Adding tons and tons of photos to the Bear 100 mile race gallery. I shot over 400 photos over the weekend. I've only posted about 130 so far. I'll do more later.

https://data0.adilas.biz/bear100/bear_100_photos.cfm

On the morning meeting with the guys. Talking about progression on servers, technology, needs for planning, programming, sign-off, technical writing, user interface, graphics and design, performance tuning, server tuning, hardware, etc. There is a huge progression that is taking place. It doesn't stand still. It always keeps going and pushing things from one level to the next.

Bryan Dayton jumped on and had a question about a custom page that he is doing. We started out and only had 3-4 black boxes for the same page. Now he has 12+ for the same page. He was asking what the plan was and how do we start handling all of the black box requests. We talked about building and breaking and how that helps all parties keep progressing. I told him to push what he has and then talk to the client the next time to see if they are interested in adding in page level settings that will make the whole thing easier for them and for future clients.

Bryan's next question was dealing with sub domains. Most of the adilas servers use a "www" sub domain such as https://www.adilas.biz or https://data7.adilas.biz - The question comes in... what about custom URL's and domain names that use sub domain names such as https://order.swcarizona.com/ and others. We have to go back in and add a variable for the sub domain. Once again, the ball is progressing down the field. More and more settings and permissions.

The next conversation was dealing with an outside code developer (3rd party solution - developer) and them wanting to play with us inside of the code arena. Once again, new territory. Good stuff. We invited him into the GoToMeeting and talked with him. Bryan lead the discussion. We setup some basic guidelines such as a non compete and non disclosure, safe code, clean and top level sign-off, no direct FTP access, a new bit bucket account.

Notes from Hamilton from Full Circle - They are a 3rd party solution that has been involved with adilas for quite a good time (text messages, email blasts, marketing and promotion stuff). They are looking to work with another 3rd party solution called eXPO (a financial solution and payment solution). They want to mix their products with our products to create a super mixed product. Kind of a touchscreen simple ordering area. This is a mix of ecommerce, sales, payments, and texting options. One of the main goals is getting the ecommerce process onto the customer's phones (mobile app). Shooting for a flawless experience that is super easy to use. Currently, they are going through our API sockets but want to build a more native application.

We were talking about proof of concept and getting it into the hands of certain key players (existing clients). They also wanted to show some custom reporting dashboards. This would help with the sales and campaign tracking pieces. How many texts were sent, what was the response, what sales resulted, etc. Getting into the sales analytics and marketing of their different campaigns. Where are we getting the most traction (sales and dollars per sale). If you know your customers well enough, you can then really market them for upcoming events, sales, and campaigns. This is really getting into marketing, sales, and promotions.

Dealing with multiple layers... lots of moving parts. 3rd parties working with other 3rd parties and those 3rd parties working with other outside parties. It gets deep very quickly.

We had some discussions on full API socket access (play at the wall) vs building natively. It comes does to access. Is it from adilas to Full Circle to an outside party or is it Full Circle to adilas and Full Cirlce to the outside development shop. Hamilton with Full Circle is working as a go between and a project manager of sorts. One of the end goals is scalability and who will help us get to that level. The conversation trended toward ideas on white labels and what we have to offer. It doesn't matter who offers it (name and skinning the app), as long as the clients can get to their functionality, they may not care who does what. Lots of possible different levels and phases. We will end up with both long term and short term goals.

Bryan chimed in and was saying that maybe we put the Full Circle stuff on to the adilas servers and we basically use their functionality as a marketing arm for adilas. Fun ideas. It may just be a sub folder on the adilas servers. So instead of pulling things through the existing API sockets, we move their code more inside, and then run native to native vs full API socket access. In a way, Full Circle wants to offer a targeting marketing platform and custom dashboard. They would love to move that functionality inside of adilas vs being an outside 3rd party. Basically, an integrated marketing arm.

The complexity of who has the master database (say more than two databases with somewhat similar data)... if it is local or native, you take out the duplicated data and who is the master.

Steve was mentioning watchers, feeders, triggers, etc. Some of those pieces (backend code watching and feeding in totals and analytics - summing up data and getting stats) will end up playing into the bigger puzzle. It is all part of the marketing and/or targeted marketing efforts. If we combine forces, it could allow multiple companies to gain from mixing technologies. In a way, it comes down to what services are available and how do you offer that to the marketplace? It also comes down to scalability and how things scale (how many pieces are playing and where the data comes from).

One of the problems with API sockets is the ability to control the other parties that are playing into the mix. Steve's analogy was - you need to pick one girl to marry. Basically, as many pieces that you could have under one roof and one code set, the better. That becomes the "system". It is all of the pieces that combine to create the whole.

Going deeper and deeper, we need to focus on the different aspects of a business. Who is going to market, develop, deploy, engineer, manage, maintain, etc.? Each of us, the different parties, could benefit by utilizing the other parties and who does what best. Combining to be more.

I have been tagged to get the non compete and non disclosure ready for both sides. It will be sharing code between companies and needs to cover both sides. It also needs to say some verbage about non exclusive promises (there will be others). One of the big benefits of being first is they will gain traction and the adilas reps will help sale their services. Good plans are developing. Bryan is going to be the point guy on this multi 3rd party mix and match (mini mash up or combo project).

As a side note, we were talking about creating a full custom 3rd party dashboard for Full Circle. We could tie it to their 3rd party solution selection (turning things on/off). We also talked about being able to do some reverse marketing and showing potential, even though full functionality is not turned on.

From Steve - Finding our stride... we are looking for solution minded companies wanting a full solution.

Going back to the railroad analogy. Once the tracks are put down and running... we are hoping that clients will see that potential and basically want to jump on board and go for the ride, using our tracks (the train - look and feel  - may change). If needed, we could build more tracks and get more trains (engines and motors). See this link for some more info on the railroad track analogy. https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=3933

Steve was saying, that some of these outside parties are trying to setup real estate around our tracks and are even paying for what is needed to make it look and feel like what they want. That is pretty cool. We are hoping that others will do the same thing.

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Different subject - long running queries and tables locking themselves... Alan and Steve were talking about chaining and locking of tables  (both manual and automatic). Basically, the customer queue was locking the customers table. Both of those tables and sections deal with invoices and invoice data. One thing was locking the next, which was locking the next, etc. Chain reaction of sorts. This gets further into the rabbit hole by allowing 3rd party reporting based off of invoices (like a Metrc or other state tracking system). If they are slow to reply, it could cause problems going back up the chain. Basically, a data traffic jam.

There is a deeper and deeper need to be able to fully watch and do traffic control on the actual servers. Basically a monitoring system with stats, graphs, and notifications.

We had some other talks about splitting up tables and databases. Breaking up things, including data and databases, into subs of subs.

----------------------------

The last part of the morning session was chasing and following a bug in a custom cart for a client. We had Drea jump on the GoToMeeting session and show us where the bug was happening. No other clients were complaining, so we thought that it might be custom code. Upon looking, that client has 10 custom pages (black box code). We started looking into some code. Alan ended up saying that he would look deeper. Never a dull moment.

You can upload individual media and files. A random report was made that multi upload wasn't working.

Newer snow owl receivables- may have been a small disconnect between the date periods. No one followed up.

Working with Alan, Steve, and Bryan on some big queries and possible pigs (big fat queries that run really slow). Doing some optimization. One of the interesting things is how long it takes to track down problem children (bad code) and then being able to fix it. Currently, I've got 3 of my guys on one single issue. We may need to look into ways of being more productive with our developer resources. It was tough because we had one guy who found the problem, one to be a second pair of eyes, and the other who actually did the code but couldn't remember the project (they all start blurring together - which is totally normal).

The first part of the meeting was spent chasing some big queries. Then we rolled into a discussion about cross corp barcodes and buying and selling sub inventory and being able to use a set barcode for that item. Basically, one systems sub inventory would then be allowed to be sold from another corporation based off of a barcode that was set by the original corporation.

I was thinking that it will end up being tied into this new adilas community funded project. See the link below.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=22&id=1348

After the meeting, I kept working on some code for the Bear 100. I spent some time working on emails and light tech support. I also reviewed a label demo video that Calvin Chipman did for Kelly Whyman and Steve Mitchell. This was the first demo that I had seen with Calvin's new wizard style label builder for the upcoming adilas label builder. Compared with the old prototype, this looks awesome. I put up a small screen shot of the video. The real video is awesome, but I don't have permission to push that up yet.

