Ten people on the sales meeting this morning. I was going to present a little bit on our triple play plan and show the sales folks some numbers and costs. I was planning on taking about 15 minutes. I ended up presenting for the full hour and we went over all kinds of things. We bounced between Adilas (the site), spreadsheets, graphics, word documents, and lots of conversation and drawing. Marisa was taking some notes and we had some good participation. I think that it caught a bunch of the guys and gals a little bit off guard. We went over real numbers, revenue, bad debt, expenses, servers, people costs, etc. I felt pretty good about it, but I'm not sure how it was taken or received. I got some good participation from some but some of them were completely quiet. Fun but interesting meeting.

Anyways, the triple play is a current cost increase across the board (step 1). All new sales will be trying to recoup a cost of at least $2,000 as an acquisition cost. This will include a one-time setup fee, a number of hours (between 10 and 20) for training and setup, and any other special fees or 3rd party solution covers. That is step 2, dealing with new sales. The step 3 part of our triple play is a refinement of direction and even some trimming (cutting with a purpose). Anyways, most of the meeting was explaining and getting buy in on the plan. We did lots of drawings, questions, looking at numbers, projections, graphs, etc.

John pitched a small proposal on state withholdings and payroll stuff. Wayne was going over some of his settings and corp-wide settings stuff. He is making progress on that project. Cory was asking some questions and getting some clarification. Wayne was asking about some server bugs and seeing who could help. He will be sending some info out to me on those bugs. To end the server meeting, we were looking at some costs on servers and what not. Busy meeting.

Good meeting with the Euflora and FlyHi folks. Lots of talk about photos, image quality, and inventory needs and wants. Steve and Cory were pitching the global item catalog and talking about options for master lists, global catalogs, and preset lists. See the attached notes for more details.

Quotes with Steve and Cory. They wanted to get Euflora some quotes and possible numbers. Just for fun, if we end up doing a sprint or multiple sprints on some of the those projects, we could even invite them (some from the Euflora team) to our daily standup meetings. We just need to figure out who is going to be paying for what and who is going to be calling the shots. We want input, but we don't want a full takeover (meaning the sprints and standup meetings). Just some ideas.

Steve B. wanted to make a pitch while the iron is hot. It is amazing how much pain motivates change and action. We also thought that we could pitch our team as a resource. Instead of just a couple of the developers, we have a full-blown team that works and plays together. That is awesome and is a huge value.

Meeting with Cory and Eric to push on some of the sales tax aggregate code and project. Eric and I were working together and got some stuff merged in and tested on data 0. The rest of the servers will get their changes early tomorrow morning. Eric was super happy to get it all launched and up and running. More testing to come, but making progress.

Lots of different things going on. I met with Chuck and we went over some design questions. We also talked about possible options for using a small claims court, if we can't collect on certain clients and deals that end up in bad debt (uncollectable monies). We have some clients that owe us a lot of money. It is creating a cash flow shortage. Brief conversations about all kinds of stuff. Chuck also gave me some feedback on some of our meetings earlier today. Busy times.

Some of the other topics were style guides, colors, and style choices. Just for fun - I asked Chuck if he wanted or needed anything else from me - he said, how about paid nap time. It made me laugh and I told him that I would at least record it... even if I can promise to fulfil that request.

After Chuck left, I spent some time and did some research on payments made to the guys and gals. Trying to get budget number in place and all figured out. Having adilas and using our own system, we can get to those underlying details and values very easily. I'm super grateful that we use adilas to run adilas.

The last task for this block was a custom data export with parent attributes, photo link paths, and web long descriptions. This was specific for a client. After I was done, I sent an email to Cory with time spent and hours that need to be billed.

Reviewing notes from today and yesterday. Busy times and lots going on. Working on emails and trying to stay caught up.

Danny and Eric talking about PDF labels. Printing and controlling hardware is tough over the web. Lots of talk about possible settings and allowing users to either interact or manage settings to get the desired outcome. There was also some talks about specifying certain hardware and then fully supporting it. Currently, bigger decisions than we want to make or commit to. In the meantime, we talked about some options and possible hacks (quick solutions) that could help advance the ball and help us know where problems reside.

We already have one, but it needs to be refined and tweaked out a bit, but we need a full dynamic web-based label builder app. Calvin has built us one, but we haven't had the time to get in there and tweak things around like we want them. It works, it just needs a little bit more loving.

Reviewing code with John on some small state payroll updates. John is working on new state withholding calculations for the state of Massachusetts.

Eric and I were going over a customer automation process for a client. Eric is working on a custom (client funded) project for a trailer dealership and their needs. 

Chuck and John talking about CSS and fluid containers. Going over the bulk cart discounts and cart payment pages. Chuck is reworking some of these pages. We are trying to keep track of who is doing what project and/or feature. Lots of moving pieces.

Two different phone calls. One with Steve and one with Danny. On the phone with Steve for about 45 minutes. Making plans and talking about possible options. The other call was with Danny for about half an hour. We talked about some of the industries that we deal with and options and personalities of different people that we work with and/or have dealings with. Danny is looking to change things up a bit and doesn't want to work with the cannabis clients. He would also like to turn the custom labels over to John or Steve or Dustin, if possible.

As Danny and I were talking - he mentioned a story about a kid who wanted to be good at a sport but wasn't into doing weights (lifting weights) in the off season. As the guy grew up, he saw the benefit of spending time in the weight room. Anyways, the story goes on to talk about how sometimes we can't see what is going on at the time. Instead of a weight room, he was saying that God puts us in the "wait room" (patience, spending time, and hopefully learning while we wait). Sometimes we can't see the advantage of the "wait room" until later on. I liked the story, good stuff.

Working on emails. Bryan joined the meeting and we started looking into code. We also talked about finances and options.

Numerous phone calls this afternoon. Called Cory, Eric, John, and Alan. Touching base and making sure that everybody knows what is going on with out triple play (plan). We also went over budgets, sales, and where we need to trim and focus our efforts.

Steve and Sean talking about sales and strategies. The two of them are working and coordinating some of the boots on the ground efforts (people out talking about adilas to potential clients). After that, Steve was asking John some questions and what not. I was doing emails and writing up a small summary and bulleted list of our current plans for all of our team members. Trying to make sure that everybody knows what is going on, so that we can work as a team.

Chuck joined the meeting. He and John were helping Steve with some CSS and styling issues on Steve's gram controller stuff. Once they were finished, Chuck and I did a small work session. He had a list of to do items on the pages that he is working on. We went through the to do list items and got things figured out. He is close to having a number of pages ready for code review and to be pushed up into the master code branch. Good stuff.

