What it does
Your tools each hold part of the picture: your billing system knows what a customer pays, your CRM knows their deals, your product analytics knows how they use your product. Data model joins these into six objects — Customer, Deal, Subscription, Invoice, Product usage and Ledger — each made of parts and fields, and records which tool fills each one. On every read it counts what is in the model, checks whether each tool delivered on time and whether the key links between your tools hold, and shows which modules your data allows. It only reads. It never changes a record in your tools.What it produces
Its headline is one score:
It is shown on the module’s page in Beacon as not yet calculated. Its name links to its definition, which also says how the Data API and MCP will carry it — neither serves it yet.
Behind it, the page shows today:
The model
An object counts as in your model when a connected tool fills it. With billing and a CRM connected, four of the six are in: Product usage waits for product analytics, and Ledger for your accounting tool.
What your tools unlock. Each tool you connect moves you a step: Connected (billing and CRM — your data model, revenue and the customer view), Validated (adds product usage with 30 days of history — modules that report and alert), Ready (adds accounting — forecasts, which wait for this step) and Full (adds support, marketing and HR — the last detail).
What you see on its page
In Beacon, open The Brain and choose Data model. The page has seven tabs:- Overview — the four counts, the six objects and which tools fill them, what your tools unlock, the tools it reads, and when it last read.
- Dashboard — the readiness score (not calculated yet), what each area gives the model, which modules your data allows, your model over time, and the three key links.
- Signals & alerts — what it watches and its alert rules.
- Scorecard — how each count is counted, how the readiness score will be worked out, and the rules.
- Map — one object at a time, in three columns: your tools, the object’s parts, and what it powers.
- Objects — each object’s parts and every field, with the tool that fills it, and what each tool leaves out on purpose.
- Setup — the questions the module uses, and the answers in use.
What it needs
See Connect your tools for how each connection is made.
Reads from
- Customer matching — gives every customer one ID across your tools. The model is built on it.
- Data integrity — sends back how complete and checked the records are. Customers joined and the billing-to-CRM link are read from its check.
Which modules read it
The readiness score itself gates nothing yet, because it is not calculated. Today a module switches on when the tools it needs are connected and delivering. The Modules page in The Brain shows which modules are running for you.
Alerts
No alert is sent yet. The page lists each rule; sending waits for the setting that switches alerts on.
Setup questions
- From what level of data readiness should forecasts switch on? Recommended: 80, the standard line. 85 suits larger companies, 75 small ones.
- Which links between your tools should count? Recommended: all three.
- How late can a tool be before Beacon tells you? Recommended: one day for every tool.
- Which fields must each tool fill? Recommended: Beacon’s list.
What is not calculated yet
- The data readiness score — and with it the 15% cut for a broken key link and the cut for a late tool.
- How full each field is.
- Two of the three key links — product usage to customer, and marketing to pipeline.
- Your model over time, week by week.
- Alerts — the rules are in place; none is sent yet.
- Saving your own Setup answers.
Related
Modules
The ten module families and which modules are available today.
Data integrity
The checks that run over every record in the model.
Connect your tools
What each connection unlocks, and which modules switch on with it.
When a source is missing
What Beacon shows when a tool is not connected.
How current a number is
When each figure was last worked out.
Boundaries
What Beacon reads, what it never changes, and what it does not decide.