Talking with Steve about Paypod and deeper development needs. After that, Steve and Sean were talking about deployment and helping companies with setup, deployment, and initial training. John had some database questions about discounts and discount campaigns. Helping John pull the correct parts, items, and vendors for his discount stuff. The deeper we go, the more the need presents itself that we could use and need more data aggregation.

Emails and trying to think of options for where we are headed. Sent an email out to Steve with some questions, suggestions, and ideas. Trying to figure out a plan. Sometimes that is a tough balance.

Working on a special loop for the Bear 100 photo gallery in the mobile ready site. Playing with the Mod and modulus operator functions to help find good division results. The loop was pretty tough. We do tons of loops, all the time. For this loop, you have four columns that needed to be populated (left to right), numbering goes vertically in the columns (up and down), you also have a show per page count, pagination (next page of x number of pages), and other dynamic filters. You also have to reorder the sort based on the number to show. It got pretty tricky. I had to start in a scratch file before I could code it live because it was so tricky.

We will get the top ten pages (ongoing) over to the designer to get an upgrade. We will then wire them up and make them look good and work well. The plan is an ongoing process of doing the top ten and then rolling to the next top ten. The number ten may be one or two at a time, but the concept is to roll through the top ten pages and then do the next set of top ten pages.

Small data fix for Shari O. on un-posting an expense/receipt inside of adilas. Posting is kinda like a final lock-down. There are no tools to un-post something currently. I was asked to check on a data dump for Euflora and added a number of parent attributes to the custom data dump file. Pushed the file up live. I also merged in a file for Dustin, pushed it live, and sent him an email with some suggestions on some of the logic.

Working with Bryan on the refund process. We proposed a couple different options and I tried to lead him to some code or things that might help get his process finished. It is always good to get a sample or what we call a handrail - other code that does the same things or does something similar (kinda like an outline or sample or snippet).

Looking into an error on data 8 for add/edit parts for a client. It ended up being special characters that were outside the allowed characters for an item description. I redid some code for a client to help with a data dump. Working on the output after I added a number of parent attributes, at their request.

On the phone with Steve talking about options and loading the wagon (paying projects and funded development). He is going to load the wagon and I'm going to try to unload the wagon (either doing projects myself or coordinating them out to our guys with Cory's help). Steve is so good at sales, pitching the vision, and helping clients see the need for what we are doing. Basically, he will talk to the clients, line up the projects (fill the wagon), and then we will build it out and virtually clear the wagon. Good phone call.

One of the topics of the phone call was dealing with JIT (just in time) sales tax collection and allocation. There is a growing need to collect, report, and even pay/fund the sales tax as it happens. Some of the states are wanting to get more real-time on some of the payments out to them and the virtual float (time in between collecting and paying) that exists. Many states allow the clients to collect sales tax for a month (all the money is in the client's hands or client's bank accounts), and then at the end of the month they pay it back to the states (if they still have it). There is a known gap, a delay on the repayment, as well as some trust issues. The states are feeling like they are getting misinformation, not getting all of the taxes, and are very limited in what sort of audit reports they have access to. You are talking big money and who gets to claim what. Steve was talking about some ways of automating some of those pieces, as needed. Not everybody likes these ideas or concepts, we were just talking about possible options.

Steve and I met and went over a project to help with recipe/builds and production settings. He had met with a client and taken some notes. I met with him and we went over his notes and added some other details. It was mostly just he and I on the meeting for the first little bit.

On the morning meeting. Steve and I finished up from an earlier meeting. Danny, Sean, and John popped on to check in. Mostly a small work session where everybody was on mute working in the background.

Dustin popped in to show Steve some new features on the cultivation and samples pages. Lots of new JavaScript and AJAX type stuff. Nice demo and it is looking good. We asked Dustin to organize a small training class for us on AJAX, jQuery, and JavaScript - mixing those pieces.

Emails and text messages as the other guys were working together.

Microsoft Teams meeting between Steve and Paypod. Going over things.

Server meeting with Wayne, John, and Brandon. Going over a few small projects and talking about server upgrades on both the Adobe ColdFusion side and the Java side of the puzzle. We also went over some bootstrap 4 and 5 pieces and doing reordering inside of the bootstrap grids. Click here to see more info.

The other topic that we covered was some custom looping to figure out some custom math and logic for a photo gallery that I'm working on. They were giving me ideas and helping me figure things out. Good stuff.

Checking on an error message from a client. They were trying to input huge values into fields that didn't have that big of field size compacity.

Shannon and I going over history docs to get some good summary data. See elements of time # 8089 for more information. Lots of good history, origin story, and key points. See the sub notes and comments on that element of time for more details.

Checking on an error message from a client. It ended up being funky characters that they were copying and pasting from some outside source that they were trying to use instead of retyping the information. Basically, the copied data needed to be cleaned up or sanitized. The database couldn't handle some of the funky characters or character patterns.

I registered for an online Adobe ColdFusion conference in December of this year. I also sent the guys some emails with information so that they could sign-up as well.

Working on the photo gallery loops for the Bear 100 mobile app and website. Pretty deep and crazy loop with tons of custom logic. Finally got it figured out.

Got a new presentation gallery (sales gallery) link from Chuck. Here is the new link: https://news.adilas.biz/sales-gallery/adilas-advert-index.html

John and Sean were on the meeting. I did some checking on bills and payables. Eric jumped on and reported on his sales tax aggregation project. We talked about force adds and logic lines and channels. There are times that we need to make sure that certain things are in place vs giving all of the power over to the users.

John and I talked about how to get the Adobe XD files for fracture up on the content server. We may need to convert them to .zip files.

Discussing with Chuck the new presentation gallery. We talked about a couple of small changes. We went over some payables and then moved into in-line validation and JavaScript validation on some of the existing projects he is working on. After that, we did some training for the parts homepage, sub inventory, and light shopping cart functionality. Chuck is going to be working on a redo (modernize or face lift for the general inventory or parts homepage). We got pretty deep into the differences between parent and child inventory and how things are tracked.

