A few of the guys were checking in and touching based from the weekend. I helped Sean and Danny on some custom label mappings and some document management stuff. Both of those guys are trying to help with the label stuff. After that, Steve needed an overview on how we integrate some of our code with automated emails (outbound emails based on user actions). We went over the process and did tons of drawing and talking about what happens. Steve will be working with Chuck and I on this project. This is for the gun/firearm registration and RMA (returns) processes.

Meeting with Steve, Cory, and Sean. Going over some new settings, mappings, and changes to the orders homepage. After that, we changed some verbage on the media/content. This included some pricing changes and a discussion on charging more for companies that have us storing tons of media/content files.

John and I met and did some code review and a push to get his new aged payable reports up. The new report have the snow owl data tables that allow for exports and sorting of the different columns. New pages were pushed up to all servers.

Fun side note, as we made a few changes. I coded them on my end and John tried to match the same changes on his end. Instead of just sitting there and letting me make the changes. He was doing the same thing (meaning - he wanted to understand and get things right). Super cool and we got it working on both my local and his local before we did the merge. That is awesome. I wish some of the other guys had that deep desire to keep learning and getting better and better. Sadly, and I fit into this as well, we get lazy and/or complacent.

2/1/2021: Eric fixed code

2/1/2021: See attached document for information.

Cory and I met to go over a custom email report. We detailed out a new report and setup project management, requirements, and scenarios for what we want out of the new report. I was talking, drawing, and explaining things and Cory was recording notes. We then went back through things to make it make sense.

Pushing up code with Bryan. We fixed a couple of small errors in the flex attribute searches - minor tweaks. Bryan is going to look deeper tomorrow as we ran out of time. It is getting better, we still have one known issue for flex attribute numeric search filters. We'll get it all figured out.

Emails, tech support, and looking over payables.

A bunch of the guys on the meeting this morning. They were interacting, touching base, and what not. Light inter-training going on as well. Dustin joined and I helped him do a merge and get rid of some merge conflicts. Steve was pitching some vision of where we are headed as well. Fun to see.

- Talking about some timeout issues - say all of the items at once, or all sales for the year, or all invoice line items per vendor for a time period

- Captcha images - sort of a pain

- Cloudflare - bouncing bad traffic and dealing with caching issues

- Potential 3rd party API traffic and clogging the pipelines

- Timelines for aggregated totals, sums, counts, averages, totals, etc.

- From adilas, our current aggregated report priorities are: 1) Vendor List, 2) Item List, 3) Customers, 4) Sales Data

- As a note, the lists mentioned above will help with data normalization and flow of the data uphill and downhill

- Using the adilas API sockets to pull all of the data and do their own aggregation type totals - Steve Palmer - has some ideas there

- Steve Berkenkotter chimed in and talked about how we have one client who gets all of the data (certain tables) pushed over to a separate server and then they run their data aggregation from that other outside dedicated server. Set it up and push it out daily.

- Once we get some of the aggregation stuff done, it will automatically start going and flowing into enterprise level settings and reports

- Figuring out other possible workarounds to make it happen - within the specified timelines - being creative and pushing and pulling data as needed

- Routing and being creative on the distribution and delivery options that they are coming up with - once again very creative and using some of their own tech guys to build out the solutions - kudos

- Introducing John M. to the Euflora guys - he is local in Denver and is helping Wayne on the servers. Better access to backend tech contacts.

- Talking about servers, resources, monitoring, specs, etc. - allowing our clients to go in and watch and monitor those servers

- Steve B. was talking about some of the new flex attributes for customers. Also sub invoice types for invoices.

- Steve P. is using the invoice history options to help record special customer meta data and delivery options. Creative!

Work session between Shannon and I. We were working more on the internal questionnaire summaries. We are getting closer to the end. We were working on the section about the adilas trust today. That is question 22 of 25 total questions. We have 3 more questions to go. Yeah! See attached for our progress.

2/2/2021: Steve will do this report.

Eric and I jumped on a GoToMeeting session and pushed some code up. We also chatted about his project on the EMV chip reader (merchant processing) project. Making good strides and getting closer.

Meeting with Craig and Steve to go over finances, bills, ideas, and direction. The meeting started out with just Craig and I. We went over a bunch of things and then Steve joined us later on. Craig brought a fun flavor to the meeting. Steve and I have hashed over some of these things so many times, we kinda get jaded or set in our ways. It was nice to have a fresh view and someone who would pose hard or uncomfortable questions. I really enjoyed the meeting.

All of the meeting notes are on Brandon's computer. Here is a small portion of them.

- We need to find the balance point - not running faster than we are able but still pushing it

- We have been spending some monies on certain projects - we really need to get a return. For example: Research on AWS (amazon), R&D for fracture, WanderWays, SEO

- Funding options -  The main 3 are: sales, borrow, investments

- Steve was saying, we have two main choices - steer towards deployment and fully funded projects - sell stuff or pull back and just do what we can - head back into smaller waters - slim down and tighter budgets. As a side note, we even talked about cause and effect if we were to actually gain from a small dip... lose some weight.

- Failure to launch - this is a problem if you never get off the launch pad.

- Picking our battles

- There is need for what we do

- Dealing with charging for our services - $65-100/hour

- Trying to sell a new car but it keeps having issues - makes it hard to sell - people are willing to pay more for certain products if they are reliable

- Fixing the servers - question: do we need more money or what to help make it better. On the positive side, people really use our products and they hit it hard, we really push the servers that we have. It's not like nobody uses it, the opposite is true - people throw everything that they have at them... we still need more.

