Merriott Lyle Distribution / BG-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Merriott Lyle Distribution · 10 Apr 2025 11:45
Onboarding call on 10 Apr 2025. A high-priority ticket shows the branch load coming back thin because the service account sees only some tables. Laura Penhaligon set out the twelve-week plan and a go or no-go gate.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Onboarding call on 10 Apr 2025. A high-priority ticket shows the branch load coming back thin because the service account sees only some tables. Laura Penhaligon set out the twelve-week plan and a go or no-go gate.
What happened: Laura Penhaligon laid out a twelve-week plan with five connectors first and a sixth, the shared drive, in a second block. Tariq Saleem's high-priority ticket is that the service account sees only a subset of branch tables.
Customer view: Deepa Chauhan wants a one-page plan for the regional directors and has told them numbers will be low for a while. She and Tariq treat the permissions gap as a scoping issue, not a fault.
Commercial: Two hundred users are licensed, and the first wave is key accounts and credit control, a few dozen people. Daniel picks up the relationship after go-live and Lewis stays commercial contact.
Watch: Some branches open before 07:00, so they will see the previous night's data. The evidence does not show whether the permissions fix worked.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Onboarding plan and access
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tariq Saleem to check the load log and grants and report on the ticket that afternoon.
- Laura Penhaligon to send the one-page plan, security pack and access list by the end of the next day.
- Deepa Chauhan to give Laura the information security name and the first-wave list by the end of the week.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The branch load comes back thin until the service account can see all the branch tables that matter.
- Branches that open before 07:00 will see the previous night's data, which may matter to them later.
- Account matching between the CRM and the branch system is the biggest open piece of work.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- The shared drive of credit control dispute notes is a sixth connector, planned for the second block.
- Two hundred users are licensed, so rollout by region can grow well beyond the first few dozen.
- A go or no-go decision at the end of matching gives the directors a clear checkpoint.
Transcript
Laura PenhaligonHello, can you hear me all right? I've got the recording going, so you'll see the little banner.
Deepa ChauhanLoud and clear, Laura. Morning. Tariq's just joining, I can see him in the lobby.
Tariq SaleemSorry, sorry. Morning both. My headset decided to update itself. Can you hear me?- Laura PenhaligonYes, perfect. No rush, we've only just started. How's the week been?
- Deepa ChauhanBusy. The regional directors have all discovered they have opinions about the account view, which is good, but it means my inbox is a lot.
- Tariq SaleemMine's mostly the rain. Half the branch network seems to be reporting a leak somewhere, so the helpdesk is flat out.
- Laura PenhaligonHa, well, timing for a builders' merchant. Right, shall we crack on? Deepa, you said in the invite there was one thing you wanted out of today.
- Deepa ChauhanYes. I need to leave this call knowing which teams go first, who owns which connector on our side, and roughly what the next few weeks look like. That's it. If I can take a one-page version to the regional directors, I'm happy.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's a good brief, and it's exactly what I'd hoped to cover. Tariq, I know you usually start with tickets. Do you want to do that first?
- Tariq SaleemPlease. We've got two open. One is a how-to, it's about how the account page picks which contact to show first. That's not urgent. The other is high priority, and that's the one I'd like to clear before anything else.
- Laura PenhaligonGo on.
- Tariq SaleemIt's the nightly load from the branch system. It authenticates fine, but the service account we gave you can only see a subset of the branch tables. So the load runs, it just comes back thin. I raised it as high because I don't want the branches' orders missing when people start looking at accounts.
- Laura PenhaligonRight. And do we know whether it's the permissions on the account, or the way the extract view is defined?
- Tariq SaleemI'm not going to guess at that. I'll check the load log and the grants this afternoon and put what I find on the ticket. My instinct is permissions, but I'd rather see it.
- Deepa ChauhanAnd that's fine, Tariq. Let's not turn it into a hunt for who set it up. It was set up before we knew which tables mattered.
- Tariq SaleemNo, agreed. It's a scoping thing, not a mistake.
- Laura PenhaligonGood. Then I'll treat that as the first thing in the plan, because everything downstream depends on the branch data landing properly. Let me share my screen and walk you through how I've laid out the twelve weeks. Can you see it?