Checking in with John on his projects. It went pretty quick. He and I have been working on other projects and I pretty much know where he is at on most of his projects. After he got done, I switched and worked on a small debug option for a client. They needed a few changes and tweaks to a custom report that showed a 3rd salesperson. By default, we only have 2 salesperson per invoice. They have a custom mix of options including custom add-on's, custom text entries, and flex grid tie-ins.

Alan checked in on his projects. He is somewhat stuck out in black box land (custom code and even dead custom code - clients that have custom code but they don't use the system any more). We made a plan to go in and do some black box clean-up. We will run a query to see if they are still alive and then go from there (do they have any new records in the last 6 months).

Custom fix for Trailer Solutions. Added some new conditional search options for filtering by a 3rd salesperson on a custom report that they have. Also looked into a flex grid filter that they use on the same report. Lots of order of operation stuff (what comes first - filter this or filter that first, second, third, etc.). Pushed up the changes.

Working on the Trailer Solutions custom report. Decided to gut the internal code and do a rewrite of the whole page. I was getting lost (lots of moving pieces). It's a mix between normal invoices stuff, flex grid tie-ins, and custom 3rd salesperson data. Originally, this report was written in 2015 to 2016 by another junior developer. It just needed some loving.

Working on the refund process with Bryan. Talked about rounding error on taxes and going over other taxes, math, and other logic. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the refund process and what is needed. Looking over the duplicate cart logic and how to do refunds. We were sharing code back and forth and working through a possible solution.

Bryan was also talking about expanding the merchant settings table to handle sub functions (virtually permissions per merchant account) such as voids, refunds, pre-auth's, look-ups, and normal sales. Basically, a series of checkboxes that allow you to pick and choose what options you want per merchant account. That way you could tell the system if you wanted to allow certain sub functions of the merchant accounts.

Back on the custom 3rd salesman report for Trailer Solutions.

Back on the custom 3rd salesman report for Trailer Solutions. Finished up the report and did some live testing. Let the client know via email.

Wayne, John, Alan, and Brandon on a server type meeting. Talking about advanced API options, swagger docs, AWS (amazon web services), and other options. Leaning towards AWS options to allow for high functionality and high demand sites and API's. The talks even got into some costing models and other topics.

Wayne was proposing that we see what the primary functionality is and what is needed and then just do that first. Kinda like a trial run and a virtual prototype.

Steve joined us via phone call. Light discussions about traffic and load balancing. Talking about 10,000 instances and what would that take. Performance and reliability in those high traffic sites. Lots of unknowns and questions.

Alan was talking about separating transactional data and the reporting side of things. Figure out which areas need more flexibility and which areas need high availability (load and traffic). Clustering servers and what would that take?

Bring in more people or do an all hands on deck call for our current developers? Talking about options. We were also talking about documentation, questions, contracts, requirements, stats, matrixes, usage, scalability, etc. Still a lot of unknowns... more information will need to keep coming in for us to make better decisions. Another big question is how big do you want to be?

Question from Alan - What about supporting tons of other developers and their API coding languages? Also, are we talking about duplicating all of adilas or just a few specific API sockets and pushing all of the new traffic over there? It goes back to pain points and priorities.

There was also some talks about co-branding things and even creating different entities as needed. These are some of the other options that we are talking about.

Cory joined the meeting earlier and got in on the last half of the server meeting with Alan, John, Wayne, and I. Cory reported on her recent road trip with her mom. Crazy times. After that, Cory and I were catching up on tons of different projects, emails, questions, etc. At the end of the meeting, Cory had some questions for John who was also on the meeting, in the background. He was reporting on servers, updates, versions, and our new developer's box (testing server).

Shannon and I met and finished reading some of the older verbage and origin story (adilas history and overview) from element of time 8089. We were trying to figure out what to help write in the adilas core concepts - origins document. We don't have anything set in stone yet, but doing some planning and brainstorming. See attached for our current progress.

Emails, wrapping up projects, and general to do list stuff. One of the emails was back to Chuck who is providing us with mock-ups for some of the existing pages inside of adilas. See attached for a proposed mock-up for the parts homepage.

Spent the remainder of the time working on the Bear 100 mobile app and mobile first website. Working on the pagination for the photo gallery and the aid station results. Getting close (ish) to being finished with that project. Good stuff.

Steve, Wayne, John, Alan, and Brandon on a meeting to talk about servers, special needs, and how sales tax runs and plays through the mix. Some of these states are really trying to get a tighter grip on the real-time sales tax tracking. They are losing millions. The need is big enough that they, the states, are willing to pay for new software or new development from sales tax revenue.

John was recording some notes. Wayne was asking questions on how deep do they want to go and can we really require some of those things that they are proposing. Wayne was proposing that any POS (point of sale) system could send their transactions to the some entity and we could help them (that entity) control the backend API socket system.

The preferred solution might be to create a separate entity that gets the majority of the load and the traffic. We use adilas and then push to that other entity through an API socket that we create. In computer language, that is called "eating your own dog food" (using and consuming your own API sockets).

Steve was proposing that the state wants to mix what adilas has right now and what eXpo has (a third party solution that does some banking and payment solutions) right now. They are looking for the whole system that works and plays together. Some of the biggest needs are on full inventory tracking, sales tax reports, and other compliance stuff.

Alan was chiming in and giving some ideas. Basically, use any POS system that they want, but you have to play a certain way to handle the state compliance. The state compliance pieces would be virtually mirroring what we are doing inside of adilas and how we do it. Once again, sales tax and inventory tracking are the biggest pains. It comes down to needs, requirements, and scalability (how big/small can you be and how quick).