- Maybe stop development - we need to sell things - harder done than said... - try to switch gears - cross training - maybe change the word or phase sales into networking... connecting the dots - get some more hunters out in the field - swap people around - focus on the deployment and setup process - focus on funded projects - on the dev side

- Being able to say "STOP"

- Learning when to put our foot down - limits and levels

- Selling the current 2021 model

- Switch who we are targeting - trailer dealers, bowling pro shops, etc. - sell what we have to offer

- It's just a $100/hour - managing expectations - sometime people want a perfect number or a nicely wrapped quote or project cost. It's just $100/hour. Otherwise, we lose our shorts.

- We get pulled off on tons of outside distractions - external distractions, custom projects, and outside 3rd party solutions

- The code is splitting - new school, old school, high tech, low tech, etc. scripts, tags, functions, includes, different styles

- Having a real game plan - we really need this - a full plan and then let everybody know about it

- Fracture is a real word - a life style - part of where we live and breath - keep heading in that direction. As far as we can see, things will keep fracturing. Plan on it and build accordingly.

- Like race car driving - we need a good driver, but maybe not the best driver, especially with an attitude, they may need to go

- You can always fill a spot... (even in management) - like a bucket of water, if you put your hand in, then pull it out, it will fill back in - finding that range that fits

- There are multiple battles - in front of us

- Using a talent scout, like my dad - maybe look around at the college (talent just getting out of school) or for people who have the skills - draft

- Find and gather up the low hanging fruit

Working with Cory on different projects. John helped us out with some DNS (domain name server) stuff for the adilas phone tree at the first. Then Cory and I brainstormed on a customer request for a payroll and timecard summary report. They want certain time cards flagged for normal time, over time (OT), holiday time, and sick time. We already do that, but this new request would make us take it to the next level. We were planning out database changes, requirements, ideas, questions that still need to be answered, and other technical stuff for the project.

We may even do some maintenance on the timecard section. The original timecard stuff was created way back in 2004. Crazy how time flies.

Towards the end of the meeting, we had to do a small database update for a client on the data 6 server. Both Cory and John watched as I made the changes.

Code review with John on a some new snow owl data tables for expense/receipts and the main advanced expense search results. The only problem that we came across was trying to pull too many records. Due to pagination, the data tables seem to do really good under a 1,000 records. Once you get above that, it really gets complicated and takes a while for the server to return all of those records. The old way, we built in our own pagination (next page) stuff and it goes much quicker, because it is only returning 50-100 per page vs thousands and thousands at a time. Pros and cons, every way you turn.

On the phone with Calvin going over progress on the web version of the adilas label builder. Touching base and getting a report from him. Making progress.

A few of the guys joined the meeting and checked in on different things. Sean was checking in on some customer service stuff. John was reporting on servers, FTP, and data tables. Eric had some questions dealing with his EMV chip reader project. He is getting closer to handing it off for another developer to test it and add a second pair of eyes to the mix. Spent the rest of the time recording notes from yesterday.

Chuck and I met up to talk about some of the projects that he is working on. Primarily, he is mostly focusing on the new adilas.biz website. He is also wrapping up some other small projects, but most of his efforts are on design and layouts for the main site. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the existing data 0 box and how we are slowly moving pieces and parts off of that server to ease the burdens placed on the data 0 site and server. It is used for all kinds of stuff and often gets somewhat abused by outside entities (hackers) and what not. Trying to keep things safe, moving, and flowing. We talked plans, budgets, and options. Good meeting.

See attached for a number of screenshots of where Chuck is working.

Recording notes and plans. Alan popped in and showed me where he is at on the aggregated vendor lists and cross corp mapping project. We also touched base on a couple of other smaller projects.

2/3/2021: Steve and Sean will import customers.

Eric and I jumped on a GoToMeeting to go over voiding out credit card transactions, deeper merchant processing actions, viewing transaction details, and possible other actions dealing with voiding one or more credit card transitions.

Tons of emails, reading, responding, and cleaning things up.

Paying bills and recording expenses.

Meeting with Bryan on a merchant processing project. Sadly, it is getting kinda ugly. We can still salvage it, but it definitely needs some loving. That happens on some projects. This is an older project that managed to sneak in prior to us really trying to detail things out with the project management. Plus, the client changed their minds multiple times... That always complicates things. We have wasted a lot of time going back and forth and trying to get things nailed down. We talked about checkpoints, plans, project management, and requirements. Towards the end of the meeting, I helped Bryan and we got him hopefully going in the right direction.

Emails and pitching some ideas to the team that is working on the new main adilas website.

Seven people on the meeting this morning. Sean and Steve were going over data uploads and combing customer data before doing uploads. We got into stock/units and setting up specific units. Marisa had some questions and wanted to go in and setup a demo site for motorsports (ATV's, motorcycles, side-by-sides, etc.). We got pretty deep into how the stock/units get setup and managed. Fun, light training session.

Towards the end of the meeting, Steve and I switched gears and looked at some of the code logic that Steve is working on.

Working on project management stuff with Cory. We started out by going over a project that is somewhat off the rails and virtually in the ditch. We are trying hard, and this is an older project, but trying to get control of things. We were touching base on other projects. Eventually, we got into some talks about payroll summary reports and detailing out the project.

Talks between Shannon & Steve about homeschool and crazy times. Lots of options.

Shannon and I were talking about plans and vision for the next little bit... We were going over questionnaires and summaries for plans for the next year, in 5 years, and in 10 years. Lots of talking about vision. See attached for our current progress.

Steve and I talking about levels for charging for tech support, training, and 3rd party API socket settings. We need to figure out where the lines are and how to stick with that.

