Calderbrook Housing Group / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 2 Jan 2025 11:15
Helen Marsden traced a board pack repairs mismatch to export timing, not the brain. She raised the renewal early and wants usage and decision examples. Asset management interest points to a possible stock condition connector.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Helen Marsden traced a board pack repairs mismatch to export timing, not the brain. She raised the renewal early and wants usage and decision examples. Asset management interest points to a possible stock condition connector.
What happened: Helen traced a board pack repairs mismatch to a cut-off difference, not a missing record. The brain matched the source and her export was a day stale.
Customer view: She values being able to point at the source record and now puts it beside every figure in the pack. Housing officers took to the brain quickly after two training sessions.
Commercial: Helen raised the renewal herself and wants actual usage and examples where it changed a decision. Daniel confirmed Growth at £44k on the order form and invoices.
Watch: Asset management wants a stock condition source, which would be another connector within Growth headroom. Helen is holding back wider rollout on purpose.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Renewal planning and board evidence
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send Helen morning slots, not Mondays, for a dashboard build session next week.
- Helen to ask IT for a description of the stock condition system and to type up her list of examples.
- Daniel Okafor to take the refresh date request to the product team and report back.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Helen needs concrete usage and decision examples for the board, and without them the renewal case is weak.
- The chat sometimes shows a figure without its refresh time, which could cause further board pack queries.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A stock condition connector for asset management would fit within Growth headroom on connectors.
- Pressure from asset management and finance could lead to wider use of the licensed seats.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforMorning, Helen. Can you hear me all right? I've got you coming through nicely on my side.
Helen MarsdenYes, loud and clear. Morning, Daniel. Happy new year, though it doesn't feel like it. I'm only back because the board pack deadline doesn't care about bank holidays.- Daniel OkaforHappy new year to you too. Thank you for making the time, I know the first week back is never the quietest. It's just the two of us today, I think? I wasn't sure whether anyone else from your team was joining.
- Helen MarsdenJust me. Two of the team are still off until Monday, and the others said they'd rather I told them what came out of it. So you've got my undivided attention.
- Daniel OkaforLovely. How was Christmas, did you get away at all?
- Helen MarsdenA few days with family near Harrogate, nothing exotic. Lots of walking, a lot of cold. You?
- Daniel OkaforMuch the same. A lot of walking and too much cheese. Right, shall we get going? I thought we'd look at how the team is finding it, what's changed since the autumn, and then anything you want me to take away. Does that suit?
- Helen MarsdenThat suits. Can I start with the thing I'm chasing, actually? It's quick. In section three of the December board pack, the repairs backlog figure and the figure the brain gave us for the same week didn't reconcile. They were out by a small amount, and the board will ask.
- Daniel OkaforOkay, good to know. Just so I've got it right, was that the brain being different from the pack, or the pack being different from the housing management system?
- Helen MarsdenThat's the point. I thought it was the brain at first. I asked it, and it gave me the answer plus the source records, and when I traced them it was a cut-off timing difference. The pack was drawn at a different hour from the nightly refresh. So the brain was right and my export was a day stale.
- Daniel OkaforAh, right. So the brain was consistent with the source, and the difference came from when the pack was pulled.
- Helen MarsdenExactly. Which, honestly, is a good result. Six months ago I'd have spent an afternoon with a spreadsheet and a colleague, arguing about whose number was right. This time I could say, can you show me the source, and it just did.
- Daniel OkaforThat's really good to hear. And that's the bit I always hope people get from it, being able to point at the record rather than defend a number.
- Helen MarsdenYes. I've started putting the source reference beside every figure in the pack. The chair noticed. She didn't say anything, but she noticed.
- Daniel OkaforWell, that's a quiet compliment. Can I ask how the team is using it day to day? Because from our side the number of people active has gone up quite a bit since the autumn. Nearly doubled compared with the previous quarter.
- Helen MarsdenHas it? I'd have guessed it was up, but not that much. Well, that'll be the housing officers. We ran two sessions in November for the neighbourhood teams, and a couple of them took to it quicker than my own analysts did, which I did not expect.
- Daniel OkaforWhat are they asking it? I'm always curious what real people ask when you take the training wheels off.
- Helen MarsdenMostly arrears. Which tenancies have moved into arrears this month, which are linked to an open repair, whether there's a complaint on the same address. That join was the reason we bought it in the first place. Rent arrears, repairs tickets, complaints and the tenant calls, in one place, so you can see the whole picture of a household rather than four partial ones.
- Daniel OkaforMm. And do they trust the answers?
- Helen MarsdenMostly. There was one officer who was convinced it had missed a complaint. It turned out the complaint had been logged under the previous address. So that was a data entry thing, not the brain. But I told her to look at the source, and that settled it.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is the right instinct. Can I ask, was there anything in that case that felt slow or awkward on our side? Anything with the connectors?
- Helen MarsdenNo. And I did check, because you'd expect me to. Nothing's gone wrong since the summer. No tickets from us, as far as I know. Is that right?