Small observation - Good mix of ideas and suggestions. Mixing Wayne on backend servers and new tech, Alan on backend development and observations, John on general flow (backside and frontside) and taking notes, Steve stating dreams, sales, and requirements, and Brandon trying to illustrate and help the different people get their point across. Interesting mix.

The cool thing is, adilas already has a ton of these things already built-in. It is exciting to be able to replicate things and then go from there. We don't have to start from scratch... We already have and do a bunch of the things that are needed.

Wayne was proposing a small sample (an MVP - minimal viable product type approach) then see if they like it or don't like it. If they do like it, we could then build it in and deploy it quickly. Basically a foot in the door or experiment type process. As we got deeper into it, there is a whole other side to that to get all of the other supporting pieces that are needed (worlds, corporations, locations, users, permissions, settings, etc.). It is always deeper than you think (cause and effect relationships) once you bring in the supporting pieces and variables.

From Wayne - What is the end report or output that you want? Ok, let's go build that. That gives us a goal and a target. Let's start with that. It could expand from there vs trying to get the whole picture all at once. That's the way that we should be developing software.

From Alan - What if we build them a report from our existing data and system right now? Then, if they like it, we duplicate it and make it scalable.

From Steve and Wayne - What if we show them what we currently have and then ask, what else would you want or need? Pretend that it is the sales tax portion. Basically, give them a good starting point and then let them dream. We could put in some dummy data (or even use real data) and then show them some simulations. We could even show an outside party usage (using API sockets) and how it play into the mix. Let them see what is possible based on existing reports and options (out of the box). That would be pretty cool!

From Steve - Even seeing the possible vision of what we are proposing for scaling for this current project (all of the stuff above) may help us all out, even with our normal adilas stuff. This idea of a separate API socket that sums things up could really be super helpful. Similar to the business intelligence or enterprise level corporation (world or entity) - a common place to hold, store, aggregate, and sum things up (BI - business intelligence stuff). Pretty cool to see where it could go.

Emails, feedback on some questions from the guys, and paying bills.

Emails and then back working on the Bear 100 mobile first site. Building out the final page to show the aid station search results page.

Steve, Danny, Sean, John, and I on the morning meeting. Lots of the guys just touching base. There ended up being a light sales flavor to the meeting. They were talking about some sales, uncovering some new sweet spots with small to medium sized businesses. Steve and Sean were talking about an on-site deployment that they did for a company that does nuts and bolts and other industrial supply stuff.

Steve and Sean spent some time rehashing the system setup and possible angles that we could pursue. They were also talking about merchant processing and how some of that flows. We would like to start referring folks to USAePay for ecommerce and full merchant processing, including EMV chip reader stuff. We have used USAePay for well over a decade and would like to possibly be a reseller and/or a rep for them as a merchant processing.

Steve had us check on a database update for backorders and the backorders homepage. We did that and then started talking about sales tax and some growing needs there.

Cory and Steve catching up on things. Steve was filling Cory in on some new developments with Mike, eXPO, and other things that are going on. After they were done, Cory and I finished up the meeting going over projects that needed help, project management, and quoting. We went over a bunch of options. Here are some of my notes:

- Two big project that might need some help here soon - One of them is dealing with cash drawers, cash management (daily ins and outs), and reports to help manage those pieces. The other big project that is starting to gain momentum is the usage of the sub invoice types (deliver, normal, backorders, ecomm, etc.). We are seeing a need to further breakdown some of our reports and drill-downs based on sub invoice types. It is amazing to me to see how deep certain things need to go. Subs and subs of subs and so on. Very interesting.

- Cory and I were talking about the piggy back type system that we have developed. One client will pay for one thing and then another will step up (virtually) and say, I'll take that to the next level and will fund that project. Meanwhile, our other clients are benefitting from the constant game of piggy back or standing on the other persons shoulders.

- We talked about existing merchant processing options and how a high-level systems administrator needs to help setup and doing any maintenance on those merchant accounts. We would love to push some of those options out to the 3rd party solutions page and let a corp-level administrator take care of those pieces vs a super-high level systems administrator take care of those pieces. Basically, there is a need to give more power and options to the individual corporations vs keeping it all at higher levels.

- Cory needs me to check in with Alan and Eric on some of their projects. We need to get a tighter loop on the communication, progress, hang-ups, etc. - for those bigger project that they are both working on. We need things to get all the way to the finish line. All part of the process and development cycle.

- Cory is going to be upping our development rates to $150/hour. It is just taking more to get things done and we need to cover the costs of what it really takes to do this. Once again, just part of the game.

After the meeting, I was doing emails, texts, and recording notes.

Merging in some files for Dustin. Looking into some new time settings that are needed to automate internal recipe/build actions. Light clean-up on some existing pages for time settings. On a quick GoToMeeting session with Chuck to go over the parts homepage and the differences between parent and child inventory items. We did some drawing and came up with a plan. These new changes don't exist yet, but will be coming on a facelift on the main parts or general inventory items homepage.

Phone call with Alan to follow-up on the ecommerce new cart model project that he has been working on for transitional invoices. He gave me a report and I relayed it over to Cory. I left her a voicemail message and she called me back. We are going to keep watching this project as it has somewhat lost some traction and needs to be pushed across the finish line. I talked with Alan and we'll try to push on it together to help get it done. Deep waters and lots of moving pieces. We've been stuck in black box land (custom code) as well as fringe or outlying cases dealing with recalculating taxes, with tax included, and rolling discounts into the mix after a valid login or customer assignment. Still doing some testing.

Back on the time settings for Steve. He is trying to get the projects and I'm trying to work on them to get them done. We are trying to tag team.

Phone call with Steve going over progress and options. Talking about funding, percentages, options, projects, our team, and how to make everything keep going. That has been the game for the past 20 years. What is the next step? Ok, let's go for it!