After John and Chuck left, it was just Steve and I on the meeting. We spent a little bit of time talking about plans, ROI, changes in production code, scheduling, global item catalogs, and other upcoming projects. We also talked about sales and how we need to shift our focus to sales a bit more. See a need, fill a need. We talked about just going for it vs sitting back and waiting (or not doing anything at all). We will be pushing on some small facelifts and skin-deep changes here in the next little while. We have a ton of functionality. We just need our product to look more like what it is capable of doing. We are heading in that direction.

I sent out an email to the main team players with some overviews and reminders of what our current plans are. The email included some notes on our triple play - current price increase, future sales goals, and light trimming internally. It also included a rough draft of the new non-compete document that we are trying to get put in place. Other topics on the email included options for investment, repayment, terms, and ideas if we didn't have any projects for the guys to do. We have tons of work, we just need to make sure that they, the projects, fall into one of three categories. They are client funded projects (paid for by a client), system maintenance, or ROI projects. After that, I made a couple of phone calls and follow-ups.

Working on some banking stuff inside of adilas. Looking into some possible code merges for Chuck. Making a back-up of my local adilas files. Got together with Bryan and helped him merge some code and pushed it up to all servers. It was dealing with voiding pre auth's for merchant processing.

Checking and merging in some new code for Chuck. He passed me over new code for the internal cart checkout page, add payment page, choose location page for transfers, and the bulk discount page for the internal shopping cart. After that, I spent some time recording notes and moving pen and paper scribbles into digital records.

Billed Euflora $3,000 to start the project. Will match funds until completed.

Emails, light tech support, updating custom email addresses for a client inside of adilas, and going over some lessons from yesterday. On Friday's, during the winter, I'm up at the local ski resort as a snowboard instructor. I spent multiple lift rides with a buddy of mine by the name of Aaron Hill. He and I love to ride together but we also chat and talk about business on the lift rides up the mountain. He and I were swapping stories and talking about all kinds of stuff. One thing that really stuck out from yesterday was a discussion and comparing price (or costs) vs value. They are not the same. Things do have a price or a cost, but sometimes the value is way higher than the cost. When you focus on the value that you get, the price or cost may take on a different aspect. No analogy is perfect, but we spent quite a bit of time talking about the value of certain things. It could be time off, a buddy, a team, the value of listening, the value of friendship, the value of lessons learned, etc. Fun day and some good memories and good life lessons. When faced with a decision, try to look at the value vs the price tag. It may help.

Working on a custom data import for the Euflora folks. They provided a CSV file with items, web long descriptions, and tons of parent attributes. I had to take the CSV file, split it up, upload it, comb the data, and tweak some custom code to help with the process.

After that, I spent some time recording notes and trying to catch-up from the past couple of days. Busy times.

Steve and Danny were talking about different verticals and doing sales in the different areas. Lots of options. Then Steve, Sean, and Marisa got on and were doing some demo prep stuff. I ended up bailing out in order to make some phone calls. Recording some notes.

This may or may not fit here, but I was reminded of the importance of both maintenance and education. Sometimes those two key pieces are better than creating something new. Often is is more fun to create something new, but if you have something and keep it updated (maintained) and people get educated on it (the existing piece or feature), you can still have a great product or feature. Anyways, I was reminded of that saying today while on the meeting, going through emails, and just thinking.

Cory and I going over plans for the bike shuttle (client facing scheduling app) project. We were meeting over her Zoom account so that we wouldn't be distracted and get interrupted. Sometimes, everybody knows that we are on the main GoToMeeting session, and it doesn't allow us to fully get things done - too many distractions and/or other parties on the line. Anyways, we thought that we could use Chuck, Dustin, Bryan, and I on the client facing scheduling app and tying it out into full ecommerce as well. Lots of work with elements of time. All we need is some seed monies to get it going. We have someone who has committed $500 but that is not enough to jump yet. We know that it would sell and bring in an ROI (return on investment) but we have to be careful right now (cash flow stuff).

Back on the GoToMeeting session with John and Cory. John was reporting in on some of his projects. John is planning on backing off a bit. He really wants to help but feels like he is being too pushy or isn't getting the traction that he is looking for. Sometimes, things take time in the adilas realm and world. Anyways, we gave him our top three priorities and also tried to set some limits on billable time. Good discussion.

We also talked about storage of both data and files and images. We got into maintenance and the need for maintenance. We talked briefly about some server bugs and problems with the CFC's inside of Adobe ColdFusion (new code on the highest application level within our site and platform). Some of those things are hard to track down and get a handle on. Anyways, we are trying and will continue to keep pushing on things.

Dustin and I on a small work session. He had some questions and we worked through a number of changes and improvements. I spent some time explaining and diagraming (drawing and making connections) the sub inventory process and what data and tables are connected and how they are pulled together and related (database stuff and backend logic and relationships). Anyways, lots of drawing and small code samples.

Chuck and I meeting to go over code and advance the ball on some of his projects. Chuck recommended that we not use a disabled form field for user feedback/notes. We ended up having a discussion on JavaScript helper fields and how that plays into CSS and user interface (UI) features. Anyways, looking into other possible options.

We went over a number of pages and pushed up some code. After that, we flipped back to the parts or general inventory items project (small face lift on items and supporting pages). Chuck is much happier with bits and pieces and getting things pushed up vs big huge lifts and big huge projects. I don't blame him. Small work session on the advanced part search pages.

Eric, Steve, and I got on a meeting. We started out by talking about EMV chip technology (retail or cart present merchant processing). Shari O. joined us for a bit to chime in on merchant accounts. Our new need is to have both retail EMV chip processing and online or web-based ecommerce type payments for the same merchants. We can do both, but not really with the same account type. We will be looking into options that allow for both. The goal is to mix the pieces - live retail and online bill pay or ecommerce orders.

Shari O. left and just Steve and I were left. We chatted with Eric about options, lines in the water (virtual fishing or other things that might come to pass), accounts receivable (who owes us money), and how we are going to be dealing with paid projects and what not. The goal is to get a better plan and then follow it. We talked about a small shift in our model (bringing things in-house and the cost/value of that decision). See other notes for some ideas and what not. Great discussion.

Steve was beating the sales drum. Talking about small little updates and changes and being willing to break things up into smaller and smaller pieces. Steve and Sean were talking about a demo that they did yesterday. Tying in both operations and accounting (together). Steve was giving full props to Sean for what he was doing on the demo. Good stuff. Sounded like he was pushing stuff like built-in loyalty points, message marketing, and solving pain for people (offering solutions).

We talked about the concept of reaching back out and offering more time and services. Being there for our clients, to help them make decisions and progress to a successful move to the adilas system and way of thinking. Really good stuff and lots of ideas and options. We also talked about selling the team and what we have to offer as a team or a group. That is something that we haven't really ever pushed before.

We got into some hardware specifics and putting together a hardware portion of what we do. There are pros and cons there. We also talked about who is making the major decisions and how we can support those things as a team. Then, once we have made a decision (yes, no, maybe), how does this roll out? Good discussions on supporting and selling certain services and even full-blown packages (hardware, software, and services combined).