We need to figure out how to charge for what pieces that we offer and what the clients use. Along with that, we need to charge enough to be fair to us and our clients. Currently, it is very one-sided and the clients get a screaming deal and we struggle from that one-sided balance.

Just some ideas... free tech support (with limits), paid training, paid setup, paid 3rd party integration, paid development, etc. Treat it like an auto body shop... If someone wants something done to their car, they need to pay for it - lift kits, tinted windows, paint jobs, accessories, etc. We just need to figure out where to draw the lines.

Meeting with Cory and Steve - Working on a super deep inventory report. Looking at aggregating quantities and counts, mins and maxes, reorder options, parent attributes, sub attributes, flex attributes (new), core values, build your own reports (point and click), save and name your own report, setting pages (defaults), template and builder processes, and in-line database extensions. Lots of fun topics.

We talked a lot about "core" attributes (existing database columns and fields - core attributes).

We also talked about building, using, and deleting small aggregation tables for current part quantities. Great little work session.

Cultivation issues, timeouts, and micro processes & quantity of records being done at a time.

We then switched over to timeouts, cloud flare issues, compromises, and finding the balance points.

2/5/21: Dustin will work on this. ...will involve a quick addition of code on about 65 different pages

2/5/21:Data dump for corp 581- Euflora - Aurora Gun Club? Client would like this back by 2/10/21.

Wayne and Steve talking about servers. All kinds of stuff like dealing with hackers, SQL injections, FTP, etc. It gets pretty deep.

Lots of talks about triggers and stored procedures - more advanced database and SQL options. We would love to use more and more triggers.

Cory, Steve, and I going over projects and questions. There is some back maintenance stuff that needs to be looked at and updated. We are getting tons and tons of data. We need to optimize things based on usage. We are seeing more and more pressure as things get under bigger and bigger loads (data wise).

Steve and I are getting pulled in so many directions - tons of distractions. We were talking about funding and options. Looking over code. We will get through some of this rough water.

As a side note, Sunday, at church, I heard a story about some guys that were on a fishing trip and ended up helping to save a number of high school kids that got caught in a big storm. The rescuers ended up lashing two canoes together to help rescue the other kids. That is somewhat unconventional but it worked. It may not look pretty but it worked. What can we do, even if a little bit off the cuff, to make things work?

Emails, paying bills, and recording expenses.

Working with Cory and Steve. Looking into aggregating parts and quick part quantities. Lots of ideas and options. Good brainstorming session. We are trying to figure things out.

Helping John with check printing questions. Working with Cory on some 3rd party solution stuff. Emails and other to do list stuff.

Eric was reporting on the EMV chip readers project. He has turned it over to Alan for code review. Wayne joined the meeting and we were talking with him about Cloudflare and object orientation type code. Lots of talks about database optimization and using less IN statements and less SUMs and groupings. We need to make things faster and faster.

We ended up talking about options of caching queries, storing things in memory vs strict database lookups and going to the database for every time the data is needed. There were other talks about being able to archive and stash the data in some way. We got back to the water turning into ice type analogy - (water, slush, snow, ice).

The other thing that we are finding is the flow of the data is the biggest key... data flowing from operations over to accounting. That seems to be the key.

"Only run as fast as you are able." - We need to keep going, but find that pace that is sustainable - slow and steady wins the race.

Russell was showing me some new help file systems stuff that he was working on. Nice little demo. He is trying to make it as easy as he can for the developers in order to control the help file outputs and content. We are looking at adding just in time help options. We are working on setting up the groundwork for these things. We are also dealing with client-side validation.

I asked Russell to help setup some videos and training files for some developer training.

Some times we end up spending time that wasn't planned. Often we are doing things for the first time and that, unplanned time, just happens.

We ended our meeting talking about documentation and the value of that documentation.

Working with Shannon on vision statements and general goals for the next 1 year, 5 years, upto 10 years. See attached for our progress. Here is a list of some of our semi-short term goals that we will be adding to our business plan and vision plan:

Without going into too many details here are some elements that will be included in our plan:

- Keep tweaking on the transactional core

- Move client services more internal to Adilas 

- Expand into other verticals

- Allow for custom code where needed

- Get into aggregated and/or business intelligence (BI) type levels

- Grow the platform into an enterprise level app/system

- Along the way there are plans to do a full re-write under the code name “Fracture”

- Revamp the look and feel - improve user experience 

- Create and facilitate the Adilas Café and community

///////////////////

We also talked about using the key word "core" for different starting spots or base level options. This could be core transactional systems, core database columns or fields, core or main pieces. An example may be something like: Using the word or phase core values vs parent attributes, sub attributes, flex attributes, etc. Hopefully that makes sense.

Prepping things and doing some pioneering. All part of the game.

At the end of the meeting, I ended up pushing up some code for Danny and his custom labels.

Marisa has some questions about EDI (electronic data interchange) and API sockets. We told her that EDI and API's are very similar. EDI was more of a front runner, but most modern apps and systems communicate via API sockets. They are very similar in that it allows computers to talk to one another via electronic communication channels. She and Steve were also talking about other client messaging options besides text and email. Different types of push type notification based on elements of time and/or customer logs that are visible via a valid ecommerce or customer portal login.

Steve, Cory, and I spent the rest of the time going over ideas and brainstorming on aggregate totals, and moving grouped and pre-summed data up the chain. We did a lot of drawing and talked about different ideas. We know that the bottom most level or base of the pyramid is the transactional core or transactional data. We also know, that per world or per corporation, we need to get to the aggregated totals for the P&L (profit and loss statement or income statement) and the balance sheet.