Lots of guys on the meeting. Steve and John were talking about servers and a small outage last night. It didn't look like any malicious. They were also talking about how many changes happen month over month. It gets pretty crazy. That is both good and bad. Good, in that we are pushing the ball forward. Bad, in that the landscape is constantly changing and even altering flavors and flow. All part of the game.

After that, I got to show Steve what I was working on for one of his clients. Sean reported that they had a good demo yesterday and the client is going to come on to the system. Steve and Dustin where talking about the cultivation pages and section and what else is needed. Fun to see the progress.

Some of the guys were talking about the whole progress, over years and years. Code, Internet connections, needs, etc. Fun little trip down memory lane.

Having fun talking about history and progression. Dustin and Wayne were swapping stories and even talking about fun old games that they used to play. Lots of learning along the way. Interesting to see how far things have come.

Talking about current servers and monitoring CPU spikes and loads. Checking logs and scripts. Both Wayne and John are doing awesome with the servers. Wayne reported in on converting Application.cfm (in-line or line by line code) pages to Application.cfc (components, methods, and functions - much more versatile). Cory was asking about timelines for projects.

Wayne and John have a new testing environment almost fully setup to help our developers out. That is really cool! We are putting John in charge of the developer box. He can reach out to Wayne as needed. Some of our plan is to keep making it up as we go... :)

Talking about redundancy in the databases and some cool stuff that is coming down the pipeline. Talking about being able to switch out databases, datasources (pointer to the database), and even having multiple datasources and databases per server. At one point, we were calling that project world building or the datasource project.

John was reporting in on the adilas phones project. Cory and Wayne were chiming in. They were coordinating efforts and communication stuff.

Recording notes from today and other notes from clear back on 9/27/21-9/28/21. Trying to catch up. I also got on a GoToMeeting session with Chuck to go over the code and logic for the parts homepage. Chuck is working on a new snow owl theme facelift for the page.

Emails, photos for Marisa (social media stuff), and paying bills. On a GoToMeeting session with Bryan going over pre-authorizations logic and flow for invoices and merchant processing. More emails and tech support stuff. Small code merge and push for Danny on a custom label. Finally back on Steve's projects for elements of time, recipe/builds, and production (manufacturing) type options.

Working on cleaning up the production settings pages. These are custom settings to help with planning, phases, and parent/child inventory while doing production (builds within the system - converting raw products into other products).

Everybody was scrambling this morning, as the servers were down. It appeared to be a routing issue, upstream from us. We had Marisa, Cory, Sean, John, Shari O., and myself on the meeting. We also had Bryan join for a bit. Steve was texting back and forth, and Wayne joined and gave us more information as well.

The whole tech support team was answering emails, text message, and trying to help pass on the information that we had. Great team effort. The sad thing was, we couldn't really control all of the variables. The routing problem was even above the data center or server farm level. We fix code and can tweak a few things, but if the main highway is broken, I don't care how good your vehicle is, it just won't go.

A few small lessons learned... We were trying to send out an email blast, but most of our data was on the primary adilas.biz servers and we couldn't get to it. We did have some older exports of our client list, but it was a few months old. We also updated some files, through FTP, but the caches weren't being updated. Interesting.

As the time progresses, we kept fielding calls, texts, emails, etc. Wayne and John were doing a great job bouncing around and checking all kinds of different maps, up/down internet sites, and even bouncing to different countries to try to access our sites from different IP addresses and access points. Pretty crazy.

Chuck joined the meeting, but we were on hold basically due to the servers and the routing issue. He was on the meeting, just working in the background on his own projects.

Emails, follow-ups, and recording notes

John was checking in on the discount engine and his proposal (mock-ups in Adobe XD). He was showing us some of his queries, math, and logic. It gets pretty deep with no discounts, in-line discounts as a percentage, in-line discounts as a dollar off, and mixed (percentages and dollars off). We spent quite a bit of time on database logic and discount logic and flow. That is almost a mini project, just by itself. We were looking at advanced invoice line item searches, printable invoices, new discount engine code, etc.

Dustin was checking in with Cory and I. They were going over some smaller pieces and doing some follow-ups. Dustin is currently working on some samples and sample packaging code. Sample, in the cultivation and production area are very common. They need to be tracked and monitored, but they aren't really like real inventory (kinda a mix).

Dustin was going over some layout options and changes that he is planning for the sample packaging build section. Lots of crazy gymnastics for the different test types and API socket data (state by state) that we get back. It makes it hard to program things with all of the dynamics.

Cory is going to reach out to clients and see if she can get requirements and screenshots of what the clients are looking for. It is so helpful that she is willing and able to coordinate research and customer needs.

As they were talking about things, the topic switched to sub attributes (child inventory and child or sub attributes) and how deep they needed to go in the new process. Showing and hiding the attributes when needed and making sure that they are there at other times. Pretty dynamic process.

Light talk about code repositories and using bit bucket. Cory was asking for more communication and keeping us posted on changes, timelines, problems, and launch dates. We aren't done yet, but Dustin was asking about the next steps and next projects.

After Dustin left, Cory and I were chatting about clients and some of their needs. Some of our clients are very demanding.

Bryan popped in for a bit. He wasn't quite ready to push up the code that he is working on. We chatted for a bit and then bailed out of the meeting to work on different projects. I went back to some production settings that I'm working on for Steve. Bryan went back to finishing up some code dealing with refunds, voids, and pre-auth's for merchant processing and payment transactions.

Working on new settings for elements of time and incorporating flex attributes for time into the new settings to help with some recipe/build and production stuff. This is part of Steve's project.

Finishing up for the night. Working on some new production settings for Steve. Got everything on the first part of the project (sub letter a) done and pushed up to live servers. Also did some light research to figure out where the next pieces will be going. Making a small game plan.

Danny and John were on the morning meeting. Much quieter today as compared with yesterday. Nothing major going on. I was doing emails and recording notes from past meetings and entries.