- Daniel OkaforThat's right, nothing open and nothing in the last month. I wondered whether that was a good sign or whether you'd just stopped bothering to tell us.
- Helen MarsdenHa. If it broke, I'd tell you, you know that. It's a good sign.
- Daniel OkaforGood. Then just to close the loop on the nightly refresh, since that came up in the board pack: it completes before seven each business morning, so if your export runs after that you're on the latest picture. If someone pulls it at six, say, they could be a day behind.
- Helen MarsdenThat's more or less what I found. I'm going to move our pack extraction to after eight so we stop tripping over it. I'll write that in the process note so it doesn't depend on me remembering.
- Daniel OkaforSensible. Now, you're on Growth, so you have the dashboards builder and the quarterly reviews. Have you or anyone on your team built much in the dashboards? I ask because it's often the best sign of people investing in it.
- Helen MarsdenA few. My two senior analysts built a repairs and arrears view, and there's one for complaints by neighbourhood that the director of customer services looks at on Mondays. I wouldn't call it a library yet. More a handful of things people actually open.
- Daniel OkaforA handful that people actually open is better than a library nobody visits. Is there a view you wish you had?
- Helen MarsdenYes, actually. A single view that has the board pack headings down the side. So section three, section four, and so on, each with the figure, the source and the date it was last refreshed. At the moment I rebuild that by hand every quarter.
- Daniel OkaforRight, that's quite specific, and I like it. It's very doable with what you have. Would your analysts want to build it, or would you rather we sat with them for an hour and did it together?
- Helen MarsdenI'd rather they built it, but with you in the room the first time. Otherwise it takes a month because everyone's busy, and then it's never finished.
- Daniel OkaforUnderstood. I'll come back to you by the end of next week with a couple of times. Mornings, I'd guess, given your Mondays?
- Helen MarsdenMornings are better, yes. Not Mondays, though. Mondays are taken up with the director's meeting.
- Daniel OkaforNoted, no Mondays. Let me ask about the other side of things. You've got forty licensed seats and the active group is a fraction of that. Is that how you'd like it to be, or is there a plan to widen it?
- Helen MarsdenIt's deliberate, for now. I didn't want forty people logging in and getting poor answers on day one. I'd rather build up carefully. But there's pressure from the asset management team, who've heard about the repairs joins, and from finance, who want arrears.
- Daniel OkaforWhich is the sort of pressure you want. If you did open it to asset management, what would they need? Different sources, or just access?
- Helen MarsdenProbably a stock condition source as well, which we don't have connected. I'd need to check with a colleague in IT what's feasible. Can I ask you what that would involve, without committing to anything?
- Daniel OkaforOf course. In principle it's another connector, and you've got headroom on Growth for that. I'd want to see what the system is and how it exposes its data, and then I can tell you honestly how long it would take. I won't guess a date before I've seen it.
- Helen MarsdenThat's fair. I'll ask IT for a short description of it and send it over. It may be a few weeks, they're slow in January.
- Daniel OkaforNo rush from my side. Whenever it lands, I'll make time.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. While we're on the subject of things in the autumn, can I raise the renewal? I know it's not until the end of the summer, but I like to plan the budget conversation early.
- Daniel OkaforPlease, yes. I'd rather we talked about it now than in the summer. As it stands, you're on Growth at forty-four thousand a year, and that's what's on the order form and what's been invoiced. The term runs to the start of September. I'll make sure the notice and the conversation about it comes to you well ahead, not at the last minute.
- Helen MarsdenGood. What I'll need, because the board will ask, is something showing what we got for it. Not a brochure. Actual usage and a few examples where it changed a decision.
- Daniel OkaforThat's exactly what the quarterly review is for, and I'd like to build it around your own questions rather than ours. If you can keep a short note of the moments it helped, like the arrears and repairs join, I'll fold them into the next review.
- Helen MarsdenI can do that. I've been keeping a list anyway, in a notebook, because I knew someone would ask. I'll type it up.
- Daniel OkaforBrilliant. And Tom will be involved on the commercial side nearer the time, but day to day you'll still have me, so please don't feel you have to wait for a formal date to raise anything.
- Helen MarsdenUnderstood. Can I ask one thing about the way figures are shown? In the chat answers, it sometimes gives me a number without saying which refresh it's from. Could it always say?
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good request. I'll take that back to the product team as a suggestion from you, and I'll tell you what I hear. I don't want to promise it, but I think it's a reasonable thing to want when someone is quoting to a board.
- Helen MarsdenThat's all I ask. Then I think I'm done, unless you've anything else?
- Daniel OkaforOnly to say thank you, honestly. It's good to hear it's being used the way you hoped. So, to recap: I'll send you a couple of morning slots next week for the dashboard session. You'll move the pack extraction to after eight and write it into the process note. You'll ask IT for a description of the stock condition system, and type up your list of examples. And I'll take the refresh date point to the product team.
- Helen MarsdenThat's everything. Thank you, Daniel. Speak soon.
- Daniel OkaforSpeak soon, Helen. Best wishes to you and the team.
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