Cory was taking notes... here are some of them that she passed over to me.

- ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) - this is how you work with aggregated data. You extract what you want, change or transform it into what you need, and then re-load or push it into a database in the stored or transformed format. Make it easy to get it back out.

- We have a map (using the existing adilas system from operations into accounting) - we need to follow it backwards. Be able to pull the P&L and balance sheet quickly and pull it in from one single query. Currently, we have to go all over the underlying transactions and data details to pull back the values. It would be so cool if we could aggregate things as needed, based on the current map that exists in the system.

- P&L and BSI reverse mapping? Let's look into it. What if we could start from the top and then work/map going down? Follow the flow of the data. There are many sub pieces that may need to be linked and/or aggregated together before we can pull the hard, fast, numbers - all from one single place.

- As we map things out, we know we need to deliver what they (our clients) want and also try to head in the direction we want to go as well. That can be challenging.

- Different levels of drill-downs. Balance sheet starts at Inventory levels (way up high), not at part categories, vendors, parent items, or sub inventory items (child items). Eventually, we have to be way up high for the P&L and balance sheet info. Then, as the user needs more details and sub information, they will do what is called a drill-down (going deeper into the details).

- Here are the main pieces for a P&L: Revenue, COGS, Gross profit, Expenses, Net profit

- Here are the main pieces for a Balance Sheet: Assets, Liabilities, Equity

- Futuristic goal: run the balance sheet and P&L over time all the way down to the second. Imagine a time lapsed view of your financials. You have to go from transactional data up to fully aggregated totals in order to get those numbers. Let it begin!

- Thinking about data... Am I tied to a corp? Am I tied to a location? What is my date/time stamp? Do I have a main category or grouping? Reports and financials by day are the current goal. Eventually, it could go all the way down to hours, minutes, and seconds. For now, we will focus on a per day basis.

- Think of a pyramid. Top most would be all pieces, all of the sums. Quick sums- held at the top. We want to capture and hold these sums or totals per day. Much less information at the top than at the bottom.

- Value added cores - we had a great discussion about how we want to use a value added core type model to help businesses run on adilas and also ways that we could monetize the different value added cores or levels that get added onto the main transactional core (the adilas system).

- One table with totals for each (top most level): Corp ID, Date, Revenue, COGS, Gross profit, Expenses, Net profit, Balance Sheet, Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Out of balance value (sum). These would be the top most corp or world level aggregation tables. Quick financials and numbers.

- We don't know how deep it goes yet, but imagine one table with totals for each level going down - until you get to the transactional data. Not sure how deep this goes yet? This might take more than one iteration to build and figure things out. For now, just pretend and start back filling as needed.

- We were talking about tracking things up to 4 to 5 levels deep. These are some of the existing pieces (verbage from the system): Destination/main title, main category/main grouping, sub group or sub category, vendors or types. We need to figure out the 4-5 deep path for all major pieces. For example: If recording revenue, it has a certain path. If recording an expense/receipt, it has a certain path. The same thing is true for things like: deposits, user-maintained balance sheet items, system-maintained balance sheet items, basically every piece of the P&L and the balance sheet - they all have specific paths and need to be at that 4-5 levels deep. Even BSI’s are 5 levels deep. Five levels should cover everything (for now).

- Talked about everything being under one database (new aggregated or math sum/count tables). If we feel we have reached capacity, we could always go out to another database (level 4- aggregated sums) or just add more tables. Lots of options. Once again, trying to figure out where the natural lines exists and what could be extra or add-on values.

See attached for some drawings that we were talking about as we were discussing some of these details and ideas.

Working with Russell on a code review. The new project has a number of new enhancements that deal with custom client-side validation, just in time help menus, and ways to get information and training in front of our users. We did some light training based on his new code - he was training me.

We kept going back to the value of documentation and helping people use the things that we are building. If we get people to use our functionality, we get feedback. If it is easy to use and easy to setup, they (our clients) tend to use it more. If we have sufficient documentation and help available, we get less tech support calls.

As part of Russell's project, we'd like him to add some new notes and documentation to the adilas docs section. We had some small conversations about where we want that whole section to go, as far as usability and potential. Good stuff.

New custom parts or item search and export report for a client. Pushed the file up live for the client.

A bunch of the guys joined and checked in on their projects. We went over custom settings, data imports, logic questions, and other stuff. Eric and Steve were having multiple conversations about different topics as well. One of the major ones was about 3rd party solutions and how they sometime stay on the outside and somewhat leach (parasite type behavior) off of the bigger company. They provide a small piece, but charge quite a bit for their services. We have also seen where they are some simple, that if they try to intergrate with a bigger product, they just kill over and die.

As an interesting side note, we know that we are deep and robust (cover things all the way from A to Z along the operations to accounting realm). That same deepness and robustness has actually allowed us to keep surviving. There is a balance, but currently, having enough depth has really helped us out. Our internal goals are dealing with refining those processes and making things easier and easier. Interesting balance.

Another place where we have seen some of the 3rd party solutions fall apart is on their short sightedness. Sometimes they just build something but don't think about the full story or the cause and effect relationships that need to go on.

We will keep taking the next logical steps and trying to go to the next level.

Chuck wasn't feeling good. He popped on for a minute and then we texted and got on a quick phone call. He is hoping to get better and have to report on next week.

Recording notes, emails, and random to do list stuff. Trying to get caught up with some of the reoccurring tasks. Wayne popped in and we talked about servers, domain name records, bindings, and patching up security holes. Wayne and John are doing great and helping to get everything tighter and tighter.