Alan was showing Cory and I where he is at with the transition invoices out in ecommerce land as well as the restore to cart functionality inside the main system. He did a demo for us and showed us items with tax included, with discounts, with changes to the cart, etc. He also showed us tiered pricing out in ecommerce, back and forth between the customer facing ecommerce and user facing backend tools. It is looking good.

We went over some light logic and tweaks on the restore transition invoice to cart (inside the secure part of the system). Towards the end, Cory was asking for more communication and even a virtual blow by blow type approach. This has been a long (duration and depth) project and we need to report to the client that wanted it. They have been patiently waiting, as we knew that this one was pretty big with multiple pieces or facets. We are hoping that the whole thing should be wrapped up in 7-10 days. We'll see as there are still some small variables. Anyways, good report.

Cory and I meeting to go over projects. We started by looking up some hours and timecards for a client that had a question about their bill for some custom work that was done. We then looked at a request from a finance company to automate and integrate with their bank for loan type transactions and forms/documentation. This will end up being an API socket wire up job with Trailer Solutions and their financial flow process. We also did some other planning and scheduling for the coming weeks.

Small little work session on the origins of the adilas core concepts. We had a multi-page document of ideas and where we wanted to go. We went through things and cleaned it up and made a really small list of topics for the origins doc. We don't have a lot to show for it today, but we did a lot of cleaning and started into the flavor of what we are trying to do. I also want to go on record that I think that is little project will be fun and has tons of value, if to no one else, it is super valuable to me.

Great little work session between Chuck and I. We were looking at the layout and design changes on the parts homepage. This page already exists inside the system and has for years and years. We are looking at giving it a face lift and revamping it. Chuck had a series of questions prepped and ready for me. We just started in and went question by question. If it was code, we did code and logic. If it was design or choices, we did that. Great little 2-hour work session. Making progress.

Recording notes, doing some clean-up, and going through tons of post-it notes and transferring info into the developer's notebook.

Emails and recording notes for last week. Almost caught up.

Working on the last page of the Bear 100 mobile ready app. It is the aid station search results. There are 13 aid stations along the 100 mile race. This page dynamically pulls in the results and shows the results as a report as the runners come through the different stations. Finished things up and launched the new sites.

Just for fun - here are links to the three different folders. The main one will be the plain "bear100" folder. The other two may be used to show the difference between the old site and the new site. Once again, just for fun...

Main Bear 100 Runner Portal Site - https://data0.adilas.biz/bear100/

Old site since 2015-2021 - https://data0.adilas.biz/bear100Old/

New site as of 10/15/21 - https://data0.adilas.biz/bear100New/

At least for the first little bit, we will be updating all three folders so that we can compare apples to apples (same data, just a different look and feel, and how mobile friendly the site is).

Alan, Steve, and Cory were going over some rounding options out in ecommerce land. Especially dealing with tiered pricing and advanced cases. Just trying to come up with solutions. They were talking about rounding error buckets, maybe going out to 10 decimals (I was voting against that - we are already at 5 decimals), and implementing certain rules for splitting subs and which ones to use. The subject also went deeper into J.I.T. (just in time) special cases and even into talking about mini conversions and getting into that realm.

Steve, Cory, and I talking about projects including hardware integrations. We spent some time talking about the Paypod project and possible options there. I gave the two of them (Steve and Cory) a small demo on the Bear 100 mobile ready app vs the older Bear 100 runner portal (non mobile ready or older code). I showed them how to compare the two based on the different URL's or web paths.

Steve wanted me to book some more time to work on his projects for a clients. We looked at the calendar and add a few more hours. Danny and John joined and had some questions about the auto deploy from the master code branch and how to monitor that per server.

The deeper we go, we keep seeing more and more need for more modern code and technology such as AJAX, jQuery, JavaScript, and other things that make virtual one-pager type interfaces work. We currently have lots of pages and sections that do a linear progression from page to page, with action pages, and form submittal and validation. That works great, but more and more requests and requirements are going to be needing the smaller more agile code options that are available. We have a number of developers who can do that, but often they are on other projects. There is a growing need to update our developers and keep them learning and playing with new code and tech. Maintenance - the ball keeps moving, this is not a static game. We need to keep moving as well.

Steve and Chuck were going over sales, new page updates, virtual facelifts on pages and sections, and other happenings in the adilas world. We then started to look into some new changes for the parts homepage. John joined us and the conversation switched briefly into style guide stuff and making things more and more standard. They were looking at buttons and icon placement (left vs right) and other small style guide options. I'm really glad that we are talking about these things and getting things nailed down so that we present a consistent look and feel.

After those discussions, Chuck and I had almost an hour long work session. He had a number of small to do's and we started into them one by one. We got into some light query tweaks, layout changes, and other pieces. Good little work session.

Emails, tech support, and responding to questions and follow-ups. Recording notes.

Working on dynamic naming and settings for elements of time (time) and recipes (recipe/build) in the adilas quick search. Lots of dynamics and switch-a-roos. Part of a production project that Steve is working on.

Working on projects for Steve's client in the recipe/build, elements of time, and production areas.

Steve, Danny, Dustin, John, Sean, and I were on the meeting. We merged in some code for Danny. John was checking on the auto deploy from master on the servers. Dustin gave us some code through chat for the servers and how the database handles the group by clauses. Steve and Sean were going over some custom data uploads. Small work session.

Server meeting with Cory, John, Wayne, and Brandon. We talked about a custom data extract for Emerald Fields. They wanted some light tweaks to the data that we are pulling for them. We then switched gears and talked about auto deploy from bit bucket to our production servers. The goal is to deploy from master or update the production boxes with master once a day. The script has been working great until bit bucket made some changes to their defaults. We will get it figured out and set it back up again.

We went over some database group by options and global variables. We will make sure all of the main database servers are setup in the same way and open to allow a looser group by criteria or requests. Cory asked for some follow-up on some of the other projects. Still moving forward there.