The video had and brought up some great questions dealing with the adilas label builder... things like: permissions on labels, history on labels, simple mapping interface, right clicks vs buttons, checkboxes vs scrolling drop-downs, visual indicators, auto save, prompts when closing, AWS (amazon web services) and putting the Windows software on a Windows box and then allow the user to login and use the program from there. Tons of good stuff.

Steve and I met this morning and had a good meeting. It was just the two of us. So, we ended up talking shop and strategy. We talked about some of our internal pain points and how we could get someone to help us out with those things. One of the pain points was with merchant processing solutions. We have coded to a number of Internet gateways, and that is working fine.

We have two major needs on the merchant processing level...

1. Is on the chip reader side. We have two gateways that we have coded to, but it takes a person to get people setup and going on that (light babysitting). Those solutions require both web API socket stuff and software installed on a computer. If the company updates their software, we have to recertify and no one wants to pay for that. So far, those solutions have been somewhat of a headache.

2. We need a simple Internet solution where a new merchant could be approved very easily and then they are off to the races. Currently, the Authorize.net's and USAePay (our top two gateways) have pretty deep prerequisites that the merchants have to go through in order to be setup and qualify. As they grow and mature, they may need to go to a bigger processor, but we need a really simple solution to get people started fairly quickly. We are thinking that Stripe might be the best option and/or looking deeper into PayPal or something like that. I personally am leaning more towards Stripe.

We also talked about some other internal needs and who we could put on what projects. Some of the other needs are things like:

- User guides

- How to's

- News and updates (this is biggie for us)

- Billboard sites (world building, roll call accounting, data assembly line, and others)

- Tons of other mini projects that come up

- Build out the full Adilas API sockets and the underlying documentation to make that happen. That is a huge piece of the puzzle.

We would really like to have some focused project management on both internal projects and client projects.

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11:00 to 12:00 pm - Meeting with Global Design and Assembly - orders and backorders

- Not duplicating orders when something gets back ordered. They would love to enter things once and have it flow through.

- They would like a definitive answer of prices and timelines to make that happen.

- They import products and the resell those items. Lots of shipping and fulfilling of orders.

- They would like to go more paperless in the backend office (what is needed, what is ready, what has been shipped, etc.) - Currently, they are doing a lot of paper back and forth. They would like to eliminate the paper model.

- Steve, talking about a transitional PO (similar to a transitional invoice - between a quote and an invoice). This would be used for the on order/not quite inventory yet but maybe we are already making payments, etc. Steve was saying that Will Hudson (adilas developer) was going to be working on the transitional PO project. Basically, a work in progress type PO... it isn't fully valid inventory yet, but it is becoming more and more solid values.

- Jason, I think you guys would have a lot of clients who would like for a more automated backorder process.

- Steve, was talking about the existing manual process of duplicating the original PO and only pushing the backordered items forward. You don't have to build it from scratch, but you duplicate and keep pushing the ball forward. The other side to this, is you only pay for what you really get and have.

- Jason, would really like that process to happen (like magic) so that the whole story is still there but it flows through the whole system.

- Example: Say we ordered 500, you only got 300. What comes next? Do you have a small box that says, move 200 to backorder (aka a new PO) or what other options might be there.

- Small talks about ice-down dates

- On a technical side... how you do you keep cost of goods, inventory, accounts payable, and what is received and what is not received? Some of the questions go clear out to the balance sheet and how to track things.

- Just in time ordering and smaller draws... Say they need 500 total, but only want 100 now and another 100 by next week and then rest when possible. Just in time issues and some tracking nightmares.

- Technically, we may need another couple fields where we could put desired amount, shipped amounts, and backordered amounts.

- There is more of a need for time based ordering - just as, I need this on this date, and that on this other date... Basically, tying things into more of a time or schedule based environment.

- On the just in time... If someone wants 500 and you only have 200, how do you put it on the order? Do you put the whole 500 on there (this would drop your inventory by -200) or do you just do the 200, out the door, and then put the other 300 on another PO/invoice. Basically items still needed to be bought, purchased, and/or shipped.

- Warehousing and stocking shelves - excess inventory and back stock

- ecommerce type scenarios where orders are processed and managed as part of a supply chain scenario.

- Steve, was talking about companies that are proactively pulling sales from the other companies and then keeping a supply chain up and ready based on max/min re-ordering options. Once they (the other company) gets to certain level, a new order is always processed.

- here is a link for some of the older back order or backorder brainstorming from the developer's notebook.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=back%20order%2Bbackorder

- Steve, was talking about the new plant move and harvesting options that they are building out. It used to be one manual process at a time. Now, they can click a button and move, kill, phase, or group hundreds and hundreds of plants at a time. The whole things was custom built and automated through elements of time, PO's, and parent/child inventory. Totally a new automated process.

- Jason, we only want what really happens to be recorded, but we don't want to lose the other details of the story.

- Brandi, we already have some custom code that helps us see what we have on hand, what has been placed on new orders, and what is still needed (don't have that yet)

- Brandi, we currently have to make a sales order, fulfill it to the level that is true, and then duplicate it and redo what is still needed. This is the current manual process. She would really love to automate that manual process and take out the possible human error (either multiple clicks and/or info that was forgotten).

- Backorders play on both sides of the fence... inbound items and outbound items... Both sides need a standard and automated flow process.

- Steve, was recommending that we see their existing processes and then make a plan.

- Brandon, we somewhat proposed a system that uses a request quantity (what is wanted), actual quantity (real values), and still needed values (backorders and/or wish list). We talked about having and showing all the fields and allowing JavaScript to help do the math, show/hide checkboxes to help automate the duplication process and pushing the virtual backorder and/or wish list forward. We would then keep chaining and flex gridding those pieces together. Basically, the same things that they are doing manually right now, but we speed it up and help to automate it.

- Steve, he loves clients who ask - Can we move this tree? I keep having to walk around it. While other clients just quietly walk around the tree every day. Sometimes those clients who ask the questions really help us move the ball forward.

- Steve, software and application are constantly changing.

- Jason, really likes to look at "scale". Can I do this? Can I do this for x number? Can I double or triple that and still be ok? Can I multiple by n (unknown number)? It all comes to scale.

- Jason, they have really used tons and tons of flex grid... It is now getting to the level where it is getting to be somewhat of a nightmare, due to the number of custom fields and where it is stored.

- Jason, process sequencing - what data (total) do we need to catch and then push to where it goes. First catch the data. Then we can display it, however we want to.

- Jason, he likes farming (talking about idea farming). But, he really like to harvest (seeing it through).

- Jason, will send up some docs on what they want done. We (adilas) will then help plan it out and get them some quotes and what not.

- Dream it up, and we'll help you wire it up.

Jumped on the meeting with Eric. We were working through more flow and logic on the special tracking accounts (balance sheet subs of subs and used for things like loyalty points, gift cards, in-store credit, etc.). We made some good progress on the master level settings and rules (super high up on the adilas admin level).

Bryan jumped on and had a few questions. We went over a few things and got him going.  Also, he has a client that wants to show who is logged in on every page. This could be a new setting. We could then show/hide that info in the header somewhere. It sounded like the client wanted that info on every page. That sounds like a header thing to me.

Our product is kind like open source software only more of an open community software package (anybody could contribute and/or ask for something). They can't go in and make changes on their own, but they can help push things forward based off of input and seed monies. Either way, it takes time you have to pay someone to do that tweaking and/or changing.

As a side note, we are seeing more and more of a need for deeper and deeper ordering, backordering, fulfillment, shipping, manufacturing, sub routines, supply chain stuff, just in time stuff, and other operation based activities. We already have a number of those pieces, we just want to get them more built out and automated. I would really like to see some of this going into elements of time (mixing date/time values where needed) and also more of the data assembly line type methodology. Those would be my wishes.

Alan popped in and showed us some progress on his charts and graphs for some of the new homepages. I think that they will really help with some much needed look and feel for some of those primary homepages (invoices, PO's, deposits, and expense/receipts).

I went in and fixed a small validation bug and the started to work on a new joint venture non disclosure and non compete form with and for Full Circle Interactive Media.