2/10/21: Client will pay for this feature so they can run two licenses in one corp

Recording notes and doing emails.

Bryan and I were working on some of the dynamic filters and values for searching customers based on the new flex attributes. The code was already released, a couple of days ago. This was a deeper dive and adding in some more dynamics to help the reports with refining the search and being able to save the custom report settings. Good work session. We pushed the code up at the end of the session.

Merging and launching some code for Eric and some 3rd party solution changes dealing with wholesale with excise taxes. There was a good discussion about using AJAX (asynchronous javascript and XML) to push/pull data without getting in to server-side timeouts of web/browser timeouts. Basically, using AJAX, you can shift the load from the browser and the server to primarily just the server. The browser becomes a communication channel and has virtual placeholders that get altered based on the JavaScript side of the AJAX calls. It is a way to make bigger lifts seem easier, by spreading out the load and making the browser (web stuff) think that it is done, while the server is technically still working and processing the request. Lots of possibilities there.

John was reporting on servers and some new bug and slow query tracking that he and Wayne are doing. They are also getting together a list of known issues and will be sending those out for the developers to work on and/or fix. Great progress. Still slow, but making progress. We also had a number of talks about the pros and cons of Cloudflare. It has been both a blessing and a curse. It does speed things up and it does protect things (like a shield), but man have we had major kickback from the clients - especially due to timeout errors and required captcha images to verify that humans are doing the work vs bots or machines. Anyways, that battle still looms.

Project management with Cory. Working on some document management and doing a project to pull document data based on other stored database values vs pulling data from a single source. This is getting into one-to-many relationships between documents, assignments, and multiple locations needing separate settings within a single environment. Once again, deeper one-to-many relationships.

We almost finished with the project document. We just need to do another small 15-30 minute clean-up and then we can assign that project out to a developer.

Shannon and I met up to work on more questionnaire summaries. We are working on the section of where does Adilas want to be in the next 1 year, 5 years, and in 10 years. We finished that section and uploaded the changes. See attached if you wish to follow along.

As part of our meeting, Shannon and I did a small recap of where we are and what decisions and pressures we are facing. We get pressure from every conceivable direction and from every corner of our world. It is always in a constant mixing and turning of sorts. The ground we stand on is moving and morphing every day, every minute. It really helped me to express (vent) on a few things and Shannon was a great listener. No one is really in the wrong, we just have a number of cooks in the kitchen and each one has opinions and ideas. We for sure, all of us, need one and other. No one person could do this alone. No one!

The empowering feeling of getting organized. That really helps. It also helps to boil things down from too many to count, to a small list of goals and priorities. I'm really happy about the progress that Shannon and I are making on doing prep work for the adilas business and vision plan. Good stuff.

Zoom session with Calvin. We went over the progress on the adilas label builder and where it is at in the development stages. I took a couple of screenshots, but mostly we just talked and touched base on where things are at. We also briefly talked about other possible projects that might be coming down the road. Calvin may be interested in some of those projects. We'll talk as we get things done and setup priorities and figure out funding for those projects. I honestly can't see an end to the list of projects. It just keeps going and going.

Recording notes and doing emails.

Cory, Steve, and I on meeting to talk about aggregation and next steps. I reported in on a number of projects. We were doing some drawing and talking about sales tax aggregation, inventory counts and aggregation there, also sales data. We want to setup a process to do all of these sub processes. As part of the meeting, we were talking about how Eric has already done some of this kind of stuff for a client that he used to work with. We got him in on the meeting and pitched a small project his way. He will be making a small road map/plan and then presenting it back to us. Great little meeting.

After that, Steve and Eric bailed out and just Cory and I were on the meeting. We jumped into a project and doing some planning and documentation for the multiple location license project for the Texas 130U PDF and form. We finished up the doc and then moved on to some other projects. We are trying to stay ahead of the game and get some of these projects planned out so that our guys can get in there and jump on it without having to guess so much. That's why it is called project management. Yee haw!

Working on ecommerce pages and adding in cfqueryparams to help with cross-site scripting and SQL injections.

Paying bills

Looking over some security stuff with Steve, John, and Eric. We were looking at cfqueryparams (Adobe ColdFusion Query Parameters). We also got into a custom report and looking at an update page with Steve for sub inventory attributes. This is a special date specific clean-up page for a client (bulk tool for sub inventory attributes).

Great talk with Steve and Eric on aggregated data, data warehousing, data marts, star schemas, and other data warehousing topics. ETL (extract, transform, load) - what is the plan and when and how do we do our actions and transactions. We got into data stewardship, overhead costs, internal cots, and other deeper topics. Fun stuff.

Cory had some questions on an existing inventory engine and data count and threshold report. We found that one of our clients had exceeded the max limit for how much data to store in these settings. We may need to go in and revamp the code to skip things and/or better manage the available assets. The solution may be removing or making the stored settings be conditional and only hold a real value vs hold everything for a specific corporation.

Marisa had some mass email questions. We talked about how to bulk email out of adilas and what options are available. Mail Chimp is not really working, she was thinking of creating a template and a select to email in bulk. We talked quite a bit about mail servers and how sometimes email application flag emails that have been created via scripting programs.

Towards the end of the call, John checked in and had some questions about an email that was going to be sent out to certain clients to allow them to virtually monitor their dedicated boxes via Nagios and other analytical reports.

2/15/21: Project for John, Steve and Dustin

Emails, paying bills, and recording expenses.

Steve and I had a meeting about funding, options, and direction. It sure costs a lot to have a great team on board. We were just talking about options, solutions, and other decision type stuff. Sometimes I wish it was all easy and straightforward but it gets deep and complicated, quickly...