The conversation got into the depth of adilas and how some businesses even use our existing pieces and tools in different ways. It comes back to settings, permission, maintenance, then education and training. We don't like to say this, but we may need to pull back and really define what it is that we do and what we offer. It is pretty open right now, which has both pros and cons.

Steve and Sean had some good conversations on the meeting today. They are really pushing for more demos. The more demos we give, the more people will say yes. Let us show you what you (or we - depending on the focus) can do!

Wayne, John, Cory, and I on a server meeting. Talking about data back-ups on servers and ratios per server. Trying to get things nailed down and make sure that we have sufficient back-ups per server. Each server is slightly different as far as volume, corporations per server, and what the server's do (usage, traffic, and storage). It gets kinda interesting.

Wayne and John are going to check on all of the database boxes and how many days of rolling back-up we do per box. We have tons of copies of the code, and it changes every day. The actual data is the highest prize and needs to be treated with care. This may not fit here, but we see three main pieces to our application. You have the code, the database structure, and the actual data. If any of those pieces are missing, you only get a fraction of the whole. They are all required to make it work.

Along with back-ups, Wayne was reporting that he is watching the servers for errors and monitoring things. We talked about getting more details from clients who are reporting errors. Ideally, we could get the time of day, the corp id number, the server, and the steps that they were doing when they got the error. If we don't get much detail or feedback, we don't know where to start looking (per say). Those steps to get the errors are super important. Sometimes it could corp-specific code, settings, permissions, or even just page logic flow. Basically, we need the path that the users took to get the errors or certain results. It gets interesting.

Wayne did report that he is working on the corp-wide settings (huge table and breaking it into smaller pieces). That will end up being a pretty big project, by the time we are done with it. Currently, we have close to 400+ settings, attributes, and defaults. It's only going to keep growing.

Switching gears, we did some stuff with Marisa on emails and got her setup as an email admin on the backend. Cory was then asking some sales tax aggregate questions and we were going through different options. Eventually, we will need to walk through all of the steps and branching forks. That lead to some conversations about the value of data and getting the data in the right hands. Some of our developers have really wanted and needed certain data in order to do their projects and customize their stuff. Real data is key.

The last discussion for today's meeting was dealing with hardware, bundles, and making things consistent across the board - where possible. Marisa and John were talking about recommended hardware lists and what should be on there. The main subject was a certain scanner/printer combo. Our current model doesn't really allow us to force any certain decisions. We are very open. As we go forward, we may find a benefit by creating certain bundles and then fully supporting those decisions. It gets kinda tricky! The more we can help the system work as system, and everything plays together, the better. We may need to develop possible bundles of both hardware and software products. The other side of this coin that we looked at was developer costs and maintenance costs for different system and supporting different hardware configuration pieces. That's a somewhat hidden costs, but it is totally real. Anyways, some good hardware discussions.

Working with Bryan and looking into his new code for EyeRate, a 3rd party solution for customer surveys and customer satisfaction. Going over data flow, logic, validation, and expectations. We went through a number of pages and followed the flow and logic. Merged in some code and pushed it up to all servers.

As a side note, we really need to help figure out the scope and specs of certain projects before we begin. This is often our fault, and we give our developers a project and say go. Their idea of done is not what we had in mind and often, there are certain small pieces that may get left out. Questions that don't get answered or don't get considered. Anyways, it comes back to project management and setting everybody up for success by managing expectations, requirements, and specs.

Prep work for a budgeting meeting that is coming up. Working on creating an agenda for us to go off of. I got a bunch of ideas from emails that were being sent around, a small scratch doc that I record notes on, and other things that I know are going on in the adilas world. Hopefully, we can keep some of our momentum going and get better at managing ourselves.

Shari O., Cory, and I on a budget meeting. Steve joined us towards the end. Anyways, we started out and looking into doing some budgets per area vs some of the other budgets that were per person. There is a lot of cross-over but it was still good to see things being broken down in both directions (per person and per area or department).

Once Steve joined, the meeting changed and ended up flipping more into things that needed to be done, project wise, and sales wise. Lots of moving pieces. We had an agenda but kept being pulled off course. We would circle around and then we got pulled off again. We are not used to being tied to an agenda and we tend to bounce a lot. We'll get better but it can be super frustrating. See attached for some of our other notes.

Emails, follow-ups, and paying bills.

This morning, when I joined, Sean and Marisa were on the meeting going over things. They showed me a display problem with products and descriptions with special characters. The descriptions were cutting off the descriptions depending on the special characters. If added by scanning the barcodes or id number, they went in fine. If just generically searched for the items and then added to the cart, there was a display problem. We determined that it was dealing with the special characters and encoding the data to handle the special characters. The primary issue seemed to be with custom sub inventory descriptions that had special characters.

After we determined what was needed, we also looked into some custom emails for invoices and quotes that get sent out of the system. We looked at some code, logged into backend email accounts, and did some testing. We got everything flowing and working. Not sure what the problem was.

John checked in briefly and then bailed out. I spent the rest of the time working on the sub inventory description issue.

As a side note, we are seeing a real need for both maintenance and education/training. Those two things combined are a huge part of what we do and hope to be able to do... The training needs to be for both external customers and internal users and staff. I want to put my vote in for both - maintenance and education.

Chuck and I on a meeting. We were talking about our use of Font Awesome and some new releases that are coming out. We also talked about views and possible overages (charges) for how many font awesome icons we use. Millions of views, only in the first couple of days of February. Our plan is only set for a million views per month. anyways, just checking things out.

Next, we rolled into some new JavaScript validation that Chuck is working on. He is working on simplifying some our checks for max field lengths and showing how many more characters will be allowed for certain fields. After that, we rescheduled a work session for later today. That way I could get back to fixing the display bug (sub inventory descriptions).

Working on the bug with sub inventory descriptions and passing hidden form fields with special characters. After I got that one done, I jumped on some research that Cory asked me to do. Originally, we thought that it was a small bug as well, but it ended up being a different interface and UI choice. The problem was the Kush cart was not showing the same amount of fields and data as the classic cart (internal shopping cart). After looking into it, the Kush cart never had those features. The user was flip flopping and wanted both carts to have the exact same layout. They weren't designed that way. The classic cart has tons of data and the Kush cart is a more streamlined version. Anyways, we figured out that it was not a bug, just completely different interfaces. I sent a note to Cory to let her know. I also contacted Marisa and Sean and they did some testing on the other bug fix and gave me feedback that all was well and ok.

Good little work session. Working with Chuck on breaking up the 28-page part section facelift into smaller sections. Today we worked on the advanced part search and the main parts homepage. Manually merging code between branches and running local tests. Scheduled more time for tomorrow and on Monday.