Josh popped in and gave us a report on some things. Some of the report was dealing with a deeper need to mix and blend date and time options for discounts and being able to set things up with easy interfaces and yet be super powerful. Another part of Josh's report was dealing with education and getting clients setup correctly. Basically, there are so many settings that no one really goes in there and plays around with them. Also, another comment was that some of the settings and options were not related to their industry. They saw things like religious tax categories, stock/unit (vehicle and trailer stuff), and other non industry options. Our model is very open, but sometimes that creates a feeling that we don't fully know their business.

- Discount pricing engine and maybe even special my cart favorite buttons that are discount specific. This could be all kinds of stuff. We have also had some other requests on limiting discounting and even allowing or not allowing standalone discounts. It would also be super cool if you could duplicate discounts, clone things, and build off of existing items. Having bulk tools to help where needed.

- Here is some other research on discounts, pricing engines, and my cart favorite buttons, etc. I would like to go in this direction... https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=3666 - you could also search the developer's notebook for pricing engine, discount, or my cart favorite buttons.

- Being able to create new items based off of existing

- Being able to do global settings for different industries... basically, set up a new corp, then be ale to click special setup buttons to update and change settings in bulk. We could have multiple sub options that may be clicked. As a side note, we could also program certain themes (actual folders) and use black box technology to virtually show/hide certain buttons, fields, features, settings, etc.

- Color coding for items going low or needing to be reordered - great idea

- Room based inventory vs a location based inventory (sub levels and sub locations)

- Limiting access to all other areas and/or rooms (once again sub levels and sub locations based on permissions)

- Being able to duplicate items and PO's even quicker. Basically, a save as type option to duplicate an item. Kinda like cloning an item or starting from a known point based off of other items. Make it quick and easy based off of existing items.

- Where is all of the data located? We have tons of great data but all of our data is on specific pages and requires a page to page progression (normal web flow). Some of the other systems are starting to pull multiple data pieces into the same page (ajax and jquery stuff). Basically, putting everything on one page or a one-pager type dashboard and/or interface.

- We have had clients who want us to auto close sub packages. This may be accomplished with settings and rules. Not everybody wants the same things. That takes us into settings and such.

- What about an off line mode? When no Internet is available? What about a local instance that could be synced up later on? This is bigger than you think... If you were to go this route, this may need to be a hybrid type solution where we mix localized software, some kind of queue type system (grabbing and holding the data), and then the ability to sync up the data later on. Alan was talking about a potential risk mitigation process and the need to have companies have other plans in place incase a disaster occurs. Both Josh and Alan were talking about possible news and updates that show options such as MS Excel, setting up a hot spot based off a phone, local software options, good old paper and pencil mode. Idea from Josh - What about a local label maker... that could really help as well (small and limited scope).

- Questions on multiple location pricing. What are the price points and price breaks? This got into a small discussion on what a white label or other entity charges.

- Let's keep working on making it pretty and simple and powerful. If you could mix these things, that makes it awesome.

- People want to set it and forget it... a one time wonder or single setup.

- People want the big dumb animal pictures... super simple.

- Once you become super familiar with something... it gets hard to let that go.

- Training a client to be proficient in all areas is really tough... it comes down to training and maintenance. Keep making things easier and easier.

- We might need to make the tips and tricks and news and updates easier to get to... if people want that stuff.

We gave Josh a task of getting out some pens and paper and sketching out interface ideas and going through the discount needs. We recommended that he use the pyramid (triangle) type approach. This would be starting at the top level (corp-wide settings), then go down to groups (customer types and part categories), then go down to tiers and/or buttons (smaller groups with rules and assignments), and then clear down to the item level. We also need to take into account both includes and excludes.

Working more with Eric on some of the logic for the special tracking accounts (special accounts). Good session. We were working on multi-step form processes.

Steve and I were meeting with Dave Forbis. There are some outstanding invoices that are owed to one of our internal developers (trying to get a custom project pushed through). We offered Dave to help cover those invoices and he will be doing work for adilas to help cover those costs. As a side note, this isn't a problem, this is actually a solution and a deal of sorts to help cover and advance all parties. Making lemon aid.

- We want to protect the developers and make sure that we draw a line in the sand and say... we need to renegotiate payment and work from this point forward (help to draw that line in the sand).

- Our clients need to grab and push forward their own dreams. We can't build out their dream from them without their help and input (ideas and funding). It has to be a two-way street.

- This particular project (the one that got forced through) hit right in the middle of a really hard transition between the adilas shop and somewhat of dissolving things and bringing all projects back under the main adilas account and/or allowing independent developers to run with their own projects.

- We have a need on the merchant processing level. We already have some deeper options available. We are looking to create a shallow and/or super easy solution to round things out... Our first assignment for Dave would be to figure out - what it takes to hook up with Stripe (online merchant processing gateway)? Could we be a re-seller of that? What would that look like? Do we need to certify on certain things? How can we help make this easy for our clients? What are the rates? What are the commissions? What are the requirements? What pages do we need to put into adilas to make it a turn key solution? etc. Basically, let's take this one pain point (easy merchant processing) and get it going. Yee haw.

Bryan jumped on and we were looking over some code changes. We merged in some code and then further tweaked some things. One of the new changes was a special header change for a corporation (showing who is logged in on every page). We also merged in a new 3rd party error log for who approves the different discounts. This is somewhat of a hidden history piece, but we are now starting to capture who is the manager approving the different discounts in the system. This new history is tied to a corp-wide setting of whether or not the corporation requires an approval or not for applying discounts. The reason that I said it is hidden is, you have to know about it and get a special permission turned on even to get to the reports. Basically, if we need to capture something that may be sensitive (we don't want everybody to see it), we can do it through the 3rd party error logs. We then get to control who has access to those reports. Each report has a special key pass coded (how the errors are stored and retrieved for reporting processes).

After Bryan jumped off, Dustin jumped on and had a quick question on some of his JavaScript and AJAX calls. He is getting quite good and is bringing in some new functionality. That is exciting.

On the morning meeting with the guys. Dustin was reporting to Steve about some of his progress. He is brining some cool interface pieces to the table. That will be really cool. I was working on a non compete and non disclosure document for Full Circle and Adilas. We are going to be pulling in some of the Full Circle marketing, emailing, and texting services under the adilas roof. That will be awesome.

Calvin popped in and we had a small discussion on new permissions for his adilas label builder application/program. We went through a few questions and scenarios and then created the permissions. They are currently hidden, but will be release as soon as they are ready. We got the new permissions pulled down from data 0 to his local box for testing.

After that, Calvin gave us a label demo to those who were on the morning meeting. I saw a demo (recording) from a couple of days ago and wow, I was impressed with the changes and the direction. It was really fun and we even pushed it pretty hard to see how it would responds. Good report and great progress there.

Towards the end of the session, I was working with Steve on passing in dynamic sub inventory attributes for some of his bulk functions on his plant pages (move in bulk, add in bulk, record plant phases, harvest in bulk). Working with sub inventory and sub attributes within sub inventory gets pretty deep, pretty quick. Lots of moving pieces.

Bryan Dayton did a first round draft. Has been released but hasn't been merged in. User can login and vote on up to three projects, add a new project, and make comments on existing projects.

We would like to make this part of the adilas community funded project and eventually the adilas cafe.

The Community Chooser Project allows developers, business owners and consultants to add project ideas. They can then vote on them to help Adilas prioritize the projects.

Working with Eric on more code for the special tracking accounts. We finished up a multi-step add/edit process and had a good work session.

Calvin and I chatted on the phone. He gave us a demo earlier this morning on his adilas label builder. Super cool and making tons of progress. We chatted on the phone about funding options for pushing the project forward and what not. We discussed options of selling licenses for the first round product, doing some fundraising (crowd source funding), and/or allowing people to fund it through micro loans to adilas. We also spent some time talking about his GMext and GMext Pro products. Calvin is trying to come up with a good saying and/or tag line for his products. We went over a couple of options. He is planning on showing us another demo next week to show us how far he has made it. That will be awesome.

Bryan jumped on and we did a work session on the upcoming adilas user group code. Bryan has advanced that ball quite a ways. We thought and lightly planned this concept up while on the Denver training trip, and now it within a couple of days of being done. Pretty cool. Most of the session was going over code, doing clean-up, and making small to do lists for the rest of the project.