Steve and I were counting servers, doing rough budgets, talking about the different ways we are being pulled in... This is a double edged sword, if no one was pulling us in any other directions, that would be scary (nobody wants what you are doing). However, the opposite is true as well, if everybody is pulling you in different directions, you have to make some decisions and set some rules and priorities. It's a good problem to have, but it still doesn't make it fun or comfortable.

Cory joined Steve and I in a discussion about budgets, goals, and decisions. We talked about finances and flipping things over to being bunded by an outside investor/client. That sure would help to take off some of the pressure that we feel.

Switching modes, we started looking into some small bug fixes that were needed. We started making some changes and applying the correct fixes.

Small side note, our stuff is so configurable, it make it hard to follow a standard format - that is really awesome in some ways, but it also adds a whole other level of complexity. At times, it would be nice to have just one standard edition vs tons of custom editions. Both are possible, but it may take some standardization base on the industry standards and industry needs. That's where we are heading.

Bryan joined and then worked with Steve on a custom gram tracker for ecommerce. We got a report that it was having some issues, we went and looked at it and had to remove some logic that was looking to the item description for a multiplier type value. It was way too broad. Steve and Bryan will work on that project later on together.

We then switched over to a project that deals with a 3rd party payment solution process and how it works for an internal shopping cart. Helping to move that project beyond the scratch level and into real code. We also switched to a different project that was dealing with stock/units, selling stock/units, and showing correct paperwork and documents. After that, we switched to one other project that was dealing with email filters and a new report that showed specific email addresses, regardless if the emails were stored on the main customer/client record or on additional or sub contacts for the customer/client.

Bryan has lots of projects that are in different phases of completion. Trying to touch base on a few of them.

Steve, Danny, and John were on the meeting going over projects. Some of the other guys checked in, we merged some code, pushed up some labels, and talked about servers. John and Steve were going over some server monitoring and ways to allow our clients to see what was going on. John and Wayne are setting up Nagios (server monitoring software) for our clients, with limited views to their dedicated boxes.

Steve then had some questions about sending out customer emails and prepping pages and code to help with that process.

Towards the end of the meeting, if was just Steve, John, and I still on. Steve wanted to know what he could do to help with some of the upcoming projects. We talked about it and basically gave him full permission to be creative and use his "style". Basically, a version of "be your own style" for specifically for Steve. He has been in this game with us since the get go, in reality, it was Steve's ideas that got this thing started. We were trying to empower him to keep going and keep inventing, pushing, proposing, and building. That's the Steve style. Good stuff.

As a side note, I (or we) tend to get bogged down and eventually don't know where to go or what to do. That happens to almost everybody. Sometime all we need is some one to help us see that we can still move and then all of the sudden, we get ourselves out of the mess, mix, or whatever. Once you feel like you can move, or someone enables you to be able to move, you have room and can get going again. Interesting. Also, super fun to encourage people to take that initiative and go for it. There is plenty of room and there will still be time to fix some of the other looming piece out there. Keep going!

Talking with Russell about politics and being involved. Russell loves that kind of stuff and has a number of strong opinions with regards to certain things. That is a form of passion and determination. As part of this discussion, we were talking about being careful where and how you say certain things. We swapped a few stories back and forth - good and bad.

We then jumped into a code review of the new tool tips, navigation changes, header and footer changes, and general security stuff.

See attached for our progress on the internal questionnaire summaries. We are finished with 24 our of 25 questions. Yeah!

Today's topic was dealing with individual team goals in the 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year ranges. It sure was fun to read what some of the team members are doing, are planning on doing, and someday hope to be doing. Great stuff. Lots of individuals working together to bring out good stuff. I'm excited to be a part of it.

From 3/16/21 to 9/13/21: $21,595

As of  3/15: $2350

2/15/2021: Eric is taking on this project for Mike

Recording and paying bills

Code sign-off with Russell. We had to do some back and forth dancing to fix numerous merge conflicts and such. His code branch was older and so it took a few hours to get everything up to date and good to go. Russell and I were chatting while we were working. All kinds of random topics.

Talking with Steve about simple part counts and baby aggregation tables. Making a plan for how to play through the next couple of levels. Sometimes, we can only see so far ahead. We have to do what we know and then reevaluate the next steps.

We spent some time talking about the pros and cons of database triggers. Eric was making some great comments. Yes, the triggers do fire whenever a table is hit or modified, but they are also totally hidden pieces of the business logic. We talked about ways of creating our own triggers that are more visible and in full view.

We also got into some discussions about selling what we have and our interactions with different 3rd party discussions. So, when dealing with the 3rd party solutions, we get the best bang for the buck if we can tell you when something happens and they you record it. If not, they (the 3rd parties) keep asking (traffic back and forth) for data - push technology vs get or pull requests. The ideal is make it all activity based.

One of our biggest problems is that our clients don't even know what is built, available, and even already included in their monthly fees. Somehow letting our clients know what we have. That would be awesome.

Chuck checked in. He has been sick but showed a bunch of us some of his progress on the new main adilas.biz website. He is making progress and we got a fun sneak peek and review. Looking good.

Wayne joined the meeting and we talked quite a bit about database stuff. We talked about moving all new tables into the InnoDB database engine (for MySQL databases). We are currently using the MyISAM database engine for most of our tables. Wayne and John are on a project to consolidate some of the bigger tables to help with that transition. We went over database transactions and allowing for roll-back if needed. We also looked at database updates, monitoring, and seeing database loads per server and number of queries per second. It is amazing to see what really goes on when our clients are rocking and rolling (normal day-to-day activity).