Working with Dustin on his new samples and production samples pages and project. He was showing me where he was at and we were going through questions. We followed a bunch of variables and then spent some time going over JavaScript functions and suggestions. This project was scheduled to be pushed before the end of the week for testing but that got pushed back a week. Making progress and it is looking good.

Recording notes from today and others from last week. I'm a little bit behind.

Conversation between Steve, Danny, and I on labels and consistency. Many of the past custom labels were setup by specific staff members (from our clients) and then changes happen to either staff (employees of different companies) or changes in processes. We were talking about the need to add in some settings on the custom labels and empowering the users where we can.

Danny is helping with the transition to pass on the job of custom labels. He is willing to help with different pieces but doesn't want to hold all of the weight of the custom labels. Steve has already started working on some new custom label settings.

A bit of history... we used to say that adilas could or can do anything. We just have to code it certain ways. That is true and accurate, but it also means that people have to use our product as it was designed (for example custom labels). We are finding that certain things are failing, not because of bad code, but because the knowledge or dependent pieces are not being done correctly. Everything feeds off of the certain processes and/or assumptions.

After talking about labels, Steve and Sean were talking about sales and getting a guy out on the ground to knock doors and talk to people (network).

Emails, tech support, and following up on internal emails and requests. Checking on USAePay merchant processing and checking on specs for certain merchant account options and account settings. Looking into a payroll question dealing with the social security wage limits. Updated some code and sent an email out to a client with follow-up information about the update that we made. On the phone with a company that does government contracts and seeing if adilas wants to participate. General to do list stuff.

Chuck and I going over to do list items on his code and branches. Working on the new cart add item page. Added multiple pages to the dev testing branch for testing before going live. Work session on the add/edit parts and items pages as well as the view parts and items page.

Steve and I meeting and going over things. Cory joined us. Going over server costs and other costs. Talking about a number of our guys and gals and what are plans are with them and their projects. Going over ideas on sales and future development.

Here are some rough notes. I have more saved on my computer with the title "budget_meeting_2_10_22.docx".

- On sales – give the guys 10 hours and see what they can come up with. Maybe even a birddog fee if we land something. Their goal is just to get them signed up for a demo. Sean and Marisa will take it from there.

- What if we did some different stuff for custom jobs? Almost a separate bank account for custom stuff so that money doesn't get claimed by other projects. Either play with bank accounts, transfers, or somehow earmarking certain monies. Basically, take out the custom stuff out of the normal reoccurring budgets.

- One of the tricky things is amount per hour that we pay developers. Some are higher than others - pretty normal.

- Cory – she says that it seems like developers like to add things in (their own little agendas and add-on's).

- Cory is really trying to focus on MVP. Sometimes we need to squash the creativity. Maybe we could take those ideas and pass them by the companies to see if we could get them funded. Almost a change order or up sale.

- We have learned some good lessons with some of these guys. We give them a quick one-liner (we need x and y). They then build x, y, z, etc. It keeps going and there are really no set standards. We really need to be more specific on what we need and want.

- Talking about buddies – getting these guys hooked up in order to get things done.

- At times, we have lost track of some of these guys. We don't hear back from them for weeks at a time.

- Certain projects really cost 10, 20, 50K. We've been quoting them at $2K or $5K (whatever) but in reality, it really takes more. We almost need to double, pad, and make sure that we get covered and make some on the projects.

- Steve – we've done a lot of the easy stuff. Some of the rest of it will be a trick and a challenge. We are going to charge $150/hour and start going for it.

- Seeing if we can get some of these developers out hitting the street and helping on the sales side of things.

Reviewing code on the PO line items rounding project. Also recording some notes from last week. I took my laptop up to the mountain (ski resort) and did some work while talking a break from snowboarding. Trying to catch-up.

Paying bills and checking on funding. Emails and recording notes. Hours and hours recording notes from small little post-it notes that I take while in meetings. I then translate the notes from the smaller post-it notes to the developer's notebook (digital format). It does take time, but we also end up with a great searchable resource. It becomes a form of digital storytelling. Good stuff!

Quick meeting with Dustin to get him going on his local box. He was running into an error. We got it fixed and he is on his way. He is almost done with his production samples project. He showed Steve and I a quick demo. He and Steve will be getting together later to discuss the next steps and other projects.

Steve and I were talking about breaking up projects into smaller and smaller pieces. This may not apply to everything, but we are really trying to take better bite sized pieces vs trying to stuff everything that you can into your mouth (not really - but an analogy). We are going to try to release code almost weekly or daily where possible. We may need to disable it or limit it, but we want it to be pushed into master when it can be. That helps us limit the amount that we build and then put on a shelf (virtually in a code repository). Baby steps or progress by degrees.

Steve and I also talked briefly about other plans and what not. He was going to be calling Kelly this morning to go over things with her. I ended up doing emails and light internal tech support with our developers. Small stuff.

Cory and John joined the meeting. John was reporting in on his projects. He has been helping with servers and server stuff. Everything seems to be going well there (for now). It's a constantly moving target. He is also working on more state level withholdings and payroll projects. He has full authorization to keep pushing that ball forward. His other project is the discount engine and some changes there. We spent a bit of time talking about this and how we could advance the ball and push things forward. Sometimes, some of our projects get almost stalled out. We are trying to get them across the finish line and keep actively chipping away to get them live and into the main flow of things.

After John left, just Cory and I were talking about stuff. We need to update some server security stuff. Some of the old documentation has an older hosting company that we used to work with. We have almost completely switched to another company and need to update some of the documents and flyers. Cory and I were also talking about quotes, custom invoices, and possible black box options (custom code). Black box code has been both a blessing and curse. It totally allows us to do custom work, without hurting the main pages, logic, or flow. On the flip side, it creates more maintenance if things change. Anyways, we talked about some pros and cons.

The other option is more settings and then we make it global. That is the better solution, but sometimes, that has a price tag of more than double to do it that way. For example, we were looking at a small project that would only take a couple of hours to do it via black box. To go in and add more settings, you are looking at more like ten or more hours. Big difference. We have to weigh out which is better and what we can afford or get funded. Constantly a small battle.

Grabbing bank statements and doing some prep work on some funding options. Recording notes, doing emails, and trying to clean off my plate. I've got a coding project that I need to work on this afternoon, but I've got a bunch of the normal day to day stuff that is currently in my way.

Work session between Chuck and I dealing with new changes and new code updates. We were going over code on his parts update and face lift on the parts and general inventory items pages. We checked out some other changes on the dev testing server and merged in a couple more branches. Today, we went through three new branches and prepped files for going live. We have a total of six branches on the developer testing server that need to be reviewed. Once they have been tested and gone over by Cory and Marisa, we'll do some news and updates and then help those files go live. Normally we don't have to do this whole process, but some of these files are major files and the girls are worried about us just pushing things up without letting anybody know (news and updates).