Alan popped in and showed Josh and I a demo on the new graphical invoice homepage. The page has a number of new graphs, charts, buttons, and quick stats and results. We gave him a couple of suggestions, but mostly told him that it looked good. I will include a couple small screen shots of the graphical homepages that he is coming up with. They are looking great.

This will be where I gather all the information I can about Stripe and storing it for later reference. Some specific items I have been asked to look for/research:

• What type of certification do clients need to sign up for stripe? (Depends on if you want to be a Stripe partner {then no} or a verified stripe partner {then yes})
• Do they offer commissions? Can we become a reseller of Stripe? 

  Does Stripe offer a revenue share program for its partners?

  Stripe does not currently offer a revenue share as part of this program.

It is common for our merchant processors to have high standards to entry (must be open for so long, must be making a certain amount, etc.). We are looking for a merchant processor for new businesses that can start selling. We used Stripe in our Adilas Shop with great success.

Alan popped in and showed us all some demos on the new invoice homepage (with graphics and charts and summarized data). A couple of us saw a demo last week. Everybody else was just seeing it for the first time. We then went into a discussion on permissions and setting those per user per session. Alan was showing us some new functions and working with database access objects (DAO's). Great demo and discussion.

Wayne popped in and reported on his database migration project. He took some time and explained some of his process and also told us about some lessons learned. He spent some time talking about unit testing and doing test based or test driven design. Good stuff.

Steve and I briefly talked about Calvin and the adilas label builder. We talked about rounds, versions, and where it still needs to go. We are all on board and headed forward. It is fun to see all of the projects that are coming down the pipeline.

We have some other clients that have requested some backorder and shipping pieces. They submitted some specs and requests over the weekend. We will be looking into that project and breaking it into smaller pieces and seeing who we can get on the projects and who will help fund what parts of it. Later on in the session, I started looking through the email and attachments that they sent us. As I got deeper into this project, there may be some pieces that we could do internally (all adilas clients need) and other pieces that are fully custom. I put the ball back in their court and gave them some contact info for a couple of the developers. I also tried to lightly let them know where I could play without charging them. If it goes beyond that, I would have to charge as well. Basically, I will help my guys and do some initial stuff to get things going for free. If it goes deeper than that, I'll have to charge them as well.

see eot 1353 for community tester

Eric and I jumped on the afternoon meeting. We had some discussions about master special accounts and being able to add/edit master rules. Eric was coding and I was working on some other projects. We talked about things like: Setting start dates for loyalty points, what items to include and/or exclude, how to handle new rules and settings (even in the future, after the initial setup process takes place), etc. We also talked about, do we want to allow for options of adding new rules per special account or just stick to options to edit copied master rules? How does it all play out?

As we were coding, Eric was making some notes and asking questions here and there. Also, there were other developers on the call. Most were pretty quite, just working on their own stuff, but every once in awhile, someone would chime in and/or ask a question. Towards the end, Steve and Dustin had a couple questions about using the session scope and putting things in/out of the session scope.

Working with Bryan and going over pages for the adilas user group section. We had to work quite a bit on headers and footer to make it work and run. That was kind of a pain but we got it working. We then started to review the code and make sure that it was all there and properly flowing. One of the next steps will be Bryan passing me over code and then I'll go through it with a fine tooth comb.

On the morning meeting. Alan and Dustin were working on complex forms and passing dynamic data between different pages. Lots of AJAX, JavaScript, and JQuery. Alan did some demos and explanations on some new session based permissions checks. He should be launching the new graphical invoice homepage today. It has tons of charts, graphs, and summarized data.

Calvin popped in and went over some of the new API sockets that he will be using for the adilas label builder. He is going to be using about 8 or 9 custom MyEasySoftware API 3rd party sockets (custom built for his label builder). He also went through some other flow and button options to show us some of the progress. It is looking good. He passed me some new table definitions and I wrote a small database update file for him so that all servers and developers could get updated records. As a future note... eventually, we will need to update every page that currently has adilas paperwork (custom document assignments) so that they can look-up and show the custom labels and assignments that get built through the adilas label builder application. Cool stuff.

Reviewing code on the step or phase 5 section of the sales tax project. This deals with custom taxes 6-10 (six through ten) and dynamic naming options for normal state, county, and city tax fields. It also includes a few other pieces, but mainly it deals with the last 5 custom tax fields. Testing and making small tweaks. Hoping to get this project up and fully launched by end of the week.

Meeting with Shannon - 2 tasks to follow up on - hardware with Svend and picking up existing pieces for the adilas user guide.

New notes - She has met with Svend twice and they have another meeting setup for later this week. Their goal is to get Svend's adilas market profile up and have some live content by next week. Once that profile is live, we will let Shari O. and Drea know to help point people who have hardware questions to Svend's market profile. As a second step, we would like to do some more news and updates (tips and tricks) dealing with hardware and then give some credit to Svend and such. Create links back and forth between the adilas market profile and the news and updates.

Shannon will reach out to Russell and see if she can get some more advanced training on both news and updates and advanced options for the adilas market stuff. Russell is still the master there.

On the user guide stuff, we also went in and found some of the old content that was created for the adilas user guide. I did some light checking on my end with no new results. Shannon did find a number of her files. Shannon will be pushing those pieces up in to the adilas university so that we can get to that info. She has about 20 Word docs that have some beginner user content.

We scheduled a meeting for next week, and will stay on task with those two tasks. Just advancing the ball. Also, as a fun note, I gave Shannon some other updates on who is working on what and some other inside adilas news. We are really excited to have Shannon back working with us. It will be awesome.

More testing on the fifth round (tax-v5 branch) of the sales tax project. Also worked on some new links and navigation for the snow owl headers.

The guys were in looking at bootstrap CSS pieces, templates, and dashboards. Steve, Dustin, Josh, Alan, and I were all looking. Here are a few of the links that they were looking at:

https://wrapbootstrap.com/

http://wrapbootstrap.com/preview/WB0F82581

http://webapplayers.com/inspinia_admin-v2.8/

After that, we all broke into our own little areas and worked on projects. I was working on some new navigation links for the snow owl theme headers. I got my code done and pushed it up live. More work on checking code for the sales tax project.

Dynamic naming and rollovers.

Looking over and reviewing code on the sales tax branch. Made a few tweaks, added some new links, and moved some report columns around. Most of it has been pretty smooth. Light tech support for some clients. As a side note from emails and discussions today, the weight field and a combo of the quantity times the weight field are heating up and we are seeing more and more needs there. We will try to talk about it tomorrow in our morning meeting.

On the morning meeting with Josh and Alan. We went over a few new changes from yesterday. Alan reported on his work with Bryan and making a new black box database table (custom table - specific just for that client). Alan and I talked about some naming conventions and how all new black box database tables will have "bb_" to start the table name. For example: bb_53_some_table_name.

We spent a little bit of time going over some new needs for quantity and weight multipliers. Alan and I decided to add two new fields to get things into real numeric values. Currently, some of the people are using some of the existing fields, but those fields are strings or varchars (text based) fields vs real numeric fields. Alan will be making some changes. We know that this project will have two phases. The first one will be to add the new fields and then match-up what ever values we can. The other part of this is going through hundreds of other reports and top cart mini's (gram counters) and Metrc API reporting (state tracking stuff) and flipping the older text based logic into real numeric values and real math. We will be using a value of 1 in the numeric weight field as a default. 1 times anything is the same number. If they want to change that ratio, they will at least have a spot (numeric field) where to do it.

I then started to work on the sales tax project and bringing up all of the black box code to match the master code files (checking for new changes on the custom tax fields 6-10 and other dynamic naming). As a side note... Custom is awesome, but there is a flip side to that... It takes quite a bit of maintenance to keep things up to date if you are changing core pieces.

I spent some time reviewing some notes and info that Dave Forbis gathered up dealing with Stripe (online merchant processing and credit card gateway). See element of time # 4095 for some notes and links. After that, I got on a call with Dave and we went over a few things. We have four different topics that we will be looking into next. They are:

1. Reviewing some older things (tons of white boarding and graphics that were done by Dave from a couple years back) - The goal here is to circle through and pick-up anything that still has merit.