We talked about transitioning all of the system-wide permission checks into the newer session based permission stuff. We spend a lot of time checking different permissions. We may end up doing a small project to get some of those calls all cleaned up. We can do it, it is just a big project covering multiple (thousands) pages.

Wayne and I were also talking about performance tuning, query analytics, impact reports, and other tweaks that could be made. We also got into some deployment options, git deploy tools, and coordinating transactions and tasks between Wayne and John. Good progress!

Emails, checking on bills, and merging in code for other developers.

8/20/21: 58.66

Total john hours: 33,208 (doesn't include Brandon)

7/25/21: 16.83

6/18/21: 28.6 hr
6/9: 13.83

5/27/21: 42.6

5/12/21: 17.72

5/7/21: 71.85

4/14: 67.28

4/8/21: 65.49

3/18/21: 5.98

2/23/21: 1.31
2/17/21: Already paid for by client. Will include Holiday Time

Recording notes into the developer's notebook from post-it notes that were scribbled at the time of the appointments.

Small work session with Cory. We were looking into a reported bug with a thing called the inventory engine and threshold settings. As we were going through it, we decided to just fix it right there vs assigning it out to another developer. We got it all fixed and pushed it up to the servers.

Working on a couple of different projects with Bryan. We pushed up some code, reviewed some code on projects and it it up to live servers. The three main projects that we were working on were: custom printable invoices, customer all emails reports and filters, and the document management stuff for the Texas 130U (trailer paperwork) and getting that project prepped and ready for a setting bypass to allow the system to dynamically look things up vs using an existing setting (making it more dynamic if the client needed it). Getting into multiple one-to-many relationships.

Looking over the advanced part search report and page logic. We are wanting to speed that report up. It's thousands of lines long. I was going through it and boiling it down to simple lines of text to explain what we were doing on the project. Steve wanted me to look into it. I got about 3/4 of the way done and then got pulled off on other projects.

Eric jumped on and wanted some help with an aggregated sales tax project that he is looking into. I was doing a lot of drawings and explaining both current functionality and where we are hoping that it will go. We are trying to fill in the gap between transactional systems and fully aggregated systems (quick sums, counts, averages, totals, and speedy consolidated numbers and values). Eventually, we are headed towards more business intelligence (BI) type models. Everything seems to be leading towards that direction.

Merged code in for Dustin. Pushed up new code. Meeting with Steve, Dustin, John, and I to go over cultivation generation 4 (Gen 4) level changes. I took a bunch of notes and put them on a separate page. See attached for some of the notes.

Working on the last question from the internal questionnaire and working on summaries. We are making progress. See attached.

Email stuff

Steve and Cory joined the meeting. We were looking into some bug fixes for Metrc API socket calls. It wasn't our fault, so we worked on building out the error handling better to show where the failure took place on the Metrc side of things.

As a side note, some of these systems that just get super hammered and used all the time. There tends to be problems with load capacity, high availability, and other load based things. We are dealing with the same things. The solutions work great up to a point, but then you can just crush things if it get too heavy or too demanding.

We spent most of the time working on the error handling, project management, and planning for a payroll and timecard project. The payroll project is dealing with flagging timecards, and being able to record and store holiday pay, sick pay, and overtime pay.

See attached for a 2.5 minute demo of the Beaver Mountain Ski School - custom scheduling app that they use for booking their ski school lessons. It uses adilas and elements of time and flex grid.

Here is a link to some other ideas for setting up the templates for both horizontal views and vertical views for elements of time.

discuss table design for an aggregated data table for cultivation.

Touching base with Danny on things. John and Dustin joined the meeting and we went over some of the new tables that they are wanting to add for the cultivation project. Going over scenarios and use cases.

Going over elements of time and the ins and outs of the developer's notebook. We made a recording and I have it stored on my local drive. It's a 40 minute overview, going over files, folders, code, validation, and database interactions. We are planning on moving the developer's notebook over to a different server so that it has a limited impact on the rest of the main servers.

Emails and checking on bills

Helping Bryan over a GoToMeeting session with a payment process and some of the logic tree stuff. Lots of order of operations type questions and placement stuff.

On a Zoom session with Calvin. He was showing me the web version of the adilas label builder and the progress that we are making there. I authorized him to keep going, as we are getting close on our first round budget numbers. We really want it, but it is not quite ready for use. It still has a ways to go, but making progress. Looking good.

I was having problems pushing up a video for John. I kept getting FTP errors. I got some FTP log files and sent them to both Wayne and John. Trying to figure out what was going on.

Working with Cory on projects. We went over some questions and talking about reverse taxes and settings with tax included. We also talked about using some of these reverse tax processes with exclusions based on customer types. It gets pretty deep, what is required.

We covered other projects such as core value defaults on parent items, default part status (active or subs only), settings for show/hide on the web, and detailing out what is needed for each project.

Looked into another custom report and a small update/fix that is needed to pull in new values. This report is from a finance company (loans) and how they are using the adilas software package. They create invoices with all kinds of loan info for their clients. These reports pull certain values, do some crazy math, and then show the values on this custom report. Deep and a mix between customer info, sub customer info, locations, invoices, custom or unlimited line items, and flex grid tie-ins. Quite a mix.

When I got on the meeting both Steve and Sean were working on a client's books and getting things to balance (backend accounting dealing with stock/units, outside repairs, and correct costing). Fun to watch them work. Like detectives looking for clues and mismatches.