The pages that have an upgrade and a new face lift are: parts home, advanced parts search, printable parts report, grouped parts and items by category, add/edit parts, view parts, parts history, parts usage, and a couple other changes in the cart and dealing with recipe/builds. Anyways, things are prepped and ready to go.

Reviewing code on the PO line items and PO rounding error project. Decided to merge in what I had done. Did some testing and backed out a few of the new changes. Stashed a copy of the new code so that I could go back to it. Trying to get the code to a stable level but still advancing the ball. Lots of work in Git and Bit Bucket to resolve merge conflicts and stash some new changes that haven't been fully tested yet. Small work session.

Tuesday morning sales meeting was going on when I joined. There were 8 people on the call. Danny and Chuck were going over leads for dealerships and other verticals. Talking about option and what we have to offer to dealerships. Somewhat of an open format or open forum. Lots of good suggestions and reminders of tools and features that have been developed over the years. Steve was saying a bunch of things that he knows were really important when he was doing that business (new and used vehicles and trailers). Working with dealerships was where we started, back in the day. The first 5-6 years of the system were spent doing a custom write-up for a multi-location used vehicle and new trailer dealership, out of both Colorado and Texas.

If we ever need, we have tons of older data from those older corporations. They were shut down in 2009 and 2010 in order to focus more on adilas. The automotive and trailer dealers were coming off of a huge recession from 2008 and 2009. Our software (web-based platform) was where we were focusing. There is some fun history there, as far as how things developed and why. It could be a really fun origins type story. Countless times of finding a source of pain and then coming up with one or more solutions to combat the pain.

After the sales meeting, I helped merge in some code for Dustin. We also talked about tons of code that is partially built and tested but not deployed. We call that either code on a shelf or half baked (or whatever percentage - 75%, 90%, 99% baked) projects. We've got a ton of that that we would like to harvest and get over the finish line. Tons of options there.

John had some state tax withholding and payroll questions. We looked over some code and got him going in a good direction. Wayne popped in for a server meeting and we chatted before the next meeting began.

Wayne, John, and I were on the server meeting. We started out kinda stalling, waiting for Cory, but she got held up in another meeting. She never made it into out meeting today. We touched base on a couple of server related projects. Wayne has been busy with church stuff (his other life away from adilas and doing code and server stuff). We checked up on corp-wide settings, back-ups for servers, domain names, and other known server errors or bugs. Wayne wanted us to reach out to a few clients to see if we could get more information from them on certain small bugs and errors. He wanted to know the paths, the links, the buttons, the processes or sequences that were being used. Trying to chase things down.

Helping Dustin over GoToMeeting chase down some variables. Making a couple of changes and pushing up some new code. Looking into an error that Kelly sent over via email. Alan ended up responding back on that one. Emails and doing budgeting prep work. Looking over banks, accounts payable, and deposits. Recording notes from the past couple of days.

Recording notes and then on the phone with Steve for almost an hour. We were talking about projects, staff, options, funding, debt, payables, receivables, sales, etc. Lots of moving pieces and everybody is under big loads. Kinda scary. I told Steve that I would have some budgets and proforma (possible scenarios and financial predictions) worked up by our admin budget meeting tomorrow.

Playing with budgets and projections. Running scenarios and trying to get some of the Excel spreadsheets ready for a meeting tomorrow afternoon. Working in Excel and getting numbers inside of adilas to feed and pass into the spreadsheet and workbooks.

Sean and John joined the meeting. Sean had a request from Steve to get some code for copying and uploading vendors. I looked around and grabbed a few files. I sent them to Steve via email. John then has some questions on state tax withholdings and calculations. After that, Eric joined and we talked briefly about USAePay (merchant processing) and how we can enable and allow for both true EMV chip reading (full card present retail) and manual or swipe entry for ecommerce and online bill pay. Eric is going to look into that a little bit more. We can do it currently, but we have to have two separate accounts setup with USAePay and then point one internal (EMV chip) and the other one, point it outside for ecommerce and online bill pay actions.

After that, Eric was asking how things are looking in the funding and cash flow area. We spent a good 20-30 minutes going over accounts payable, accounts receivables, banks, plans, and light business training (what controls what and how things flow). Anyways, Eric, John, and Sean were able to ask some questions and put in their two cents. We are open to suggestions. If you look at it in plain numbers, it doesn't look that bad. We are owed more than we owe out. The big problem right now is cash flow. The monies owed to us and trickling in (coming in slow) but the monies going out are still flowing fast and heavy. It creates a squeeze.

As part of our talks, we went over our plans, and I reported on each segment of our triple play and how that is going. Some of that takes time for us to see results. The triple play, in a nutshell, is 1 - a current price increase of 25% across the board, 2 - All new sales and systems will reflect the new prices and we are trying to get enough to cover our real costs to setup new accounts, and 3 - We do have to trim where we can (costs, people, projects, and extras). Not very fun but trying to be honest and open with the guys as they ask questions. Hopefully it helps.

Chuck and I going over finances. I went over similar things in an earlier meeting, but Chuck didn't join us on the meeting until we were almost done with the last one. We spent a good 15-20 minutes going over plans and progress and options.

We then got into a small progress report on some of his projects. We would like to do a global or really general news and update stating that we are making changes and numerous pages will be in the process of being updated with a new look and feel. After that, we got into a discussion on testing and what is required per page. It totally depends based on the size of the page, the changes that were made, and how complex the page or functions are.

Another topic that we discussed was our newest delay, waiting for Cory and Marisa to test things on the dev testing server, do a news and update, and then plan the scheduled release. It will most likely help, but it does slow us down a bit.

We talked about adding in a generic dealership theme on the sales and presentation gallery pages. For the record, if you want to change the themes, once on the page, go to the top right menu icon, then click it and look for the gears (settings), once on that pop-up modal choose the theme and click save. It will flip the background images for the presentation gallery. Anyways, we have had some request to add in a dealership-based theme (trucks, trailers, motorsport, boats, RV's, etc.).

At the end of the meeting, we got into talking about making specific assignments and then being able to follow-up with that person. Currently, it is too open and we just put it out there... whoever wants to test it, here you go vs hey so and so, could you test this and let me know. More assignments and specific instructions are needed. Currently, too many assumptions. The last topic was more technical and dealt with options for mixing ColdFusion and JavaScript in code and keying on and off of certain values and dynamics. Fun stuff!

Cory and Chuck were going over some new changes and things that we needed Cory to test and give us the thumbs up on. The new changes have been pushed up to the developer's testing server and need to be reviewed. The biggest section on new code is dealing with the parts and general inventory items section. We have modified the parts homepage, the advanced parts search, add/edit parts page, view parts page, parts usage, parts history, and a number of other part/item related reports and pages. We also have two branches with some changes to the shopping cart on the dev testing server, ready for review.

