Calderbrook Housing Group / BG-Demo – Demo
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 12 Jul 2024 16:15
Demo on Calderbrook's own data. Helen Marsden wants one board-ready picture with a source for every figure, and Paul Rigby showed repairs jobs arriving twice since the housing system upgrade. Growth proposed at £56k all in.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Demo on Calderbrook's own data. Helen Marsden wants one board-ready picture with a source for every figure, and Paul Rigby showed repairs jobs arriving twice since the housing system upgrade. Growth proposed at £56k all in.
What happened: Tom Ashdown and Hannah Lowe ran the 12 Jul 2024 demo on an extract of repairs, arrears and complaints data. Paul Rigby showed repairs jobs arriving twice since the housing system upgrade.
Customer view: Helen wants a board pack where she does not have to apologise for any figure, with a source for every number. She said a director signs off spend and she would need to take it to her.
Commercial: Growth was shown, including the dashboards builder. The £56k all-in figure includes implementation and is not the annual subscription, and Tom promised the split in writing.
Watch: Hannah would not promise the duplicate rule until it is tested against Paul's spreadsheet, and the call recorder is not yet connected. Helen is comparing other suppliers, and the 16 Aug 2024 close target was called a guide.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Board-pack data reconciliation
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tom to send the proposal with the all-in figure, the split, the connector list and the terms early the following week.
- Hannah to send a demo note and a data flow diagram after testing the rule on Paul's duplicate spreadsheet.
- Tom to arrange an introduction to Daniel Okafor, the customer success manager, before signing.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The duplicate-job rule in the connector is still untested against Paul's spreadsheet.
- Helen said she will compare other suppliers, and a director still has to approve spend.
- The call recorder is not connected and call search is untested at real volume.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The Growth tier with the dashboards builder fits a board pack built by Helen's own team.
- Five connectors listed against Growth's eight leave room to add more later.
- Paul as day-to-day admin can handle the connector mapping, which eases implementation.
Transcript
Tom AshdownHello, hello. Can you hear me alright, Helen?
Helen MarsdenYes, I can hear you. Good afternoon, Tom.- Tom AshdownAfternoon. Right, I'll give it a minute for the others. How's your week been? Not too bad, I hope. It's Friday, so you're nearly out the other side.
- Helen MarsdenBusy. The board papers are due shortly and I've spent most of the week on the arrears figures. They still don't reconcile to the housing management system, which is partly why we're here.
- Tom AshdownNo drama, that's exactly the sort of thing we want to dig into. Ah, here's Hannah.
Hannah LoweHello, everyone. Sorry, I was on mute. Helen, Paul, before I share anything, what do you most need to know by the end of this call? I'd rather spend the time on what matters to you than march through every screen.- Helen MarsdenFair question. Two things, really. Can the brain join tenant calls, repairs tickets, complaints and arrears into one picture the board can rely on? And can you show me the source of every figure? The board will ask, and I need to be able to say where a number came from.
- Hannah LoweGood. The short answer is yes to both. The longer answer is that the second one depends on how clean the sources are, and I'll show you what I mean. Paul, I think you had something you wanted to put on the table first?
Paul RigbyYeah. I'll share the repairs report that's wrong. Hang on. Can you see that?- Hannah LoweYes, we can see a table of repairs jobs by week.
- Paul RigbyRight. This is completed repairs for last month. The number at the top is too high. Since the housing system upgrade, a lot of jobs come through twice. Same job ref, two rows. Double-counted again. I've got a spreadsheet of every one I've found.
- Helen MarsdenAnd that feeds straight into the repairs section of the board pack. So the completion rate looks better than it is, or the cost per job looks worse, depending which way the duplicates fall. Either way it doesn't reconcile.
- Tom AshdownMm. And is that the same in the reports your team builds today, Paul, or only the ones going to the board?
- Paul RigbyAll of them. I strip the duplicates by hand before the morning stand-up. Takes me a good while.
- Hannah LoweThat's really useful, thank you. To be precise about what I'm going to show: I've loaded the extract you sent over last week into a demo environment. It's your repairs jobs, a slice of arrears and the complaints log. Tenant call transcripts I've stubbed with a couple of examples, because we haven't connected your call recorder yet.
- Helen MarsdenThat's fine. I'd rather see our own repairs data than a polished sample from another housing association.
- Hannah LoweAgreed. Sharing my screen now. Give me a second, it's being slow to load.
- Tom AshdownWhile that comes up, I'll say we do this on the customer's own data on purpose. A demo on made-up numbers tells you nothing.
- Hannah LoweRight, you should see a search bar and a left-hand panel of sources. Everything in that panel is a connector. Repairs, arrears, complaints, and the two call examples. The brain runs inside your own Snowflake account, so none of this leaves your environment.
- Helen MarsdenCan you say that again? Our information governance lead will want it in those words.
- Hannah LoweOf course. BG-Demo is built and run inside the customer's own Snowflake account. Your data stays in your account. I'll put that in writing, with a diagram, so your governance lead has it in front of them rather than relying on this call.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. That would help a great deal.