2. Start working on some billboard type sites. These are small websites that have a smaller focus and virtually point people and users to the bigger adilas application. These are things like world building, data assembly line stuff, new school accounting, 3D models for world building and digital story telling. Dave and I were also talking about some concepts that adilas is built upon that are either core and/or we've pushed pretty far. Dave was saying that we could create mini Ted Talk type videos and/or graphics. Get people thinking and talking. Use those pieces to point things back to adilas and what we are doing. Some great marketing ideas.

3. Currently, the adilas platform has a very high concentration of MMJ or Cannabis related industries. Maybe get a list of other kinds of companies that are using the system and show some of the diversity with how and what they are using in the adilas platform model.

4. Dave would like a list of the different domain names that we have and where we would like to focus on building small billboard type sites. I will get this together and send it to him. In a way, we are lightly playing the digital real estate game and trying to setup small little claims. Those claims have two fold purposes... One, they will become virtual billboard sites pointing to adilas and the core concepts that we are built on. Two, they will provide prior art - which makes it so that others can't copyright, trademark, and/or patent - intellectual property stuff. It basically strengthens and protects the main core of what we are trying to do. Good stuff.

Prepped a bunch of things for Dave. Sent an email off to he and Steve to cover some of the topics we talked about this morning. Back on the sales tax project and code review stuff.

On a call and GoToMeeting session with Bryan. We had to jump between a number of different projects. We got a call from a client and had to look into an issue. That somewhat interrupted our meeting for a little bit. We had another developer join us. We checked some things out on the live servers and then made some plans to help with the issue. After that, Bryan and I got back to planning out some of the projects that he is working on. We went through some sub domain pieces and I sent him an email with some requirements, specs, and notes.

Spent some time writing emails and logging some notes in the client log files.

On the morning meeting with the guys. We spent the first little bit getting caught up and bringing everybody up to speed on the different things that happened over the weekend. Alan was reporting on his findings with the data 8 server (locking tables) as well as the data recovery for a single client on data 0 (re-building back data from a back-up). Steve then asked some questions about the customers table. We got into a fairly lengthy discussion about table joins, corp-specific tables, number of records, caching data, storing quick access records in the session scope, and the difference between cached data and live data.

Steve, Alan, and I talked about splitting up the customers table into a corp-specific table. That is a pretty big project, but it could have some real benefits. Currently, there are about 250 (ish) tables in the database. Most of them are what are called shared tables. We basically put all of the data into the same tables and then specify what corporation gets what data (invisible fences or virtual sandboxes). We currently have 5 corp-specific tables (super high traffic areas). They are for things like the customer queue, invoices, po/invoice line items, invoice payments, and sub inventory. There are also some other corp-specific tables, but it depends on what 3rd party solution have been turned on. Long story made short, the main customers table seems to be the next candidate to do some work on. It's not the number of records in the table... that is relatively small (ish), it's the number of joins and connections that make that table a super high traffic area. The other two table that are getting some high traffic are the customer history table and the invoice history table. Both of those pieces are not as critical, but they are getting thousands and thousands of new records every day.

The main customers table connects with invoices, quotes, elements of time, customer queue records (who is next), and all of the normal CRM (customer relationship management) stuff like additional contacts, log notes, settings, reports, and histories. The main customers table is a huge access point. We allow corp-wide settings to be used on the naming of the customers. This allows for things like patients, members, students, clients, etc. Lots of moving pieces.

Anyways, we talked about some pro and cons of making some changes there. We anticipate that a major re-write, without going to crazy levels, would be two weeks to a month. I did a local search for the phrase "customers." (customers dot like a table join) and got almost 400 pages on my local box. Some of those pages have between 25 and 50+ instances or occurrences per page. It could be a pretty big project, for sure. I'll bet that within the week or starting of next week, we'll get someone on that project. We are going to need it sooner than later. It works great now... it just needs to be able to scale a little bit better. Build and break, build and break. That is what we do.

After our morning discussions, we broke into mini work sessions on our different projects. I paid some bills, recorded some expenses, made some notes and recorded those notes, and went through emails.

Emails and pushing up a custom database back-up file for a client. Going over the data 0 server and cleaning up older files (sweeping the floor a bit).

Working with Bryan to update the sub domains. Most of our servers have a "www" sub domain (ex: www.adilas.biz or data9.adilas.biz). The new code that was launched allows for things like order.somedomain.com or something in that line. The new code also fixed the ecommerce image paths. Good little session. All servers have been updated and new code is in place.

On the morning meeting with the guys. Josh was showing some of his discount settings and pieces (new pages for setting discount rules and such). Alan popped in and gave some update reports. We talked about next projects and who was going to do what. My computer ended up doing a full reboot right in the middle of the meeting. After that, I did emails and research on user admin stuff for server database users. Nothing super special.

These are files that were started on for populating the user guide back in 2013/2014.  I am uploading them now onto Adilas University so that they can be used for User Guide content or be otherwise accessible for documenting and any other needed purpose.  

Light report by Shannon on her tasks. She showed me the current profile for Smart POS from Svend (hardware guy). We talked about maybe using a small mini interview and helping to get some of these guys and gals to get their info out to the public. Sometimes that is hard to come up with on the fly. We also talked about who is going to pay for the support on the hardware side? Also, what are the lines (rules of the game), obviously we can't pay for never-ending support, especially on hardware issues. The other question was how do we track those leads and/or referrals back and forth? Great questions.

What are the lines between tech support (basic) and actual training (hand-holding or extended time with the client)? Who pays for what? More questions about expectations and budgets.

Tons of older content that was pushed up by Shannon into the Adilas University site. See this entry:

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=3941 - 27+ Word Documents dealing with user guide content.

Where are we going next on this... We setup some time to work on the user guide project. We will keep building things and do things step by step. Slow and steady wins the race.

Updating some server settings. Made changes on servers 0-6. I'll do the rest tomorrow.

Small discussion on weight based selling of eaches. The topic seems to have two parts... you have normal quantity and you have a possible weight or count that might be applicable. This whole section is a precursor to full on mini conversions and was somewhat of a simple (1 layer deep) mini conversion based on sub weights or sub counts. We are seeing that each item has a main unit quantity (recorded on the invoice and/or PO - what actually went out the door). It may also have a count or weight  (sub information) for the main unit quantity. Lastly, we talked about another section to hold a single weight or standalone value to help with reporting and equivalency stuff. As a side note, the naming may need to be dynamic because different things (categories) play in different ways. You might have a serving size, dosage, or count per package and then maybe even different percentages on different levels, etc.

Some of those could be sub attributes within sub inventory, but we were looking to give a few more fields on the parent item to record basic, non-changing information. Steve was talking about a converted piece... Basically, it shows x, but it really mean y, and needs to report or extend to z for certain reports. It is starting to get pretty complicated. We started to talk about a secondary multiplier and how that might play in. See the scans and media/content for our session playing with numbers and ideas. We came away, saying, that we need an out the door unit quantity (physical units or number of per's - single packages or units), we need a count per or a weight per (secondary multiplier), we also need a standalone value per (just for reporting in certain scenarios - equivalence values). Each of those three main pieces would also need a unit of measure to go alone with it. That way you could say, I sold such and such in eaches, they all have a count or weight of such and such, and that equates to this or that. It gets into tracking the different layering and depths of the information (the z axis - space, layering, and depth).

This will hold the brainstorming for what Brandon Moore coined "billboards". They are essentially websites that have a video, information, image, etc. that redirect to the Adilas main site.  

Light research on some of the ideas that Dave Forbis was pushing up dealing with billboard sites and marketing ideas. I then spent the rest of the block updating server settings and security stuff. Email updates to a few key people.

On a work session with Bryan. We started out talking about code and getting new pieces and features up and being used quicker. There seems to be a big bottleneck with me as the primary code sign-off guy. I just get pulled in so many other directions. If something is more pressing, the other projects just sit on the shelf. We talked about styles and how best to help push things forward.

After that, we spent the rest of the session working on a plan for the unique sub barcode for sub inventory. This is a prep step for the cross-corp labeling that some of our clients want to do. Bryan was asking questions and recording videos and I was navigating, drawing, typing, and trying to help explain the project scope and what pages and pieces need to be touched. I don't have the videos, but Bryan made a number of small clips using his small capture tool. At this point, we have a small lightly sketched out plan. He will push things forward and ask questions along the way as needed.

