What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Onboarding call with Jonas Albrecht, Data Engineering Lead. He has built a separate Snowflake database, warehouse and read-only role, and set conditions on EU data, grants, Friday changes and a handover runbook. Cautious but cooperative.
What happened: Hamza Akhtar walked Jonas through sequencing for the Growth implementation. Jonas had already created a separate database, warehouse and read-only role, and tested the grant on staging during the call.
Customer view: Jonas wants three clean connectors rather than six half done, and no access granted by email. His real worry is who looks after the brain once the consultant leaves.
Commercial: Hamza restated the Growth tier, fifty thousand pounds a year, forty users, term to 2 Feb 2027. Jonas said that part is procurement. Only a couple of people have logged in so far.
Watch: Transaction data is sensitive and will wait for the second wave. The call recorder retention policy is unknown and may limit what can be indexed.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Who was there
BB-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Hamza to send the one-page CRM user request to Jonas the next day.
- Hamza to produce the table of objects and privileges for the auditors.
- Jonas to send the tested helpdesk field export by Thursday and the recorder retention paragraph.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Jonas fears being left to explain the brain after the consultant leaves.
- The call recorder retention policy is unknown and may limit what can be indexed.
- Only a couple of people have logged in, so adoption of the forty licensed users is untested.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A clean first wave and a named pilot group could build trust before wider rollout.
- A runbook written around Jonas's own load-history checks could support a durable handover.
Transcript
- Hamza Akhtar NoneHello Jonas, can you hear me all right?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneYes. Afternoon. Camera stays off, the VPN is being difficult today.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneNo problem at all. Audio is the main thing. Thanks for making the time, I know it's a busy week for you.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneIt is. I will start with what I did, then you can tell me what I got wrong. I created a separate database and a small warehouse for the brain in our Snowflake account. I checked the load history on the warehouse afterwards, nothing running yet, which is what I wanted.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood, that's exactly the right starting point. Keeping it separate makes the review much easier later. Did you set up a role as well, or is that still open?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneA role, yes. Read-only on the source schemas, write access only inside the brain's own database. Nothing else. Which role has access to what is the first thing our auditors ask, so I would rather it is boring.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneBoring is the goal. And just so I have it right, the account itself is in the EU region, so the data stays where you want it?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneCorrect. It was a condition for the whole project. BaFin supervision, so the data does not leave the EU. If anything in your setup wanted to copy data outside, we would stop right there.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneUnderstood, and nothing does. The brain is built and run inside your Snowflake account, so the data doesn't move to us. What we need from you is the role and the connection details for each source system, and that's mostly it.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneMm. Good. Say that again in the documentation, please, in writing. I need something I can hand over.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes, I'll put together a short document: what the brain reads, where it writes, which role does what. Plain language and a table. Would that work as an auditor handout?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneIf the table has object names and privileges, yes. If it says 'securely processed' on every line, no.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneHa, fair. Object names and privileges, no adjectives. Right, let me share how I'd sequence the next few weeks and you can push back.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSo you're on Growth, which means up to eight connectors and the implementation runs about eight weeks from the start. I'd suggest we don't try to connect everything at once. First wave is the CRM, the helpdesk and the call recorder. Those are the three that merchant account managers touch every day.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneAnd merchant risk?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneMerchant risk comes mostly through the second wave. Product and transaction usage, then finance. But if risk wants something sooner, tell me which source and we can move it up.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneTransaction data is the sensitive one. I will not rush that. First wave is fine. I would rather have three connectors that are clean than six that are half done.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneCompletely agree. Clean first, then widen.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneWho on your side touches our data? Names, roles. Not a team name.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneFor the build, it's me, day to day. The CSM sits in on the checkpoints and the account owner stays across the commercial side. Nobody else on our side should need to connect to anything. If that changes, I'll tell you first.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneGood. Because I will not give access by email, to anyone. If a credential has to move, it moves through the secrets store, and I do the grant myself in Snowflake.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's how I'd want it. You make the grant, you see the grant. I'll tell you what privilege each connector needs and you decide.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneRight. One more thing about timing. I do not change production on a Friday. Not for you, not for anyone. So if your plan has a go-live on a Friday, move it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneNoted. Nothing on a Friday. I'll keep every change Monday to Thursday and I'll flag anything that touches your side the day before.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneFine.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOkay, let's go through the first wave one at a time. CRM first. Who administers it on your side, is that you, or someone in sales operations?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneNot me. A colleague in revenue operations owns it. I can ask for an API user, but it is their call, not mine. I would want the user to be read-only and tied to one named integration.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's all we need. Read-only is fine for the brain, we're not writing back to the CRM. Would it help if I sent your colleague a one-page request, so you don't have to translate?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneSend it to me, I will forward it. Then I know what was asked, and I know what was approved.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneSure. To you, you forward it. Helpdesk next. Do you have custom fields we should know about? Sometimes teams have renamed things over the years.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneYes. A few. They renamed a couple of ticket fields last autumn. Merchant tier, escalation reason. That is a schema change, and it broke one of our own reports for a day. I checked the load history, that is how I found it.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's useful, thank you. It's exactly the sort of thing that can make a connector go quiet without any error. Could you send me the current field list when you have a moment? Then I can map against what's there now, not what the documentation says.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneI can export it. Give me until Thursday. I will test the export before I send it. I do not send things I have not run.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThursday's perfect. And the call recorder, is that something you administer, or is it sales again?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneSales leadership. Recordings contain merchant conversations, so there is a retention policy on it. Legal wrote it. I will get you the paragraph, because it affects what you can index.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes please, that matters. If there's a retention limit, the brain should respect it, not hold anything longer than you do. Do you know roughly how long it is?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneI do not, and I will not guess. I will read it and tell you.
