need the lookup table, then. Name only is fine, it just means the table matters more. I'll make it the first thing I do once the exports are in.
- Holly Tranter NoneDo you want me to do anything to the data first? Tidy it up?
- Callie Brennan NoneNo, please don't. Send me what's there. If you tidy it, I can't see the real problems, and you'll have spent hours on something I'd have caught anyway. Send it messy.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat's a relief. I was going to spend the weekend on it.
- Callie Brennan NonePlease don't. Have a weekend. Right. So I'll summarise, and tell me if I've got anything wrong. By Friday: service users for the CRM and the helpdesk, through the secure share, plus the CRM client export. Early next week: the accounting credentials and the customer export, via your financial controller. Also this week from you: a one-line rule for what counts as a complaint. From me: the note to your finance team straight after this call, then connection tests the same day each credential lands, then first mapping pass once I have the exports.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat's it. And the mailbox stays out for now.
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, out of phase one, and we revisit it when you've talked to the directors. And one thing for you to think about, not to do: a second admin.
- Holly Tranter NoneYes, I'll think about it. And the pilot director, I'll mention it casually.
- Callie Brennan NoneCasually is perfect. Anything else on your mind? Anything about the contract or the order that's niggling you?
- Holly Tranter NoneNot really. I think I just wanted to know that someone has a plan. It's been a few weeks and I wasn't sure what was happening next.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's fair, and that's on us for not being clearer sooner. You'll get a short email from me after every step, so you're never guessing. Even if it's just 'credentials received, testing tomorrow'.
- Holly Tranter NoneThat would be good. Thank you.
- Callie Brennan NoneBrilliant. Then let's stop there, we've even got a little time back. Thanks, Holly, speak soon.
- Holly Tranter NoneThanks Callie. Speak soon. Bye.
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