At the very end, we talked about some other custom projects and how those are funded and/or pushed through the system. We also talked about a small project that had to be reworked and who pays for that. We had some good discussions and seem to be on the same page. Good meeting and we're making progress.

Random notes from the day. Brian Stewart is a friend and 30+ year computer guy and programmer. He works for a different company but we go walking and hiking together in the mornings. We talk business and code while we walk. Here are a couple of gems from today.

- There is a difference between working in your business or working on your business - Brian Stewart on a morning hike.

- Create systems... Instead of setting pass/fail goals... create a small system and then start playing the game. Success is playing the game and working the system. The results will usually end up following. - Brian Stewart on a morning hike.

- Brian and I spent quite a bit of time talking about good cop, bad cop, and helping to setup the community and environment that you want for your company. A lot of the discussion was dealing with finding that balance point between speed, function, stability, and beauty. Not everybody has the same personality and/or skill sets. Lots of mixing and blending. Some of the conversation was how to mix senior developers and junior developers and to help them play well together. Sometimes that mixing becomes an issue and also a who gets credit for what and who gets paid for what. Sometimes a tough mix.

On the morning meeting with Steve, Dustin, Alan, and Josh. We started out and got things going. Dustin is going on a trip soon and was reporting about some areas in the North East that he will be visiting. Sounds fun. Here are some other things that happened on the meeting.

- Helping Dustin with some FORM logic. He has a ton of form field data that needs to be dynamic, grouped, and passed over to an action page and still be able to maintain its complex data format and maintain its special groupings. We went through a number of scenarios and he took a number of screen shots. We talked strategy and I showed him some similar code that is used for duplicating PO's and passing dynamic data from page to page.

- Talking with Alan about the idea of on purpose allowing the view of the pages to fracture and be more controllable. We did a small graphic (drawing) and talked about how we have known form field values. We also have a known database table that could hold the data field settings such as show/hide, defaults, data types, special instructions, sort values, field name aliases, etc. We then talked about how we could potentially use ColdFusion custom tags to hold the logic to dynamically populate and/or build the HTML (web format) pages based on the custom tags. The custom tags are a combo between a function and an include. Anyways, we had a good discussion on that. Alan was saying that this plays in perfectly to the MVC (model view controller) type scenario that we would like to use. See attached for a small drawing.

- We had two other outside parties come into the meeting. We had Molly (an adilas consultant) and a guy by the name of Ryan McCorvey (a user for McCorvey's Pro Shop - Bowling). They both had similar requests. They have different pages and reports (or functions) that are hitting time outs. Both companies have tons of data and Alan and I were taking notes and looking for possible bottlenecks and either slow queries and/or slow database tables. They could do the same reports and actions with small amounts of data, the system just choked and/or timed out when trying to process too much data. Kinda like getting a huge mouth full and not being able to chew and/or swallow. Anyways, we worked with both individuals and took some notes. Alan started looking into some research on what causes those table level slow-downs and what not.

- As we get into bigger and bigger datasets, we have to play well with scalability, indexing, and being able to play the big data game. Interesting how things keep progressing.

Ask Alan about this and get info for news and updates.

On a GoToMeeting session with Dave Forbis. We spent the first little while and talked about ideas for the billboard sites. See element of time # 4108 for more info. We went over Dave's ideas for the sales (quick interest catchers), principles (why), and the features (what). He wanted me to pick 3 from each category. We talked about things and made some decisions.

We then switched gears and talked about Campaign Rise (custom wire job project). They still need some automation and also some training. Dave asked some great questions and I tried to answer them to the best of my knowledge. Dave is willing to help us go get funding and monies for certain projects. We talked about how Steve used to do that and did an awesome job. Currently, he is doing more development work and working on the backend engine vs out front doing sales and talking with clients. We may need to help switch that around. Steve was able to single handed fund and keep the entire adilas shop going. He is really good at that kind of stuff.

One of the places that Dave wants to help out is with automating the reoccurring invoices. They already exist and auto queue themselves up, they just don't auto run themselves. We talked about adding a new setting per reoccurring that allows for manual process (default) or auto create process. We also talked about how the actual money part of that is whole other project and deals with three separate systems (adilas, credit card gateways, and bank or finance institutions). We have to mix and blend all of the pieces.

On the morning meeting with the guys. Dustin started out and showed us some cool photos of his trip back to New Hampshire. Alan and I got into a discussion about MySQL databases and different table engines or table types. Dustin, Josh, and I then had a discussion on how best to code a page that has some complex batching and grouping. We laid it out with three proposals and chatted about each. Both Josh and Dustin are working together on this project. Dustin in coding things and Josh is helping him with ideas and best practices (peer tutoring).

I switched gears and started looking into the black box code on the sales tax project. Towards the end of the session, Steve and I got on a phone call and talked some strategy and where we are headed. We also went over some of our payables and made some plans there. Trying to stay ahead of the game.

Ended up going into town to transfer some monies between companies. We have a big custom label project going on and needed to move some monies around in order to help fund that project.

Recording some money transfers and then back working on the code sign-off for the sales tax project.

Working with Bryan on sub barcode logic. He had everything prepped and ready... We spent an hour and got the first sub inventory barcode (unique string) to go through the shopping cart. Bryan still has a couple of other pages to wire up, but we have a working pattern.

Alan - Reported on some database changes, new session and application based permission changes, and talked with Steve and I about possible corp-specific database tables. We are still in the pros and cons state of some of those decisions, about the corp-specific database tables. Alan also asked Steve some questions about the upcoming part/item weight and part/item count stuff. That is one of his current internal projects that he is working on.

Calvin - Popped in and showed up some progress on the adilas label builder. He has a bunch of things working on the local level. The next area is interacting between servers and using API socket calls. The last part of our session, we went over what it would take to make and create an adilas API socket section on the adilas content server. It already does some of that, but needs to be updated and retrofitted to help with Calvin's adilas label builder pieces.

After that, I spent some time doing emails and trying to help point Will in a good direction for a thing we are going to be calling "Transitional PO's" - these are a cross between an order/request PO and a live PO. It deals with when do you start paying for parts/items, when do you record them as inventory, and how do track the transitional date range when it is somewhere in the middle of an order/request and an actual live PO that affects inventory and payables. Basically, extending out the order and fulfillment process to a deeper level.

Spent some time working on an outline for the adilas user guide. I added about 30 bullet points in the meet the players section. That area had about 50 key topics. I have expanded it to just over 80 topics. I will be releasing them once they are a little bit tighter. Some of the things that were added were topics and subjects such as: API sockets, barcodes, QR codes, black box page technology, check writing, coupons & sales campaigns, email settings, gift cards, GPS & RFID tag tracking, marketing, media/content, merchant processing, mini conversions, sub inventory, third party solutions, etc. I'm excited to work with Shannon and get some verbage and documentation on those subjects.

Our to do list for this meeting: Keep following up on the adilas market and getting content for the user guide. We will both be checking on each other's progress.

Brandon reported on his progress and some new outline pieces.

Shannon reported on her progress and going over some older work sessions (prior notes and content). She was also able to connect with Svend (adilas market and some hardware stuff). As a side note, we may have Shannon help us get some of our developers out and setup in the marketplace.

On a meeting with Bryan. We spent the whole time going over his code for unique sub barcodes for sub inventory. The code is looking good and we should be able to get everything singed off in one more session and then actually go through and update all of the corporations and servers to have access to the new code and database fields. Making progress.

On the morning meeting. Josh gave Steve and I a demo of his discount stuff. He has it far enough along that we could see him both adding and editing records (global discount rules based on dates and times). We talked about some standard adilas coding things, validation, and matching the look and feel. The main concepts are there, we just need to standardize things and then fully implement the new discounts and discount rules that he is building. It will end up being pretty cool.

Steve forwarded me an email with a small bug dealing with sub inventory and having more than 10 child or sub packages per parent line item. I spent most of the work session chasing that bug around and getting it fixed. It ended up that the code was dynamic (meaning it could handle any number of entries) but it was confusing number 1 (first sub or first package) with numbers 10 and 11. Here is an example: The code was setup to check for something like - " _1" (underscore one) where the 1 was dynamic. Well, once you get into items above and around 10... you get a match for _1, _10, _11, etc. That made it so that your results weren't perfectly matched up (due to the multiplicity of matches).