At the end, just Cory and I were still on the meeting. We got into talking about subs within permissions and how some of the permissions almost need to break into sub levels, dealing with what functions, views, and options each permission allows. Lots of custom needs and almost crazy levels of micro permissions (sub permissions based on functions within a single permission).

Work session with Shannon on some new content for an origins outline and overview for adilas core concepts. Lots of discovery and community involvement to get us where we are at today. See attached for where we are working. Trying to cast a light flavor and hint towards the fable or folk story of "stone soup" and how through sharing, more was accomplished and enjoyed.

Started off doing emails and recording notes from the earlier appointments and meetings. I then switched back over to Steve's projects for some new production, recipe/build, and elements of time code changes.

Future plans for fracture and maybe even before - we will need session values for recipe/builds and elements of time. These are the first new dynamic settings that are not tied directly into the normal corp-wide settings. They are more of a group or page level setting, but still needed to cascade through the quick search, homepages, verbage, links, buttons, error messages, and other places. This is a slight variation from the normal corp-wide settings, but they still play a similar role.

Pushed up some dynamic quick search and dynamic permission name changes (7 updated files). Let Steve know where I was at on the project. The next step is building in code to use time flex attributes to dynamically build recipe/build links if the correct settings are in place.

Coding the link builder for the recipes and production stuff. This is tied into settings for elements of time and using flex attributes to auto generate recipe/build links for production based off of settings and usage of the flex attributes. This is a project for one of Steve's clients.

Pretty slow morning as far as social things and general happenings. I was working on projects for Steve (a recipe link builder for elements of time - production stuff). Both Sean and John were also on the meeting. They checked in and then just worked in the background.

Sean did have a question about sorting the invoice line items based on custom criteria. We talked about some options. The best one that we came up with was a little bit of black box code right at the submit cart to invoice process. This would be totally hidden, but it would do the database insert of the line items and then resort them and record the correct sort order (small update to the line items once entered into the database). The existing invoices already sort all line items by the sort value and then the auto id number. This would just be an automated step to run and manipulate the data behind the scenes. As a side note, there is also a bulk sort tool for invoice line items that already exists as well. This would be incase any manual tweaks or changes would be needed.

John and Chuck started out swapping some code for the responsive tables that Chuck is building. John was going to put that info on the templates and also requested Chuck to put it (the new code snippets) on the adilas docs. Both of those guys are helping out with the virtual style guide that is being built in the adilas docs section.

We got into looking over code and design for the parts and general inventory homepage redo or facelift. It is looking good. Chuck wanted to know if he could copy and paste stuff from that page onto the advanced search page. I told him that it would be similar, but that we couldn't just do a full copy and paste. It is fun to watch how things get built. We spend some time on the first view or report. We then take that same code, where possible, and tweak it out for the next and next and next pages. Kind of a form of code piggy back in a way.

More work on the style guide. Chuck and I went into his code and started working on his list of to do's. Good little work session.

Towards the end of our meeting, Cory and Alan joined for the next meeting. We had Chuck show them what he was working on. It ended up being a half an hour session of questions, answers, demo, feedback, and requests. Good little impromptu meeting to get some feedback and suggestions. Cory wanted to make sure that she was prepped before we launched any of this new code as it may disrupt our existing clients (old habits and not wanting to change). We talked about getting it ready, and then letting our internal team beat it up a bit before going into live production. We also talked about getting a news and update entry as well as a small training video to show some of the new functionality. Great ideas.

Developer check-in meeting. Cory, Alan, John, and I were on the meeting. Alan was reporting on his transition invoices and being able to restore them to the cart. Lots of new changes and what not. He's been on this project for awhile. This was the first time that we got a full demo and were able to run it through the paces. Prior to this, it was mostly backend code changes and such that we couldn't really see. Lots of new changes and functionality.

Sometimes, if you get so deep, you forget how long it took (in the past) to get to where you are. Good reminder of all of the work that you don't even think about because it just flows and you don't even think about it (built-in functions, flow, data validation, and processes).

Cory was asking Alan to keep reporting in and giving her updates. She wants to go in and play with things before we push it up live to the client. She, Cory, has been a great resource for backend development, project management, and also frontend training and interacting with the clients. She is a power user that has been placed in that critical in between place between backend developer, code, projects, and client expectations and wants and needs. Very important.

Alan and John are going to work together to get the new code and pieces up on the new developer testing box here in the next few days.

John reported on the auto deploy code from the master code branch and repository (server stuff). He and Wayne are making some global tweaks to the MySQL servers (database servers). He also reported on some other projects such as the adilas docs, the adilas phones, and the discount engine.

At the end of the meeting, I was showing Cory some of the new recipe link building stuff for Steve's production projects.

Finished up a small portion of the production project and pushed up new code to the servers. Checked in with Steve via text message. Merged in some new code for John and recorded notes from earlier in the morning. After that, back into the recipe to elements of time stuff for production. Working on pulling a list of recipe/builds to populate a drop-down, if they have the correct settings to merge the two (recipes and elements of time).

Looking into a loan origination process for a finance company. They provided us with some general flow and a wish list. Cory and I were going over their specs and requests and making a plan. It will include a password protected area, a simple customer search via name or email (or both). If we don't find a customer, they can add them. If we do, they could verify info and edit information. We talked about some possible image or media/content uploads, server-side validation, database entries, and populating specific forms and then saving them. That's the rough request of what they want.

They can already do this whole process from inside of adilas, but this new process would be somewhat public facing so that their dealers could quickly enter the information and upload the correct pieces to get approval for loans and deals. Custom mini process.