- Deepa ChauhanI see a grid with coloured bars. Is that the one?
- Laura PenhaligonThat's the one. So, left to right. The first couple of weeks are connectors and access. We get the CRM, the branch system, the helpdesk, the call recorder and the accounting system all loading cleanly into your Snowflake account. Weeks three to six are matching and checking: do the accounts in the branch system line up with the accounts in the CRM, and do they line up with what credit control sees.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich account, which branch? That's always my question. A trade account can have a dozen delivery sites and each one sometimes has its own account code.
- Tariq SaleemThat's a mapping question, and it's the biggest one we have. There's a parent account in the CRM, then the branch system has the trading accounts under it, and in places the two don't share a clean key.
- Laura PenhaligonYes, and that's why I've given it four weeks rather than a couple of days. What I'd suggest is we don't try to be clever on day one. We take your key-account list, the accounts that matter most, and match those by hand first, with you two eyeballing the results. Then we use what we learn to set the rules for the rest.
- Deepa ChauhanI like that. Show me where that number comes from, every time. If the brain says an account has an open dispute, I want a branch manager to be able to click through and see the dispute.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's how it's built. Every answer carries its sources, so you can see which record it came from.
- Tariq SaleemCan I ask about changes to the mapping, though? Once it's live, if we find a bad match, who changes it?
- Laura PenhaligonIn the build phase, me, and I'll tell both of you before I do. After go-live it's an admin job, so you, Tariq. The mapping lives in a table you can see in your own account, and every change is logged.
- Tariq SaleemGood. And Deepa gets told, always. I don't change a mapping without her knowing.
- Deepa ChauhanWhich I appreciate. Honestly, that's the thing that keeps the branches trusting it.
- Laura PenhaligonOkay. Let me scroll on. After matching there's a block for the security review. You're on Enterprise, so that's included in the implementation, and I'll support whoever on your side is handling it. Do you know yet who that will be?
- Deepa ChauhanIt'll be someone in our information security team. I haven't got a name yet. I'll have one by the end of the week.
- Laura PenhaligonThat's fine. What they'll want is a description of how the brain runs inside your own Snowflake account, where the data sits, and who can see what. I've got a standard pack. I'll send it to you, Deepa, and you can pass it on.
- Deepa ChauhanPlease. And if they have questions I'd rather they came to you directly than through me. I'm not the right person to answer a question about encryption.
- Laura PenhaligonUnderstood. Just copy me in and keep the thread going.
- Tariq SaleemSorry, while you're on that screen, can you go back up to the connectors row? You've got five connectors in the first block.
- Laura PenhaligonI have. CRM, branch system, helpdesk, call recorder, accounting. There's room for plenty more on Enterprise, so if there's a sixth you want early, say now.
- Tariq SaleemThere's the shared drive where the credit control team keeps their dispute notes. It's a mess, honestly. But it's where the real history lives.
- Deepa ChauhanOh, yes. That's a good shout. Half of what credit control knows about an account is in a spreadsheet someone emailed round last spring.
- Laura PenhaligonWhich is the kind of thing the brain is meant to replace. Let me add it, but I'll put it in the second block, not the first. I want the core five loading reliably before we point it at a drive full of free text.
- Tariq SaleemFair. I'd rather the load log is clean for the five first anyway.
- Deepa ChauhanCan we talk about who goes first? That's the bit I need for the directors.
- Laura PenhaligonYes, let's. What's your instinct?
- Deepa ChauhanKey-account managers and credit control, together. They're the ones who argue over the same customer from different spreadsheets. If those two teams see one account view, the rest of the argument gets easier. Then branch managers in waves, a region at a time, starting with whichever director is keenest.
- Laura PenhaligonThat makes sense. We've got two hundred licensed users, so you have room to bring everyone in without rationing. I'd still go in waves, because every wave will teach you something about what people actually ask.
- Tariq SaleemHow many are in the first wave, roughly? I need to know for the access setup. Single sign-on and the provisioning side.
- Deepa ChauhanKey accounts and credit control, so a few dozen. I'll get you the actual list.