I tightened things up and pushed up new code to all servers. It now checks for a perfect match (1 to 1, 10 to 10, etc.).

At the end of the work session, Steve had some questions about checkboxes and showing saves selections when editing large number of checkbox options. We went over some key concepts and he was going to rework some stuff. I left the meeting as Josh was going to give Steve another small demo on his discount stuff. I had seen some of it earlier, and Steve was only able to catch a small portion of the demo this morning (Internet and connection problems).

Recording notes and switching back over to the sales tax project and code review. That project has about 90+ files for round 5 that need to be checked and merged into master. Lots of testing has already been done. I'm on the black box part of the project. That deals with numerous pages that have code that is slightly different than the master code set - on purpose. It just takes time to get all of the pieces in-line.

On a meeting with Bryan. He showed me his progress on the unique sub barcode project. We also got Molly, an adilas rep and consultant on the call with us. We answered some questions and made a small tick list of 4 new items. Bryan and I then started working through the items. We got 2 of the 4 items done and setup a time to meet again tomorrow. After that, we spent a little bit of time talking about some new 2nd or additional vendor info on PO's. Bryan has a client that needs some tweaks and we talked about some new settings to help control those pieces. If we don't go the setting route, it would be multiple black box pages per corp (already looking at 10+ corps that need that feature). We are leaning towards new PO settings.

Small update with the guys. Each of us reported on progress and next steps. After that, we all jumped onto our own projects. I worked on sales tax project. Towards the end, Steve and I got on a call and talked about funding, projects, and some strategy going forward.

Bryan and I got on a GoToMeeting session. We spent some time checking in some code for the unique sub barcodes for sub inventory. We then pushed up files, ran database updates, and then did some live testing. We tag teamed and did all of the live servers (lots of clicking and running database updates per corporation). That new sub barcode feature should be up and good to go. Great job Bryan.

On the morning meeting with Steve. As we were going through emails, we had more requests for custom homepages and even some users wanting to go back to the classic invoice homepage vs the newer graphical invoice homepage. We then started talking about all of the different levels of custom...

We went into corp-wide settings, group settings (12 main player groups), page level settings (page control - how does it look and what does it contains and how does it work), and clear down to personal settings.  That got us into a small talk and conversation about an adilas "fracture" account. This is a concept of breaking everything down into mini pieces that could be stringed and/or put together in any combination. This could include pre-sets, pre-built options, special skinning, etc. It could also get into real in-line database extensions, themes, core black box options, etc.

What we are really selling is... We have tons of things pre-built and have a viable solution that has tons of functionality. This is ready and out of the box. We then offer people the chance to build their own application and virtually extend the functionality to what they really want. Basically, Steve was talking on a sales level, and was thinking about having a number of checkboxes... when meeting with a company, you could virtually check the boxes of what we have, we could also allow them to then pick and choose what they want to add on. Basically, we, as adilas, could tweak out our own product and create all kind of custom wire jobs.

We need to apply our own client filters and see who wants to play. We don't want to get over our heads, but we have a great number of guys who can do and handle certain pieces. We have a solution that is usable, right out of the box. We also have a platform that is customizable and moldable (like clay). Steve was also talking about selective selling and really selling our model vs just the system. Not everybody is a fit for what we do and/or offer.

Idea from Steve... Run the system for 6 months and get good at the system. Then come back and tell us what you want to tweak out and/or change.

People want major functionality... however, they also want it to look a certain way (how pretty is it), they also want a level of control (what can they tweak and change).

Function, form, and control - Alan was mentioning the word "Control" - that gets clear down into that fracture type level. We could have preset templates, show/hide settings, toggle on/off settings, permissions and sub permissions, main pieces, sub pieces, and even show/hide of the different modules. Currently, we have everything available... we may actually want to look at module level controls. For example: do you use payroll? do you use stock/units? do you use x or y?

Idea from Alan... What if we did some testing on new users and had them do certain tasks. We then see how intuitive the process are. This would be a refining process and then work from there. As a side note, we have been adding on for years and years. That is our current model. Maybe we need to rework our inter core and make it more module based and then be able to show/hide and/or be able to toggle things (full sections and/or pieces) to an on/off level.

We also talked about packaging and limited packaging of the system... For example: The limited package, the standard package, the deluxe package, and the mother load... package. Not sure what to call things... but it could be really cool. Basically, it all exists, we just show it (smoke and mirrors) in certain ways. Based on the package style and/or level, we could show/hide other pieces and/or features. Another analogy is a race car engine and then we offer the body styles like cars, motorcycles, vans, trucks, semi trucks, or even UFO's (see attached for an older image).

Adilas has a lot to offer... but what if I only need it for this or that? It sometimes feels like taking an army tank out to hunt birds, say something like pheasant hunting or duck hunting. Almost an over kill. What if we could dumb it way down and make it more approachable. Make it into smaller bite size pieces and then let them get deeper if they want. As a side note, like the ice berg analogy, we only show the most basic pieces. Then, if they want more, we allow them to get to it. Maybe either offer certain packages and/or hide everything by default and make them turn it on (at a corp-wide or world level and also at a payee/user level).

Steve - how do people want to buy things? We then need to cater to that level. See the photo gallery for an inverted funnel analogy. Currently, we have people enter with all options (like the top side of the a funnel) and then have them select what they want to get to the smaller level. What if we flipped that model and started out super small and basic... then they could either buy and/or turn of additional modules and/or features as they need them. So, basically, we start super small (like the bottom of the funnel) and work outward (getting bigger like the top of a funnel).

Alan - would like to do a cognitive walk through... What path do they take to do a task? Where did we want them to go and/or do? Where are their eyes on the page and where are they spending the most time? How easy was it for them to follow the path that is wanted? The cognitive walk through would include a small user group, and then the persons being tasked with the tasks would have to explain (verbal and/or written) what and why they are doing what they are doing. Basically, getting into the minds of the users and what they are seeing, focusing on, and/or actually doing.

Wire frames (interactive outlines) and getting to the basic decisions and taking that research back to the coding project. What is the phycology behind the decisions. What are the human levels that we might be missing and/or could really enhance just by display, menus, and structure. In Dustin's words... "putting rails on things".

We also talked about doing different cognitive walk through groups (users not familiar with the system) and how they would do their own different tasks. If they get stuck, why? What were they looking for and what were they expecting? This is more of a cognitive (brain activity) exercise to see what the thought process is and/or could be. One of the challenges for us might be - so many different business verticals and so many different choices... we might need to get a sample and make sure that we aren't hitting just one niche and/or personality type. Lots of different flares and possibilities. We would like to match who would be using the program with what we would be asking them to do. This testing also has some down-sides, such as preconceived notions, using other existing and/or older products, and actually testing people who would be using it.

Alan and I were talking about who we knew and what resources we could tap into to get some basic testing. Just throwing around some ideas. We added in a new community funded project to get in there and do some research and some of the cognitive walk trough's.

After that, Alan and I were reporting on our different projects. We love the options of having black box code, but there are teeth to that as well. We are starting to see the black box section as a huge time sink for the developers if they are making core changes. We have code that is not in master (in the main code repository), it could be changed at any time, and no one knows who has the last cookie. The developers work directly with the clients, and thus, they think that they have the latest code, but a new change could have been cascaded through to the other pages. We definitely need the black box code options and framework, but we need to eliminate as much duplicate code as possible. It is becoming an issue. It is not on fire, but it becoming a thing that needs to be addressed.

Wayne popped in and reported on the database migration project. He is planning on running some new tests tonight. He went backwards and did some major back testing and going back to a test driven design philosophy. He said that he got a great reminder on why we need to stick with a test driven design philosophy (watching out for the little things). The data migration process is super deep... it is basically allowing two different servers to run as they are... then in the background it takes data and tries to re-sync the data to get a perfect match, even though they are different databases with different auto id numbers. That is advanced mixing and blending.

We got into a bigger discussion about standardizing data and using special tables such as flex grid tie-ins and custom dates, numeric, and custom text fields. Some of those tables are great double agents and/or chameleon type tables (they switch as needed). Good stuff and it really seems like Wayne is trying to think beyond the current project.

