Brimscombe Energy / BB-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Brimscombe Energy · 2025-02-25 12:30
One-to-one onboarding call on 25 Feb 2025 with Nikhil Rao. He set strict access terms, asked for a completion-triggered refresh with alerts, and asked for exit steps if the contract is not renewed.
What was said
What this says
Current to 13 Oct 26One-to-one onboarding call on 25 Feb 2025 with Nikhil Rao. He set strict access terms, asked for a completion-triggered refresh with alerts, and asked for exit steps if the contract is not renewed.
What happened: One-to-one onboarding call on 25 Feb 2025 between Callie Brennan and Nikhil Rao. They covered access, connector waves, the nightly refresh and the setup note.
Customer view: Nikhil wants least-privilege access granted through the ticket, a refresh triggered off load completion, and an alert if it has not started. He also asked to see records indexed per connector so a flat feed is noticed.
Commercial: Nikhil gave the contract start as 10 Jan 2025 and the term end as 9 Jan 2026, from the order form. He asked for exit steps if it is not renewed, which Callie will take to Daniel, the customer success manager.
Watch: Nikhil is the only admin and has not yet named a backup. Billing is the slow source and the systems share no common identifier.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Access, refresh and exit
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
neutral
Voice
user
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Nikhil to submit the access request through the ticket today with the role name and grant script.
- Callie to start wave one connectors on a test schema once access is in writing, then review the first load with Nikhil on Wednesday.
- Callie to write the exit steps and the last-Tuesday blackout into the setup note and take the exit steps to Daniel.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- Nikhil is the only admin and no backup is named, so his absence would stall the brain.
- A billing schema change could stop that connector loading quietly, leaving records flat and the brain stale.
- Nikhil asked for exit steps if the contract is not renewed, so the term end of 9 Jan 2026 is on his mind.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- Enterprise allows twenty connectors against twenty-odd sources, so later waves can deepen the roots.
- Wave two brings email and documents for the complaints team, widening use beyond key accounts.
Transcript
Callie Brennan NoneHi Nikhil, afternoon. Can you hear me alright? You're coming through a bit quiet.
Nikhil Rao NoneHear you fine. Let me turn this up. Better?- Callie Brennan NoneMuch better, thanks. Good to finally do this properly on a call rather than in the ticket. How's the week treating you?
- Nikhil Rao NoneBusy. A load failed overnight on one of the older sources. I checked the load history, it was a schema change upstream, they added a column. Patched the mapping this morning. Nothing to do with you.
- Callie Brennan NoneWell, that's a good one to start on, because that is exactly the sort of thing we'll be talking about. So, the plan for the next forty minutes, if that works. First, where we are with access. Second, the order we bring the connectors in. Third, the nightly refresh and what has to be finished before it. And last, what I leave with you so you can run this on your own. Does that sound alright?
- Nikhil Rao NoneFine. Access first. It's the part I care about.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood, me too. So what I need from your side is a role in your Snowflake account for the brain, and I need it in writing, in the ticket, before I touch a single connector.
- Nikhil Rao NoneWhich role has access? That's the first question I ask anyone. I've created a dedicated role. Read on the source schemas you've been told about, write on one schema for the brain, nothing else. No account-level grants.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat maps cleanly to how we run it. The brain only needs to write to its own schema, so least privilege suits us fine. Have you put the role name in the ticket?
- Nikhil Rao NoneNot yet. I don't grant access by email and I don't paste role names into chat. It goes in through the access request, with the grant script attached, so there's a record. I'll do that today.
- Callie Brennan NonePerfect, that's what I'd want anyway. Until I see it in writing I won't start anything. I'll say that plainly so nobody on your side thinks we're sitting on it.
- Nikhil Rao NoneGood. Someone in the finance team asked me last week if you'd started. I told them no.
- Callie Brennan NoneQuite right. Okay. Connectors. Remind me, you've got twenty-odd sources around the warehouse?
- Nikhil Rao NoneTwenty-odd, yes. Not all of them matter for this. Half of them are old feeds nobody looks at, but I wouldn't switch them off without checking.