- Hannah LoweLet's start with Paul's problem, because it's the sharpest one. I'll ask it the question in plain English: how many repairs jobs were completed last month?
- Paul RigbyGo on then.
- Hannah LoweSo there's an answer, and underneath it a list of the records it used. This is the part Helen asked about. Every figure links back to the rows behind it. If I open them, you can see the job reference column.
- Paul RigbyThat's higher than it should be. Same as mine.
- Hannah LoweIt is, and I'd rather be straight with you about why. The brain indexes what the source gives it. If the housing system sends a job twice, the first pass will show both rows. What it does give you is the evidence, so you aren't hunting through a spreadsheet to find the pair.
- Paul RigbySo it doesn't fix it on its own.
- Hannah LoweNot by itself, no. But because the job reference is a stable key, we can set a rule in the connector so a job with the same reference counts once. I'd want to test that against your spreadsheet before I promise it works on every case. I'll put that in writing too.
- Helen MarsdenCan you show me the source of the duplicated rows? Not just that they exist. Which upgrade batch, which date.
- Hannah LoweLet me filter on the load date. Bear with me.
- Hannah LoweSo there's a cluster that starts the week the upgrade went in. Before that, one row per job. After, a lot of pairs.
- Paul RigbyThat's what I told them. I didn't want to guess the cause, mind. Just that it starts then.
- Helen MarsdenAnd that's the part I can take to the board. Not an opinion, a date and a count.
- Tom AshdownThat's a good way to put it, Helen. A date and a count.
- Hannah LoweLet me move on to joining things up, because that's the bigger prize. I'll ask: which neighbourhoods have the most repairs tickets and the most arrears cases?
- Hannah LoweIt's pulling the repairs table and the arrears table and matching them on the tenancy. You can see it listing the matched tenancies and, here, the ones that didn't match.
- Helen MarsdenWhy wouldn't they match?
- Hannah LoweIn this extract, mostly because the arrears file uses an older tenancy format. That's a connector design question rather than a flaw, and it's what the first weeks of implementation are for. You'd see a list like this, we'd agree the mapping with Paul, and the unmatched count would come down.
- Paul RigbyI can sort that mapping. I know which file it comes from.
- Tom AshdownThat's what I like to hear. Paul as the day-to-day admin, Hannah on the design side. No bottleneck.
- Helen MarsdenCan I ask about the complaints data? The board pack has a complaints section and the ombudsman categories are what they care about.
- Hannah LoweYes. I'll ask it: show complaints by category for the last quarter, and which of those also had a repairs ticket open.
- Hannah LoweSo there's your breakdown, and on the right the ones with an open repair. If I click through, I get the complaint text and the linked job.
- Helen MarsdenRight. That's the thing my team does manually now. Two people, two spreadsheets, and a Friday afternoon like this one.
- Tom AshdownHa. Sorry about the Friday afternoon.
- Helen MarsdenIt's fine. I was going to be doing it anyway.
- Hannah LoweLet me show you the call side briefly, with the caveat that it's two examples. Searching for tenants who mentioned damp and said they had already reported it.
- Hannah LoweThere we are. Two calls come back, with the passages highlighted. And here's the thing: the call links to the repairs job, so you can see the tenant said it was reported, and what the job record shows.
- Helen MarsdenMm. That's powerful, if it holds on the real volume. How does it cope with several thousand calls?
- Hannah LoweI haven't tested it on your volume, so I won't claim a number. What I can say is that search is across everything that's been indexed, and we'd measure it on your recorder during implementation. The nightly refresh finishes before the working day starts, so Paul's stand-up would be looking at fresh data.
- Paul RigbyBefore seven?
- Hannah LoweYes. Complete by seven in the morning, your local time, on business days.
- Paul RigbyGood. That's what I need.
- Helen MarsdenCan I ask something slightly different? Dashboards. The board likes a picture. Can my team build those or do we need you?
- Hannah LoweYour team can build them. Growth includes the dashboards builder. Let me show you one, built from that arrears and repairs join.
- Hannah LoweSo, a simple one. Arrears cases by neighbourhood on the left, repairs jobs open over the page. Every tile has the same drill-down to the source rows.
- Helen MarsdenAnd if I put that in the board pack, and someone asks about a figure on it, I can click and show them.
- Hannah LoweExactly that.
- Helen MarsdenGood. That's the bit I wanted. Right.
- Tom AshdownCan I just check where you've got to, Helen, before we go any further? What would a good outcome look like for you from here?
- Helen MarsdenA board pack where I don't have to apologise for any figure. That's honestly it. If your product gets me there for the next cycle, that's worth a lot to me. I do have a director who signs off spend, so I'd need to take it to her.
- Tom AshdownFair enough. Leave that with me then, I'll make it easy for you to take upstairs.
- Paul RigbyCan I ask about users? Who can see what. The repairs data has tenant names in it.
- Hannah LoweGood question. Access is controlled by role, so you can limit who sees tenant-level detail. Let me show you the admin panel, as you'd be the one using it.
- Hannah LoweSo here you can see users and groups. You'd create a group for the repairs team, say, and decide which sources they can see. I won't pretend that replaces your own data protection review. Your governance lead should look at it, and I'll answer any written questions they have.