- Hamza Akhtar NonePerfect. That's the right answer.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneWhile you are there. Give me a second, I am running the grant for the read-only role against the staging schema now. Let me see what it returns.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneOkay. It works on the staging schema. Read-only, and the write attempt was refused, which is what I wanted. I tested both.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneBrilliant, thanks for doing that live. So the pattern is proven before it touches anything real. That's how I'd like to do every connector, staging first, then the real schema.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneYes. Staging first. Always.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneCan I ask about users for a minute? You have forty licensed, and at the moment I can see only a couple of people have logged in. That's normal at this stage, but I wanted to understand who you expect to be in there first.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneMe, and one analyst from merchant risk who wanted to poke around. That is all. Account managers get access once the data is in and I am satisfied it is correct. I will not put forty people in front of an empty brain.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneCompletely sensible. An empty first impression is hard to undo. What I'd suggest is a small pilot group from account management once the first wave is loaded, maybe a handful of people, then widen from there. Does that sit right with you?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneIt does. But I want the pilot people named by their managers, not volunteers. Volunteers ask odd questions and then tell everyone it does not work.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneHa. Fair point. Named by their managers, then. I can help with a short briefing for them, what to ask, what not to expect on day one.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneGood. Keep it short.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneOne page. I promise. Let me also say the commercial side out loud so we're aligned, even though I know you didn't negotiate it. It's the Growth tier, fifty thousand pounds a year, forty users, and the term runs to 2 Feb 2027, so there's a good stretch of time to get this properly embedded.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneThat part is procurement. I only care that forty users does not mean forty service accounts by the back door. One role, one integration, per source.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneYes, one per source, named, and the privileges written down. That table I'm sending will have each one on its own line.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneGood. What about refresh? When does the data update? I need to know when your jobs hit the warehouse, so I do not schedule something heavy on top.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThere's a nightly refresh, designed to complete before the working day starts for you. I'll give you the exact window in the document so you can see it against your own batch jobs. If there's a clash, we move ours, not yours.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneMove yours. Yes. Our settlement jobs run overnight and they are not negotiable.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneUnderstood. Settlement wins. I'll note it as a hard constraint.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneWho looks after the brain after you leave? Honestly, that is my real worry. A consultant builds it, goes away, and then it is mine to explain.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's a fair worry and I'd rather you said it now. Two things. One, the CSM takes over once we're live, and you get regular check-ins and quarterly reviews on Growth. Two, I'll leave a runbook, so what each connector does and how to tell if one has stopped loading is written down, not in my head.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneA runbook I can read in ten minutes, or one that needs a week?
- Hamza Akhtar NoneTen minutes. And I'd add the checks you already use. You said you look at the load history, so I'll write the checks in terms of that, so it's in your language.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneThat I would use.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneGood. Let me pull it together, then. Next steps from my side: first, the one-page request for the CRM user, to you by tomorrow. Second, the table of objects and privileges for the auditors. Third, the short briefing for pilot users, later, once the data's in.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneAnd mine. The helpdesk field export, Thursday, tested. The retention paragraph for the call recordings, read first. The CRM request forwarded once I have it. And I will do the staging grants for the helpdesk and the recorder myself.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneThat's exactly what I have as well. If anything slips, just say, there's no penalty for being careful. We'd rather a slow week than a bad grant.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneI will say. Early. Before the day it is due.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneBrilliant. Anything else on your list before we finish? Any worries I haven't asked about?
- Jonas Albrecht NoneNo. Not today. Ask me again after the first load.
- Hamza Akhtar NoneI will. Thanks, Jonas, that was really clear and very helpful. Speak soon.
- Jonas Albrecht NoneRight. Thanks. Jonas.