On a GoToMeeting session with Bryan. We were working on some logic between 3rd party solutions and normal merchant processing actions. Previously, all of the merchant processing stuff was done by super high up system admins. This new option allows a corporation or business level admin user to setup merchant processing for a certain company. Once they interact with things on the 3rd party solutions page, it actually fills in the gaps and makes an entry in the normal super high up merchant processing section. That will end up saving time and efforts on our super high up system admin folks. Basically, back and forth editing in a lower accessible spot that still affects the higher level settings.

We then went over some of the code that Bryan has been working on for other merchant processing actions. Each merchant is different, so, he just had to get this new merchant up to speed with a few new things. We went over his normal sale, credit card processing, pre-auth (pre authorization - fill in the actual amount later), refunds, voids, and other stuff.

Pretty quite today. Steve wasn't able to get on the GoToMeeting session. He sent me some texts and we chatted on the phone briefly. Both John and Danny popped in for a bit. I was working on emails, recording notes, and doing a deposit.

New changes for Emerald Fields and their custom data extract project. Wayne and I were adding some new logic to either add or update, based on the records that are in their reporting system (custom extra database). Just for fun, the new logic looks at the history table, pulls a list of invoice numbers that have been modified in a certain date range and then pulls a special combination and extraction query based on only the invoices that have had changes within the rolling date range. Nothing too major, but some new logic on their custom data extraction process.

Shannon and I had a work session on the adilas core concept origins overview document. See attached for where we are at on this little project. Just for fun, and I don't know if it will happen, but I think it would be cool to write a book and help tell the world this adilas origins story. I would love to include the discovery process and journey of how we came up with these adilas core concepts. This wasn't a list of things we started out doing or thinking about. It really was a discovery process and now, almost 20 years later, we can actually put it in writing as far as what we learned, are still learning, and even hope to learn. No one could come up with this on their own. Not to mention the countless prayers, ideas, inspiration, suggestions, requests, requirements, etc. It, the whole adilas project (whole adilas enchilada) is a conglomeration of ideas, concepts, dreams, exploring, and giving it a go (try-storming - like brainstorming but with action and experiments and learning planned into the mix). What a journey!

Finished up the custom data extraction project (my part of it) and sent the file over to Wayne. Small extract, transform, and load into a new reporting database that they wanted. Emailed the guys who are watching and on the project on the client side.

There were five of the guys on talking with Steve when I joined. They were talking about servers and general customer service. I was checking and going through tons of emails. Steve wanted me to help look into a small bug on a digital upload and items import. We looked and looked and looked and finally figured things out. It took almost until 11 am to get it all figured out. It ended up being on the database side and that particular server was just missing a database update.

This meeting was originally scheduled for 10 am, but Steve and I were working on a bug fix. Bryan ended up cancelling his 11 am, so we took that meeting over. Cory and Steve were touching base and following up on different projects, quotes, and billing. After that, Cory and I went over some things. Once Cory left, Steve and I talked over some options, strategies, and plans. Lots of options, just trying to figure out where to go and what to focus on.

Bryan and I didn't end up meeting. We just communicated through some text messages and will meet up Wednesday.

Doing some scheduling for the next couple of months. Planning, emails, follow-up, and recording notes. I got on a phone call with Calvin for about an hour. He has been super busy and doesn't see an end to the projects that he is on. We may have to take some of the projects that we wanted him to do for us and pass those along to others. Great call and good to catch-up a bit.

Working on a client project to help cross tie-in recipe/builds with elements of time for some production stuff. Working on a some projects for Steve and one of his clients.

Danny and Steve were talking sales, leads, and how our website is starting to generate some good leads. One interesting thing from the conversation, some of the new clients had been on the website and basically already decided that they want what we have and then the demos just seal the deal. That is very encouraging. We just need to get the word out.

Lots of other guys touching base and checking in. I told Steve that I had finished the recipe/build look-up for elements of time (production stuff). Towards the end of the meeting, we had some fun and looked over some canyoneering photos from a trip that I (Brandon) went on this past weekend. Just having fun.

Wayne, John, Cory, and I on a server meeting. We started out with going over some of the new processes for Emerald Fields and their custom roll-up database. Basically, they have showed us certain reports that they use and want to use for some of their analytics. We then build them some custom data extracts to populate new database tables with the correct data (basically a virtual roll-up type model). The roll-up takes daily transactions and pulls some other data (table joins) and logic to store the data in a very usable state. This process is called E.T.L. (extract, transform, and load). Basically, some custom aggregated data just for them. It is setup on a schedule and pulls data from date range and then adds or updates the transformed data as needed. The guys at Emerald Fields are then able to have full access to that custom (non live) database.

Cory had some questions about AWS (amazon web services) and what pieces we are building and using. She, Cory, and the others were also talking about adilas phones and some of the flow and logic there. There is some maintenance that is needed.

The value of maintenance and upkeeping code bases and features. We are striving to be proactive vs just fighting fires that are lit under us. Those things tend to get more of a priority (aka pain or need).

Work session with Shannon - going over some ideas and concepts for the origins papers - how did we come up with and/or discover the adilas core concepts. See attached for where we are working. As part of our conversation today, we were talking about chipping away at things, like an arrowhead, one chip at a time. Sometimes, that is the best we can do.

Towards the end, we were doing a little bit of research and I found a number of fun developer notebook entries from clear back to 2010. Here are a couple of them that we were briefly looking over.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=2774 - protecting the core concepts by sharing

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=3681 - huge brainstorming session (from a training event) dealing with the core concepts

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=2279 - brainstorming on core concepts

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=2278 - some analogies about concepts

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=3627 - trying to draw and illustrate some of the concepts

Anyways, a fun session and making progress. One little chip at a time (arrowhead analogy).

Recording notes and getting caught up from the morning meetings. Marisa and Audrey requested some photos from the Bear 100 for some social media. I went through a bunch of pictures and got them a small sample. See attached for some images of a past race. Adilas.biz has been tracking and running the Bear 100 mile race since 2015 (currently 2021).