- Laura PenhaligonGood. Since you're on Enterprise you've got single sign-on and automatic provisioning, so rather than setting up each person by hand, we connect it to your identity provider and groups drive who gets in. Tariq, who looks after that at your end?
- Tariq SaleemA colleague in IT. I'll introduce you by email. He's good, but he needs to know what you'll ask for before he opens a change request.
- Laura PenhaligonI'll send a short list of what we need. Nothing exotic.
- Deepa ChauhanWhile we're here. Right now, how many people are actually using it? I know a handful have been poking around.
- Laura PenhaligonA small group, as you'd expect at this point. Mostly your team and a few curious key-account managers. Nothing to worry about. It's what an onboarding looks like before the data's properly in.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. Because I've said to the directors that numbers will be low for a while and I don't want anyone panicking.
- Laura PenhaligonQuite right. I'd rather see people asking good questions of clean data than lots of people asking questions of half-loaded data.
- Tariq SaleemCan I raise one thing about freshness? The nightly refresh. What time will it have finished by?
- Laura PenhaligonSeven in the morning, your local time, on business days. That's the standard. So the branch managers should see yesterday's orders when they open up.
- Tariq SaleemRight, because some branches open at half past six. We'd need to say that to them. They'll see last night's data until seven.
- Deepa ChauhanThat's fine, I'll put it in the note. Nobody's making an order decision at six thirty from an account view. Or if they are, they ring the customer.
- Laura PenhaligonHa. Exactly. Though if the early branches turn out to matter, we can talk about it later. I'd rather get the first load stable first.
- Deepa ChauhanLet's get credit control in the room, though. They haven't heard any of this from you. Would you be willing to do a short session with them next week? Twenty minutes, not a full training.
- Laura PenhaligonOf course. I'd want to hear from them too. What do they need to see on an account that they can't see now?
- Deepa ChauhanDisputes, mainly. What's been raised, what's been promised, and whether the branch has already phoned the customer. At the moment the two teams chase the same customer on the same day and don't know.
- Tariq SaleemWhich is partly the matching problem again. If the dispute sits on a trading account and the call sits on the parent, nobody sees both.
- Laura PenhaligonRight, and that's the first thing I'd demo to them once the key accounts are matched. A real customer, with the orders, the dispute and the last call in one place.
- Deepa ChauhanOkay. I think I can write that up. Can I read it back to you? Tell me if I've got anything wrong.
- Laura PenhaligonPlease.
- Deepa ChauhanFirst couple of weeks, connectors and access, five of them, with Tariq clearing the branch system permissions first. Then matching, starting with key accounts by hand. Security review in parallel, with our information security person and Laura. Key accounts and credit control go first, then branches by region. The shared drive comes in as a second block. Is that right?
- Laura PenhaligonThat's spot on. One addition. At the end of the matching block we sit down together and decide whether the first wave is ready, rather than assuming it is.
- Deepa ChauhanGood. A go or no-go. I like that, the directors will like that.
- Tariq SaleemOne last practical one. Who do I raise things with day to day? You, or the support desk?
- Laura PenhaligonDuring the build, me. Email or ticket, whichever you prefer, and I'll keep an eye on both. Once you're live your CSM, Daniel, picks up the relationship, and I'll introduce you properly before then.
- Tariq SaleemOkay. And Lewis is still the commercial contact?
- Laura PenhaligonYes, for anything about the contract or scope. For the day to day, it's me.
- Deepa ChauhanThen I think I've got what I came for. Anything else from you, Tariq?
- Tariq SaleemNo, I'll go and check the load log. If it's permissions I can probably have it fixed today.
- Laura PenhaligonLovely. Then here's who sends what. I'll send the plan as a one-pager, the security pack and the access list by the end of tomorrow. Tariq puts what he finds on the ticket this afternoon. Deepa, you give me the name from information security and the first-wave list by the end of the week.
- Deepa ChauhanDone. And I'll set up the credit control session for next week and put you in it.
- Laura PenhaligonPerfect. Thanks both, this was useful. Speak soon.
- Tariq SaleemCheers, Tariq. Sorry, cheers all. Bye.
- Deepa ChauhanThanks, both. Bye.
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