As a great little side note, Cory mentioned that we have to give people time to update their SOP's (standard operating procedures) if we go changing things. Some of the companies really rely on those SOP's. I didn't even think about that. One other comment that Cory made was - "We need to manage the things that are in our control." There are tons of things that we can't control, but those that we can, we need to do it in such a way that we control the changes, updates, and releases. Ideally, we will test, plan, and even schedule the releases.

We got into a discussion on data tables and pros and cons. Chuck would really like to revisit this topic when we build out fracture (future adilas project). We would like to look at pros and cons, which plugins to use, or just build our own. We really like what the current ones do in concept (export, sort, filter, search, print). However, we would like to change the layout, the display, the amount of real estate that it takes, defaults, and pagination. The current data tables work really good up to 500-1,000 ish records. Anything more than that and they fall apart (due to pagination and how the JavaScript loads the tables). Chuck and I were talking about some possible hybrid type options where we use client-side and server-side code to help them be more effective. Including storing default settings, default sorts, default show/hide columns, and mixing AJAX and server-side logic. Basically, making custom data tables that work for what we do and how we want to play the game. Definitely a must have for the fracture project.

After Cory and Chuck left, I kept going and switched topics. I was checking banks and looking into bills and payments out to our guys and gals. I also wanted to record some notes from my morning hike with my hiking buddy this morning. We were talking about this while walking in the snow, up High Creek Canyon before work.

- Real costs - Build in ongoing maintenance costs - not just the original development

- Also dealing with costs - what about coving costs for admin, managing, planning, normal development, deploying, and future or ongoing maintenance. Many of these costs are being skipped right now in our quotes and invoices. We need to cover what it really costs. Currently, we are giving away a bunch of free work and labor.

- Maybe stopping custom work - I'm not sure how to take this one, but we were talking about it. Currently, custom work is a huge part of what we do. Having said that, a good 75 percent of my work and efforts are being used to help with 1x (one time) revenue gains vs general system enhancements that are on a reoccurring revenue gain or side of the fence. My efforts are being used in project management, planning, code sign-off's, heling on the projects, babysitting developers, and deploying those projects. I'm kinda torn here. I enjoy helping but is it efficient? It may not be... Hard to fully tell. Anyways, thought that I would at least make a note about it.

- Use data to make decisions to help figure out where your product or features are being used. The data will help you make certain decisions (supply/demand/usage). When is it being used, by who, how many times, and can I quickly get to aggregated or summed up data on the subject? It is an normal core usage or add-on piece? This may or may not go here, but our model gets more complicated by having tons and tons of different servers. We may need to identify different pieces of the application (core, extra functions, settings, features, add-on components, 3rd party solutions, industry specific pieces, custom code, etc.) and then setup flags and tags to who is using it, what are the costs, any add-on's, and make that information available from a single spot (aggregated data). This would be a great feature to add into our fracture project. We may have to create our own little master list and then report that data back to the main server through API sockets and what not. We really need to be able to get to that data (who is using what) quickly. We need a quick summary of how and what is being used or is turned on/off. We can see that data right now, but we have to go to multiple places and even run special queries to get that data back. It's not very quick right now. Anyways, a great idea. Let the data lead and help to tell the story.

- We may want to track other key decisions per corporation such as merchant processing, number of locations, number of users, numbers of vendors, number of invoices, expense/receipts, deposits, elements of time, etc. We also need to track data storage amount and also files, images, and other media/content. We already do this, but the numbers are not centralized. This would be another wonderful feature for the fracture project. Basically, system stats and aggregates based on data counts, numbers, values, etc. If we get this dialed in, we could really use this to help set prices and charge for what is being used and/or turned on. This is an eventual goal for us, when we can get to it.

Budgets and prep work. Working on who does what and assigning tasks. Looking in to building out pro forma reports to show projections and possible scenarios.

Meeting with Cory and Eric. We started out with a question that Cory had from an email from a client. Eric and Cory were following logic for wholesale carts and a bypass switch and logic for not sending wholesale data to the state compliance tracking system. Cory and Eric spent close to 45 minutes looking around, checking code, following variables, and comparing old and new code. Randomly enough, some of the changes were done by Eric, some by Wayne, and some by Alan. Also, to add to it, we couldn't tell if it was a user error or really a small bug in the code. We went over and talked a bout a number of possible scenarios, including users changing things after the fact.

We then switched over and went over some of the sales tax aggregate code and processes. Cory had a small list of questions and she and Eric were going through things and discussing options, flow, logic, and processes. It got pretty deep. Tons of moving pieces.

These were some of my observations while they were going over things:

- Possible problems with hidden database triggers. Hard to check the code you can't see. We talked about pros and cons for triggers and clean-up routines.

- Code and version control - branches - Possible problems with certain code branches overwriting other branches - who has the last cookie?

- Maybe make our own visual code based triggers, clean-up routines, and scheduled processes. We may even want to record histories of what happens, where, and when. If certain things need to go through a full process. Can we monitor and track it through the different pieces, phases, states, and statuses.

- One nice thing about a database trigger is watches for any change to the database record regardless of where it comes from. If we do our own, more visual and controllable version, we need to make sure and cover the different scenarios such as add, edit, delete, void, bulk updates, API sockets, backend updates (direct database activity), etc. Just make sure we cover all of the possible tweaks and scenarios.

- There seems to be a need for ways of doing a manual override and or a manual update. It may need to be flagged if updated manually or modified in any way, but sometimes the automated processes fail or have issues.

- Real-time vs a delayed type actions - Is the data being pulled in real-time or is there daily or nightly process that aggregates or cleans something up. Some outside schedule or routine. We have a lot of future aggregates that we want to build out for our fracture project. We may need ways of flagging and tagging the data and tracking it through phases and activity paths help us know where things are and what processes that they have gone through. Flags and tags (a flag and date or a checkbox and a date or phase and a date) are huge. they really help us track what is going on and what has already gone on. If the data is correct, let it pass. If not, correct it and then flag it. Once it is good, let it pass. The history part of it is important for what happened, when, how, and by whom. Basically, a roll call - where are you? What is your status? Where have you been? Who were you with? When did you finish? etc., etc.

At the end of the meeting, cory and I briefly went over some budgeting and funding values.

Recording notes from the different meetings from today and yesterday. Part of this process is how I learn. Things happen so quickly, if I write them down when they are happening, I have a quick memory and a note to go off of. Then later on, when I go back over it, I can remember what happened and what was going on in the meeting or in my head. This little process has really helped expand my memory and allows us to go back and pick up the pieces (virtually) of what was going on or decisions being made. I really enjoy it! It's one of my favorite parts of my job!

Some of the guys were checking in. Looking at some code for Dustin. Tons of emails. Steve was talking with Danny about labels and options there. After that, Steve and Sean were talking sales and updates back and forth on what is going on. Lots of moving pieces. I pushed up some code for Dusin. Steve and Sean did another small session on talking about new settings, labels, and other updates.