- Callie Brennan NoneUnderstood. The good news is Enterprise gives you room for twenty connectors, so we don't have to cram. But I'd still rather go in waves, because a clean first refresh is worth more than a fast one. Can I propose the waves and you tell me where I'm wrong?
- Nikhil Rao NoneGo on.
- Callie Brennan NoneWave one is what the key-account team needs most. Your CRM, the billing system, the helpdesk and the call recorder. That's the picture of a business customer: who they are, what they owe, what they've complained about, what was said on the phone.
- Nikhil Rao NoneBilling is the tricky one. It's a big schema and it changes. Site data sits separately, and the site and contract tables are already in Snowflake. Those are ours, so no connector needed.
- Callie Brennan NoneRight, so the sites and contracts come straight from your own tables. That's easier, honestly. Fewer moving parts. Then we only have to map the customer identifier across the lot.
- Nikhil Rao NoneThat's the problem. There isn't one identifier. The CRM has its own, billing has its own, and the helpdesk goes off the email address.
- Callie Brennan NoneMm. Yes, that's normal, I'm afraid, and it's the first thing I'd check before we switch on the refresh. Is there a cross-reference table anywhere, even a scruffy one?
- Nikhil Rao NoneThere is one. Collections built it. It's not scruffy, it's just not documented. I'd want to look at it before I say it's right. I don't answer things I haven't tested.
- Callie Brennan NoneFair enough, I'd rather you tested it. Could you send me the table name through the ticket and a sample of the matches? Not the full thing, just enough that I can see how it joins.
- Nikhil Rao NoneSample, yes. No customer names in it. I'll mask them.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's absolutely fine. I only need the shape. Okay, so wave one needs access, and the cross-reference. Wave two I'd suggest is email and documents, through Microsoft 365 and SharePoint, mostly for the complaints team. Is that where their paperwork is?
- Nikhil Rao NoneMostly. Some of it's in shared mailboxes. Some of it's on a file share that I'd call historical. Complaints would tell you it's current.
- Callie Brennan NoneHa. Well, we'll find out which it is when the records start landing. What I'd ask is that you name someone in the complaints team who can tell me which mailboxes matter, because I'm not going to guess.
- Nikhil Rao NoneI'll find someone. It'll be a team lead. Not me, I don't know what's in the mailboxes.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's all I need. Right, the refresh. This is the bit I'd like you to be really comfortable with. The brain refreshes every night, and on business days it has to be complete by 07:00 your local time. That's on every tier, but you're on Enterprise, so freshness is also covered in the service credits.
- Nikhil Rao NoneWhich means my loads have to be done before yours start.
- Callie Brennan NoneExactly that. Your loads land, then ours run on top. If yours are late, ours are late, and the brain answers on yesterday's data even though it's perfectly available. That's the distinction I'd want your teams to understand, available is not the same as fresh.
- Nikhil Rao NoneMy loads finish in the small hours as a rule. The billing one is the slow one. When it's slow it's usually a lock on their side, not mine.
- Callie Brennan NoneOkay, so billing's the one to watch. What I'd do is set our start trigger to follow your load completion rather than a clock time. Then if billing is late, we wait, and you see it in one place. Would you be happy with that?
- Nikhil Rao NoneYes. Trigger off completion. Better than a clock. And I want an alert if it hasn't started by a set time, so I know before the business does.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood, I'll put that in the setup note. An alert to you and a named backup. Who's your backup, if you're away?
- Nikhil Rao NoneThat's a short list. There's one engineer who knows the warehouse well. I'd need to ask him before I put his name on anything.
- Callie Brennan NonePlease do, because I don't want you to be the only admin. If it's just you and you're on leave, that's a risk for you as much as for us. I've seen that bite before.
- Nikhil Rao NoneNoted. I'll raise it.
- Callie Brennan NoneLovely. Next, timing. When would you want the first refresh to run? Obviously after the role is in and the cross-reference is checked.
- Nikhil Rao NoneNot Friday. I don't change production on a Friday. If it breaks I'd rather it broke on a Tuesday.