We are constantly chasing a moving target... part of the fun... :)

We would love to get more into user group research and what is needed, wanted, expected, etc. This entry is here to get us a starting place. With all of the functionality within adilas, this could go way out, but we could also break things down into smaller mini sections. See this element of time for some other great ideas along the same line.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=4035

Working with Eric on the sub special account tracking project. This is for things like gift cards, rewards programs, loyalty points, etc (subs of the balance sheet). Eric has been on vacation and wanted to show me some of his progress. We went through some of the master setup pieces and then into the corp-specific stuff. We made a few tweaks, but most of it looks pretty good to this point. Our next meeting will be some additional planning on how the system will start using the new special account tracking and making transactional records hit the database.

On the morning meeting with the guys. Steve reported on some progress with his extraction (production) pages (internal build PO's). Wayne popped in and we had a small discussion about the data 8 server. It seems to be having some random problems. Not sure what it is. When it is up, it seems fast and slick. When it is down, it just grinds and/or stops. On the phone with tech support with the server guys. I made some small changes to the PO line items page and added an outline type numbering system. This only comes into play with parent/child inventory.

Meeting with Hamilton with Full Cricle IM (interactive media). Hamilton was doing the small demo. Basically, he is going to be working with adilas and integrating his marketing product with adilas. Josh Sagert is going to be doing some work to help with that integration.

- new clients today (new customer/client start dates)

- check-ins today (customer/client queue)

- reminders (small messages to help people know different things - emails and text messages)

- coupons and broadcasts (sales and promotions)

- opt in/out to the loyalty points via a mobile number (quick text verification)

- internal inboxes

- scheduling texts and emails and reminders

- keywords (flagging and tagging different client records)

- auto watching for rewards earned and sending reminders and texts based on certain sales rules

- preferences and products that match certain clients and their profile

- Multi-numbers (virtual phone numbers) to handle more traffic and number of texts being sent

- API keys and storing client connection data

Good discussion between Josh and Hamilton about discounts, campaigns, and how to tie things together. They talked about goals and ways of figuring out the target marketing pieces using the technologies. They also talked about dashboards and showing what was sent out and what was returned (ROI). In Hamilton's words, he wants to reduce the sales friction. By combining things (adilas and Full Circle IM) it could and will be a great combo. All the pieces in the same database, that helps create a system and allows for major options.

They also were talking about integrating out to ecommerce and tracking click through's (general or generic interest) and also retention results (resulted in a full purchase). Tracking leads, campaigns, and effectiveness. They really want to focus on the end user's and how well and easy they can use it.

Talking about possible options of how to sign in - enter the number by the user or by the person doing the check in process. There are also options to text in and then use that as part of the check-in process. Basically, talking about checks and balances and making sure that they knew who was who.

See attached and fill in some info about the meeting. Planning out the next level of the sub special tracking accounts (sub of the balance sheet) for things like loyalty points, rewards, gift cards, in-store credit, etc.

This was a note for our meeting: Follow-up on each other's progress - adilas marketplace and the adilas user guide.

Brandon reported... good intentions and not much to show for it.

Shannon reported... she has been getting more time to work on adilas and that is a plus. She has been reviewing training from the last Denver training. She has also been working with Svend on the adilas market profile and expectations for hardware support. We also talked about lines (client needs) and what adilas will and will not cover. Hardware integration gets tricky. We want to help cover simple hardware support issues. We need to maintain the independent relationship as much as possible.

Shannon will be writing an email and setting up the conversation about max, min, expectations, terms, and what the general rules will be. We talked about allowing Svend and Smart POS to bill us for up to 1/2 an hour per client. If more time is needed, he would need to bill for that independently. Dealing with Svend and hardware, he would like to offer POS (point of sale) packages and the setup and integration parts and pieces of that (hardware packages and setup). He would also like to be available on a 24 hour option.

One of our goals, as adilas, is - see a need and fill that need.

With certain independents, we may need to hold their hand a little bit and help them out with some specific adilas training. That will either need to be covered as part of business and/or some other way of funding and taking care of that. Ideally, adilas would fund a portion of that and make sure all is well. We, as adilas, will then gain from that relationship if they, the independent and/or 3rd party solution, are able to take care of that part of the puzzle. Once again, see the need (identify where or what is needed) and then fill that need (either internally or put an independent and/or 3rd party solution in place to handle that need).

Our next meeting will be a work session where Shannon will be typing and I will be speaking and spouting off... :)

Bryan and I worked on a few of his projects. He had some question and we looked over some of his code. We went in and talked about the bulk edit page for PO line items and adding new outline options to help update the sub barcodes. This would be some other enhancements to help out that bulk edit page.

Next we talked about a new project to show/hide options for the secondary vendor/payee options on printable PO's and save as PDF PO's. This deals with some new corp-wide settings and then cascading things around.

As a fun side note, Bryan is now officially a grandpa. His oldest daughter just had their first little baby.

Steve and Bryan were talking about the almost constant need of our clients to make and build custom solutions. Almost like an open source software solution, but we are the entity that helps them tweak things out and get the changes that they need.

After Bryan left, Dustin and I helped Steve out with some JavaScript questions for his new custom pages.

Happy Halloween! As a fun side note, both Steve and Josh have Halloween as their anniversaries. They were able to chat and have fun talking about that.

Calvin popped in and we got some API stuff working on the adilas content server. He needs that functionality for the new adilas label builder app. Good stuff.

Alan, Dustin, Josh, Steve, and I were on the morning meeting. Steve had a couple of questions about some emails that were going around. We pulled in Alan and chatted about some database restructures, re-indexing of records, and full table rebuilds. We then talked briefly about a client that has a bunch of custom code but hasn't really been able to get things going. They are currently not paying their monthly bill and not responding to the David B. and Shari O. We have decided that we need to turn them off as it is costing our company trying to chase their company. If they want it, we can easily re-flip the light switch back on.

Wayne jumped in and we did some checking on his database migration code. We logged into the dedicated server and ran a couple reports. All of the data looks good and he will be contacting the client to let them know. This project has been ongoing for about 2 months now. Basically, we migrated about 10 corporations off of one of the shared servers to their own dedicated servers. Well, once we finished and released the new dedicated box, they came back and said, what about this other corporation that we had no notes and/or record of. Because it missed the normal migration process, and the new server was already live and consuming auto id numbers in the database, we couldn't do our normal migration process. Instead, Wayne had to write a new program that allowed for both servers to keep running at full speed and still be able migrate and copy database records across between servers. That may sound easy, but think of all of the auto id number and foreign keys based off of the auto id numbers that could get messed up. This was a very deep project. It looks great and seems good to go. That is awesome.

We intend to use this same program (actual software we have to run on the physical servers) to help us migrate other clients off of shared environments and into either other shared servers and/or to their own dedicated boxes. That is a huge break through for us. Good stuff.

After that, I jumped in and did some emails and tech support stuff. Towards the end of the meeting, Calvin jumped back in and we made two of his permissions go live for the adilas label builder. We then did some light testing on the live servers. It still needs some lovin, but we had a successful live test between data 0, the content server, and Calvin's adilas label builder app. That is pretty cool. He was going to make a couple changes and then get back with me. Pretty cool and some great progress.

If I get the sales tax project done, I'd like to work on the adilas community funded projects and adilas user groups - Bryan has already submitted some code.

Emails and looking into an error with the old part weight field out in ecommerce land. It had some code that tried to format it as a number but technically, it was stored in the database as a string. I added some validation and conditions and uploaded the pages. This was an error that has been showing up from time to time but we just didn't know where it was coming from. Nobody reported it but the spiders (web crawlers and search engine crawlers) were hitting it over and over again. We found it due to a backend error trapping report that Garrett created a couple years back. Anyways, hopefully we have it fixed now.

Bryan and I were looking over some code to show/hide an additional vendor/payee address on different PO's and PO pages. After looking into it, we decided to go a little bit deeper and wrapped the new settings and data look-ups with some conditional logic. It will make the whole thing look and perform on a tighter playing field. We were almost done but ran out of time. We will merge and push up things tomorrow. Today is Halloween and we both have plans with our families and it would still be another 20-30 minutes to fully wrap things up. It will have to wait until tomorrow.