Custom data upload for a client. This was a round two upload for items, descriptions, long web descriptions, and multiple parent attributes. 1 hour.

While I was on the GoToMeeting, working on the upload, Steve and John were talking about flyers and sales stuff. Steve had the idea of using the presentation gallery, that has really pretty pictures, simple verbage, small power statements, and using some of that for the marketing flyers. Great idea and we could go in and capture whatever slides or screens that we want or need. Great idea. Also, if you want to change the background images on the presentation gallery, go to the little menu on the top right corner, then click on the settings or gears. Tons of really cool options.

Steve and I going over ideas and options. Steve is really good at getting people pumped up on sales. We talked about budgets per area. We may end up creating a small budget by area and then sharing it out to the guys and gals on the associated teams, areas, and departments. Let them see what the plan is and what we are planning on spending in each spot. Good idea.

Admin budget meeting. It started out with Steve and Cory talking about labels. Rolling into accounts receivable and updates there. Steve has talked with both Mike and Paul (clients) who owe us a lot of money. We were bouncing around a bit. See other notes and spreadsheets (on Brandon's computer with a date of 2/17/22). We also spent some time talking about a possible loan, repayment options, and how that would all look and play out. Going over some scenarios.

Cory and Steve kept talking about stuff after I left.

I joined and they were doing a dealership sales meeting. Marisa was leading out. Talking about trailers, dealership stuff, custom paperwork, processes, and getting serialized (stock/units) into the system as part of a dealerships inventory.

After the sales meeting, Steve was doing some new settings and using some include files for a custom gram controller in the view cart top mini area. His goal is to get rid of a bunch of similar custom black box code. That is awesome. Black box code allows us to interject any code on any page to make it custom. However, if you end up making tons and tons of black boxes that are very similar, you can actually create more work and maintenance. Steve is starting to move into a great one-to-many relationship on some of the new code that he is building. That is a huge step.

When a developer starts out, they build a bunch of things that are coded specifically for one client or one purpose. That is easier to wrap your head around and each thing (function or feature) has its own part to play. Lots of simple things that basically stand alone. As their skills improve (developers), they start thinking more globally and start building in functions, methods, special includes, etc. Basically, code it once, use settings and defaults, and let the users configure what they want (make it more dynamic). Then the features become what is called "data based" vs "code based". It allows the application to flex without having to hardcode every option. The settings and defaults determine what it does and then you can reuse it over and over. Instead of copying and pasting code from others, you start building your own code with a purpose in mind. Huge steppingstones. Good stuff!

As a fun side note, As Steve builds this new code and stuff, he is actually able to delete thousands and thousands of lines of code to make it more simple and concise. Sometimes that really boots a developer's sense of being if they can get rid of extra code vs just adding and adding to something that is already huge. Great little mental battles and victories.

Dustin joined us on the meeting and wanted to go over some harvest functionality. He and Steve were talking about keeping up with master on the different code branches. Marisa wanted to see if Dustin could help be on a demo for cultivation stuff. Good little meeting.

Steve was asking Wayne and John about some issues that were reported on data 5 and some server timeouts. They will take a look at it and get back with us. We talked about some bug tracking projects and other small pieces. We touched base on different projects and priorities for both Wayne and John.

Cory had some small questions that she wanted to run pass the server guys. Light back and forth conversations. Towards the end, it was just Wayne, John, and I. We got into a fun little throwback, dealing with history stuff and older technology. That lead into some conversations about hacking and even hacking our own stuff to do some testing and security checks.

Chuck and I doing a small work session. We went over the font awesome stuff and launching version 6 on our site. He was sending out emails with updates and what not. We then rolled into doing some small fixes on the parts homepage and dealing with sub inventory display options. Merging in code from his code branches into the dev testing branch on the dev testing server. Made a bunch of other small fixes and pushed files up to the testing server.

Talking with Eric over the phone about USAePay options. We would like to explore other possible transaction types within what they offer. He will be doing a little bit more research. We got into talking about storing token values instead of actual credit card info, as a way around some of the security stuff. Basically, store a hash or a token and then you could use that token to really do something on the server. Basically, a way to encode and encrypt sensitive data so that without the other server (other piece) the data would be just trash (unusable). We also talked about possible limits on the ecommerce merchant type options and not allowing EMV chip stuff out in ecommerce land (limiting accounts based on settings and types of account).

We would like to look into transaction types such as full EMV, manual sales, payments requests, pre auths, voids, and reoccurring. Lots of possible options. For the record, we already do tons of these things, but we have two different account types, in order to handle all of the pieces. We would love to code it out so that all of these features are available from a single merchant account.

Phone call with Steve talking about our guys and gals and who is doing what. Lots of different discussions and topics covered. Here is a small overview:

- We would really like to get the developers to merge in their code and try to keep up with master, where possible.

- We talked about sales and making phone calls and trying to schedule demos. We have a good team that can handle the demos, we just need to keep feeding them leads and appointments (scheduled demos).

- We went over some priorities and talked about making sure that all of our guys know what those priorities are.

- Selling more of the different services that we offer.

- We ran into a problem with our A/R's (accounts receivable - people who owe us money). We extended too much credit out there without cutting things off. We think that we will get paid, but it may come in slowly or just in a trickle vs coming in bigger payments.

- Reviewing numbers and going over budgets and plans.

Cory, Steve, and I on a GoToMeeting session. Talking about selling a value vs just known costs and labor. What is the value of what we are selling? Sometimes that is way bigger than what it actually costs or takes to make it. We would like to focus more on the "value" of things.

Steve and Cory were talking about estimates and estimating high enough to cover us and show the value of what we are offering. Steve and Cory were going over some numbers. The two of them were talking about sales and leads. After that, we spent some time and looked over some loan documents. Reviewing terms and options. We would really like to pay off some of our guys, what we owe them, and virtually get a clean starting point so that we could watch things and keep it a little bit tighter all around.

Shari O. was checking in and asking about corp-wide settings on the data 16 box. There seemed to be a problem with adding in a new corporation and having the defaults setup correctly. We didn't have time to fix that right then, but we asked Shari O. to send us an email and point us in the right direction. Sean and John also checked in. Once things quieted down, I went to data 16 and started looking around. I ran a number of older database updates. I also pulled up some data on the data 16 box and did some comparing to see where we were missing some defaults and settings.

Chuck and I jumped on the dev testing server and looked over some of the new code. We are hoping to get sign-off from Cory and Marisa later today and then we will merge in the new code to the master branch. Anything small, we just merge in and push up to the different servers. Anything that is bigger or major changes, we push up to the dev testing server and let the girls go in and kick it around (do some testing).