- Paul RigbyRight. Fair.
- Helen MarsdenHow many connectors would we realistically need? We've got the housing management system, the repairs scheduling, the complaints log, the call recorder, and probably finance for arrears.
- Hannah LoweThat's five by your list, and Growth is comfortably above that in terms of connectors. We'd confirm the exact list in the order form, and each one carries a commitment on how quickly it goes live. I'll write the connector plan so you can see it.
- Tom AshdownAnd the order form would go under our standard terms. No drama there, Helen. I'll send you the draft for your procurement people to read.
- Helen MarsdenWhich brings me to cost. I'd rather hear it now than be surprised.
- Tom AshdownSensible. So, Growth tier, which is what Hannah's been showing, with the implementation. The figure on the proposal as it stands is £56k all in, implementation included. I'll confirm in writing exactly how that splits between the one-off and the subscription, because I don't want to quote it off the top of my head.
- Helen MarsdenSo £56k is the total over the first term, not a yearly figure.
- Tom AshdownThat's the all-in figure, yes. It includes the implementation, so it isn't the annual subscription on its own. I'll make that clear in the paperwork.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. Those are the figures my director will ask about first.
- Paul RigbyWhat does implementation mean in practice? For me. How much of my time?
- Hannah LoweHonestly, the first couple of weeks are the heaviest for you. Agreeing connectors, the key mappings, the duplicate rule. After that it's checking and signing off. I'd suggest a weekly call at the start, short ones, and I'd rather catch a mapping problem on day three than week six.
- Paul RigbyRight. I can do that.
- Helen MarsdenWhat if another supplier were to offer something similar? I'm obliged to ask.
- Tom AshdownYou should ask. I'd say compare on the question you gave Hannah at the start: can you show me the source of every figure, on our own data, joined across systems? If a tool only searches calls, or needs a long consultancy project before it answers anything, that's a different shape of thing. I'd never run down anyone else's work, mind.
- Helen MarsdenFine. I'll test them on that.
- Hannah LoweCould I add one thing? If you do compare, ask each of them to run your duplicated repairs report live. It's a harder test than a clean demo, and it's your real problem.
- Paul RigbyI like that.
- Helen MarsdenSo do I. Right. Let me think about what else the board will ask. Rent arrears over time. Can it show a trend, month on month?
- Hannah LoweYes, let me do it quickly. Arrears total by month, for the months in the extract.
- Hannah LoweThere's the trend. It only goes back as far as the extract, so it's a short line. In the live brain it would be as far back as your finance system lets us go.
- Helen MarsdenAnd the figures behind it, they'd match the finance ledger?
- Hannah LoweThey'll match whatever the ledger gives us, to be precise. If the housing system and the ledger disagree with each other, the brain will show you both and where they differ. It doesn't choose a winner silently. That's probably the most useful thing for your reconciliation.
- Helen MarsdenThat is what I need. Showing me both is better than hiding one.
- Tom AshdownLet's get something in the diary, then. What would help most from our side before you talk to your director?
- Helen MarsdenThree things. A written summary of what we saw today, particularly the duplicates. The data flow diagram for governance. And the cost, set out clearly.
- Hannah LoweI'll do the first two. A short note on the demo, including what I showed and what I'm not yet sure about, and the diagram. I'd like Paul to send me the spreadsheet of duplicate jobs so I can test the rule against it before the note goes.
- Paul RigbyI'll send it this afternoon. Job refs and the dates I found them.
- Tom AshdownAnd I'll do the commercial side. Proposal with the all-in figure, the split confirmed, the connector list and the terms. You'll have that early next week.
- Helen MarsdenThat works. I'm aiming to get it to my director before the end of the month.
- Tom AshdownWe'd pencilled 16 Aug 2024 as a target to close, but it's a guide. If your timetable needs longer, say, and we'll work to it.
- Helen MarsdenMid-August is possible. I won't promise it until I've spoken to her.
- Tom AshdownNo problem at all. Anything else burning?
- Paul RigbyOne. If it goes wrong, who do I ring?
- Tom AshdownFair. You'd have a customer success manager, Daniel Okafor, who looks after adoption and your check-ins, and a support route through the helpdesk with a response commitment for your tier. Daniel would introduce himself properly once you're in. I'll get him to say hello before then if it helps.
- Paul RigbyThat'd help. A name.
- Helen MarsdenLast thing from me. Can you show me the source of the first figure again, the completed repairs one? I want to see how I'd explain it to a trustee.
- Hannah LoweOf course. Back to the question. Here's the number, here's the list of rows, and here's one job, the reference, the date, the completion status. And here's its twin. Two rows, same job. A trustee could follow that.
- Helen MarsdenYes. Yes, they could. Thank you. That's what I wanted to see.
- Tom AshdownBrilliant. Let's call it there, then, and not keep you any longer on a Friday. Thanks, both.
- Helen MarsdenThank you, Tom. Thank you, Hannah. Paul, I'll catch you after.
- Hannah LoweThanks, everyone. Have a good weekend.
- Paul RigbyCheers. Spreadsheet's coming.
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