Back on the recipe/build to elements of time tie-in project for production and scheduling. Looking into PO line item rounding.

Danny was checking in and he wants to do an interview with me in the next couple of days. He already did one with Steve. Just some simple questions to put a video up online for some marketing.

Sean had some questions about formatting things in Excel. We went over a few different options. Most of it was dealing with barcode values and Excel auto trimming certain numbers or removing 0's from the front of the numbers.

John has some ideas and questions about the adilas docs and our colors and style guide stuff. I'm really glad that he is digging in there. Chuck has done the docs and John is using them and giving ideas where they need to be updated, modified, and tweaked. That is awesome. Nothing like getting a user in there using something. You get great feedback and can make it better and better.

I jumped back on the project to check on round errors on PO line items. It's pretty deep. With simple numbers, it doesn't matter much, however, if you get out in to costs with 5 decimals and doing thousands and thousands of quantity per line, it really makes a big difference. Anyways, back on that project and doing some research.

Chuck joined the meeting for a bit. He and John were talking about the adilas style guide and the adilas docs. Good stuff. We then worked on Chuck part number homepage rework project. He has a list of to do items, we were working through those issues and questions. I gave him code samples for some of the things that he was going to work on by himself. Making progress.

Cory, John, Alan, and I on a check-in meeting. Alan is getting ready to deploy and test some new changes on the developer's box (testing server). That is exciting. We also talked about some rounding errors on both PO's and invoices. At some point, you get down to splitting hairs (super small details) and have to deal with multiple decimal points, rounding error, storage and formatting. Not every business needs that much detail, but some of them really do.

Cory and Alan were talking about projects, small teams, and trying to go towards a more agile and scrum type development environment. This would involve sprints, project owners, scrum masters, small teams, user stories, common usage scenarios, daily stand-up meetings, fixing road blocks, and recap and discovery meetings. Good conversation. Alan was mostly leading the charge. Cory is excited to try this different approach.

It's ok if the roles switch around a little bit from sprint to sprint. It will make it more fun. I was drawing illustrations while Alan was explaining things. I'm not a master, but I understand the basics in the flow and concepts of the agile and scrum methodologies. Eventually we got into talking about teams and who could do what and what strengths and weaknesses do each team member have. Alan was going to do some research and report back to us with some more information.

John reported in on the discount engine remake project. He gave us a small demo of what he is working on. Cory brought up year end payroll stuff and we had a conversation about that project. We will most likely get started there in the next couple of weeks. We are approaching year end already (crazy how time flies).

Work session on the parts homepage and the advanced part search remake (facelift) project with Chuck. Working through to do list questions and tasks.

Research on PO line items and rounding. Coming up with a strategy to help affect all of the PO lines items, not just the ones that run through the normal basic or normal advanced add/edit modes. We have to deal with custom, bulk, special recipe/builds (internal build PO's), duplicate PO's, all of the normal ones, Metrc, BioTrack, other state compliance processes, API sockets, etc. It gets pretty deep.

Showing Steve what we are planning with the rounding stuff with the PO line items. I gave them a small demo and showed him some of my research. I lightly pitched some ideas to him for the project.

Going over emails and talking with John about servers and some of the specialty folders for client specific data and custom websites. Wayne would like us to clean those up a bit, as one of his current projects is dealing with some overarching super variables at the application level.

Quite a few of our guys and gals joined to see the demo. Somewhere there was a miscommunication and we had to reschedule. So, while we were all on the meeting, we chatted and talked and a couple people had specific questions for others on the meeting. Pretty casual and just catching up and touching base while we waited. Once it got officially canceled, some of the different parties bailed out and everybody started working on their own projects. Cory had me help her get setup on the developer and testing box. I bridged her over so that she could have access to some of the corporations on the testing box using the testing data.

As a fun side note, Alan deployed a new testing branch yesterday on the developer's box for some testing. We, Eric, John, and I, have another testing branch to test later today on the same box. That is awesome and we hope it will get used, tons and tons for the different projects.

Work session with Shannon. Going over some of the origins story for the adilas core concepts. We worked through a number of paragraphs and started into a small intro to world building. See attached for where we are working.

Eric, John, Cory, and I were working on getting a testing branch up on the developer's box as a testing server. We had to fix some files, do some merging, and try a few things. This is kinda new for us and we weren't super productive, first time on this box. We fixed a few files and resolved some merge conflicts. I ran out of time and John, Cory, and Eric kept going after I bailed out to work with Bryan.

Bryan and I jumped on a Zoom session, as the other guys kept working over the GoToMeeting session. We looked into some code and logic for carts, refunds, and voids. We aren't quite there yet, but getting closer and closer. Testing, comparing pages, and small code tweaks.

Working with John on mapping out the discount fields, values, and flow. All of this already exists, we were just going through existing logic to see what we could do to better capture the data. The goal is to get deeper into the logic and backend logging of what discounts are being applied in a real-time fashion. We currently get the data once it makes it through the cart but it might be nice to get more granular data and what discounts, if any, or if multiple discounts, are applied. It gets a little bit muddy when you get multiple discounts stacked on top of one another. This is totally allowed, but we don't have all of the super deep details yet.

We were working in Excel, looking at real invoices, backend databases, and doing some cross mapping between the different pieces. Good little work session.

Zoom meeting with Danny. It was a small interview type meeting. Danny was asking me questions and I was giving him my answers. He recorded it. Kinda fun.

Recording notes from yesterday and today. Transferring from pen and paper (post-it notes) to digital.

Recording notes from the past couple of days. Just doing a little bit of catch-up.

Looking over code with Bryan. We will be launching it on Monday. That way we have all hands on deck if anything goes wrong. We've done some other launches on Friday afternoon and have struggled to have all of the support staff on call all weekend. His project is looking good. Working with the digitech payment solution. His project also includes normal sales, pre-auth's, refunds, and voids. It is coming along nicely.