Steve and I were talking about different clean-up processes, last modified records, and harnessing user clicks as a virtual assistant to help with clean-up and aggregation processes. Cool concept. We also talked quite a bit about how deep things get. There are so many moving pieces. It gets tough to keep track of everything.

As part of our conversation, we talked about simple implementations and going beyond that super simple level. As soon as you add in multiple levels, permissions, settings, sub locations, sub phases, sub inventory, and full backend and frontend accounting and operations - you have to go beyond the super simple, it just breaks down, if it's not deep enough. That seems to be the water that we swim in.

Just for kicks, once Steve left the meeting, Sean and John were still in there. We ended up talking about how cool it would be if the system could help you know where things were wrong or possible problems. Imagine how cool it would be if the system could tell you, things are off or out of whack here and there. That would be super cool!

Recording notes from the past couple of days.

Shannon and I worked on the internal questionnaire summaries. We actually finished the first round of all 25 summaries today. See attached for a document with all of the individual comments and feedback, as well as another upload with just the main 25 questions and the summaries. We will go over it again to make sure all is well, but we are excited to be making progress. Good stuff.

This is an invoice due date project. It is a prep step to get a corp-wide header that could go from server to server to help prompt for overdue payments. Basically, a way to speed up the adilas receivables or A/R accounts. Once the invoice due date feature is in place, we can then figure out the aging of how old an invoice is, regardless of payment history. Once again, this is a prep step for a bigger project, but much needed.

Russell and Brandon started the project back in December of 2017. Due to craziness, it got almost finished and then mothballed. We (both Brandon and Russell) picked it back up on 2/23/21. Project turned over to Bryan on 5/17/22. See media/content for a 26-minute video overview of the project.

This is a project to help with odds and ends and small clean-up stuff. Small tweaks, improvements, and projects that don't fit into a bigger project. Authorized by Brandon on 2/23/21. The guys needed a time id to book their time for general clean-up stuff.

Recording notes from yesterday and other clean-up stuff.

Met with Russell over a Zoom session. We merged in a small code change and push it to all servers. The new change was dealing with Russell's page specific settings and help files.

After that, Russell and I got back on an older project that we started at the end of 2017 called the invoice due date project. We found a bunch of old notes, documentation, code branches, etc. We spent the rest of the time prepping and gathering up files, changes, assets, notes, etc. What a blast from the past. The end goal is a special part of the standard header that will prompt a client if they are getting way out there on due invoices. We need to get the invoice due date project done before we can check to see how much an invoice is over due.

Prep work and code review with Bryan on his payment solution for Unified Buying Group Canada (UBGcanada) and Elavon payment solutions. We didn't quite finish, but we prepped a bunch of files and started to cascade some database changes between all of the servers. We will hit it again tomorrow to make more progress.

A client and her team came on to show us an issue with the custom child attribute (sub attribute) plant phase tool report. I took some notes, and they showed us what was going on. I did record a small section of the cycle that they went through.

As some side notes, they were hauling... they didn't check certain things and skipping as many steps as possible. Interesting to watch. They want everything to be automated, fully mapped out, standardized, and 100% fool proof. Pretty tall order. We'll see what we can do. Steve and booked some time for tomorrow to look into things.

Chuck joined the meeting and gave me a report on where he is at with the new website project. It is looking good. He and Marisa are building out content, designing templates, and even looking into mobile type options. I'm happy with where things are going. Some of it, I'm going to leave up to Danny, Marisa, and Chuck to figure out (their little team). It's got a good flavor already. I'm excited to see what they come up with.

After Chuck left, I did some emails, tech support, and watching a video recording from this morning's meeting.

Alan was scheduled but he didn't end up needing any help. In the meantime, Bryan and I were pushing up new code, resolving merge conflicts, and working on other projects. Towards the end, we got into a custom retail report for Canada. We were trying to figure out why it worked for one client and not another. Bryan is going to look deeper and try to rework part of the report. We'll go from there.

Zoom meeting with Calvin going over setting up a fake or simulated content server on his local environment for the adilas label builders project. After that, I ended up on the phone with Eric talking about funding, funded projects, code review and code reviewers, and other project management type tasks. Calvin called a couple more times as well, quick questions and answers. Trying to help automate things where possible.

Recording notes and doing emails.

Going through a bunch of the shop or ecommerce queries and adding a thing called cfqueryparams (adobe coldfusion scoped query parameters) to  help limit the scope and XSS (cross site scripting) stuff. Trying to make some of those pieces more secure. Great little work session. I hardly ever get 3 hours of straight working on projects these days. That was awesome!

A bunch of the guys checked in this morning. We did a quick merge for Danny and some custom PDF labels. After that, we had fun doing a quick trip down memory lane and talking about some of the old reps and adilas consultants. Some of them were pretty awesome. It would be cool to see where they are and what they are doing now.

Some of the other guys left to work on their own projects. I showed John what I have been working on as far as security upgrades and new validation stuff. We also talked about query params and how those work.

Research and checking on a custom page report for Steve and a client. I watched a video of what they were trying to do, took a bunch of notes, and started looking over the existing code in question. Ended up making a small switch between an ending date and a starting date, sent out some emails and pushed up the changes.

Testing new code changes and recording expenses.

Spent an hour working on the payroll and timeclock pages and reports. Working on the project management and planning for the project. We were going over new database changes, pages to hit and modify and other requirements for the project. Cory was recording and writing down notes while I was talking and giving instructions.

Working with Bryan on multiple projects. We merged and pushed up 3 or 4 smaller projects. Wide range from custom verbage and database updates, to custom reports, to improvements on a chip reader payment solution. All over the place.