- Callie Brennan NoneCompletely agree. So how about this. You put the access in today. I start wave one connectors tomorrow, on a test schema first, and we look at the first load together on Tuesday next week. Does that work?
- Nikhil Rao NoneTuesday works. Wednesday's a bit better, if I'm honest, because Tuesday is when the monthly reconciliation runs and the warehouse is noisy.
- Callie Brennan NoneThen Wednesday. That's helpful, I wouldn't have known about the reconciliation. I'll write it in as a blackout on Tuesdays so nobody schedules anything heavy then.
- Nikhil Rao NoneIt's the monthly one, not weekly. Last Tuesday of the month. Only that.
- Callie Brennan NoneGood, thank you, I'll correct that. Last Tuesday of the month. Right, people. You've got 180 licensed users. How are you planning to bring them in?
- Nikhil Rao NoneIn stages. Key-account first, then collections, then complaints. Nobody all at once. I want identity sorted before anybody logs in. Single sign-on, and provisioning off the directory, not a spreadsheet.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's the right order, and Enterprise includes SSO and SCIM, so we can do exactly that. What I need from your side is a contact in whoever owns the directory, because I'll need a test group and a test user before we switch it on.
- Nikhil Rao NoneA colleague in IT owns that. I'll put you in touch. He'll want it as a change request, with a rollback.
- Callie Brennan NoneOf course. I'll write the rollback into the note. Honestly, I like a rollback. It makes everyone calmer.
- Nikhil Rao NoneIt makes the auditor calmer. Which is the point. Whatever you write, an auditor has to be able to follow it a year from now without ringing anyone.
- Callie Brennan NoneWhich is the last of my four things, so well timed. I never hand over without a setup note. It'll cover the role and its grants, each connector and what it reads, the mapping decisions, the refresh trigger, the alert, and who to ask. You review it and tell me what's unclear.
- Nikhil Rao NoneGood. Put the mapping decisions in plain words. Not just field names. Why a field was chosen.
- Callie Brennan NoneYes, I will. Why, not just what. That's helpful. And I'll note that the contract started on 10 Jan 2025, so if your auditor asks when the brain went live in your estate there's a clear start point.
- Nikhil Rao NoneFine. And the term end is in the order form. I've got it as 9 Jan 2026. I'll want a note on what happens to the role and the schema if it isn't renewed.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's a sensible thing to ask, and I'd rather you had it written down now. I'll take that to Daniel, he's your customer success manager, and make sure the exit steps go in the note, access removed and the schema handled the way you say.
- Nikhil Rao NoneGood. Not that I'm planning anything. Just tidy.
- Callie Brennan NoneNo, understood, tidy is good. Anything on your mind that I haven't covered? Anything that worries you about this?
- Nikhil Rao NoneThe billing schema, mainly. If it changes without warning, the connector stops loading, and nobody notices because it fails quietly. I'd want to see records indexed per connector somewhere. If it's flat, I want to know.
- Callie Brennan NoneThat's a really good instinct. Flat records for a few days is the sign. We show records indexed per connector in the admin view, and I'll put that on the checklist as something you glance at each morning for the first fortnight. And the alert can cover it too, if you'd like.
- Nikhil Rao NoneYes. Add it to the alert.
- Callie Brennan NoneDone. Right, let me say back who sends what, so we're not each assuming the other one has it. You: the access request through the ticket today, with the role name and grant script. You: the cross-reference table name and a masked sample. You: a name in the complaints team and a name for backup admin. You: the IT contact for the directory.
- Nikhil Rao NoneYes. Today for access. The rest by end of the week, so before the weekend. Not Monday. I'll do it Thursday.
- Callie Brennan NoneBrilliant. And me: I start wave one connectors on the test schema tomorrow once the access is in writing, send you the draft setup note after we've seen the first load, and write the Tuesday blackout and the exit steps in.
- Nikhil Rao NoneAnd we look at the first load together on Wednesday.
- Callie Brennan NoneOn Wednesday, yes. I'll send the invite this afternoon. Anything else from you?
- Nikhil Rao NoneNo. That's it. Thanks Callie.
- Callie Brennan NoneThanks Nikhil. Speak Wednesday. Bye for now.
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