We spent some time going over questions and mock-ups for the customer queue. That will be one of Chuck's next project, small face lift on that page.

Cory popped into the meeting and we went over a few questions that she had. Chuck was showing her some of the changes up on the dev testing server.

Lastly, we did some code sign-off on the invoice sales and profit report. Merged in the code and pushed it to all servers.

Internal stuff. Fixing bugs, doing emails, and checking corp-wide settings on data 16. Going over data and checking code. Small manual updates on the settings and defaults. Light internal tech support stuff.

Recording notes from earlier in the day and notes from other meetings from yesterday.

Cory and I going over projects. Talking about some of the upcoming internally funded projects and budgets on those projects. Here is a small list of some of the things that we know are on the horizon.

Future Development & Projects
- Client facing scheduling – bike shuttle
- Global or enterprise item catalog
- Dustin's Cultivation & Harvest Stuff
- Invoice due date & auto collection on A/R's project(s)
- Labels & label printing - Calvin's tool(s)
- Compliance and SOC reports (SOC=service organization controls)
- Switching over to Lucee vs Adobe ColdFusion - potential $2,000/month saving – reoccurring - $24,000/year savings
- Our own project costing

We also talked about meetings and which ones are the most important. We would like to trim that down a bit as well. Trying to get schedules and timing all figured out.

Recording notes and tons of emails. Also, quite a few text messages back and forth with Steve.

Started merging in some new code for Chuck and the new parts and general inventory pages. Just getting started. I have a total of six branches to merge in tonight.

Finished merging in all six of the code branches from Chuck and the parts and general inventory updates and new UI (user interface) changes. Numerous pages, reports, and pieces. Most of these files have been on the dev server for almost a week. This was a fairly big push for parts and items.

Checking on errors, bugs, and possible problems. We launched a bunch of new changes last night and had to do a small clean-up on some of the pages. To complicate things, we also had a Puppet script on the master server that was resetting the main servers (all of the data servers) every 30 minutes. That little script was kicking users out every 30 minutes even if they were actively using the system. We got a hold of Wayne and John was able to fix it.

Marisa and Sean asked me to look into fixing the pagination on the advanced customer search results page. I went in and made a small change, but it still needs more testing and loving. After that, I was helping Sean do some look-ups on histories and logs on data 6 for a client. We were checking clear carts logs, invoice numbers, history homepages, quotes, invoices, etc. We were not able to find anything that looked out of place. Sean was going to report back to the client.

Helping John with some state payroll stuff. He is going to keep working on it over the weekend and will get with me on Monday. Other phone calls and email messages.

On a phone call with Bryan for about 10 minutes or so. Going over plans, payables, and options.

Jumped on the meeting with Shannon. We haven't met for a while. I spent the first little bit getting her caught up and up to date on what is going on. Lots of moving pieces. After that, we jumped in and started working on setting up expectations, rules, and guidelines for different internal departments and parties (areas). See attached for where we were working and brainstorming.

Sean sent me a text and wanted to jump on the GoToMeeting channel to go over a possible problem with pagination on the parts homepage. It looks like adding in the new snow owl datatables, new updates and changes launched last night, that the pagination messes up bulk add to cart options on the other pages (beyond the first page of multiple pages of search results). Basically, the datatables allow you to change the sort order and even limit certain fields showing up. If they change anything, it can put a parent item on one page and the subs on the next page. The code looks for the parent item stuff, if a sub is selected. Basically, if both the parent and the subs were on the same page, it worked. If they, the users, through different searches, filters, or pagination (going to the next page) they could make it break if the parent and the sub items were not on the same page together. This also happened if there were so many subs that the package that they wanted was on a different page. Anyways, small little complication and small little bug. We found a number of work arounds, but that requires training and education or experimentation.

After I finished with Sean, I got a call from Cory and then we jumped on the GoToMeeting session. Cory was relating some of the tech support questions and complaints that she was receiving. They, our clients, wanted more info than what we were showing them. We tried to trim some of the reports down and make it easier on the eyes. Our clients, depending on what they were doing, really needed all of the data and sub attributes and RFID tag data. Kinda interesting.

Anyways, we may need to go back and provide more options. Long story made short, we really need real client feedback and input. It is invaluable and muchly needed. As a side note, it keeps coming back to settings and even settings at different levels. We need corp or world level decisions, category level decisions, and even user or page level decisions. It keeps coming up and would really help to provide a solution or multiple solutions where the users are in full control of what they want to see and use and even how things act and play through. That is one of the things that we want to add in on the fracture project - full control of what they see, what columns, show/hide, sort order, naming, aliases, etc. Almost to full custom without making everything fully custom. Just base it off of data driven decisions or layered settings, permissions, and templates. That would be awesome!

Phone call with Chuck to go over ideas and options. We chatted about things and came up with options and a plan. I then started working on rolling things back to prior releases for the parts homepage and for the advanced parts search pages. I got it rolled back and then sent out an email update. With the email, I listed out a number of possible ideas that we could do and/or incorporate into our design and layout plan.

Here were a few things that I listed out: As far as moving forward, I would suggest the following possible options.

1. We add in some settings for the new pages and allow the user to choose if they like the old version or the new version. The old version allows for the subs to be hidden and then showed if they click "view subs". The new version is very tidy and has a smaller footprint and allows for datatables and exports with nicer icons and layouts. We could also come up with a hybrid solution and allow them to use a new look and feel but still get to all of the older data (sub details and RFID tag numbers).

2. If we do add in settings, we could also ask them if they want all disabled sub packages to be hidden or show all. Currently, we show all sub packages other than fully closed packages.

3. We could update the default number to show per page (pagination or next page stuff). Currently it is set to 25. We had some issues with people trying to submit values from page 2 or more and not being able to add the items to the cart. The way that the snow owl datatables rewrites the data is messing it up. Basically, we had no idea that some people have 50+ sub packages under a single parent. The pagination removed the parent line that the code was looking for on subsequent pages. This same problem would have happened if they sorted the datatable and changed the order so that the parent line was not part of the same form submission as the sub item they were using (a code dependency based on the parent item being available).

4. Chuck and I talked about pulling out the datatables on both parts home and the advanced part search page. It is not as flexible as we need it to be. Go back to the drawing board and figure it out. Datatables are nice, but they do take up more room, and don't allow us to show as much detail as before. We were thinking of redoing the existing code and just making it look nicer but killing the datatables.

5. On testing, we tried... there are just so many edge case scenarios. Options? Ideas?

Anyways, open to other suggestions. Thanks!

Emails and making plans. Checked and prepped some CSS stuff for Chuck. I also made some small fixes for Cory. Anyways, getting back to the CSS stuff, I sent Chuck an email with a small challenge to see if we could update the existing classes to make them look more modern. Here is some of what I sent Chuck in an email.

Chuck,

Good afternoon. I'm just playing with some ideas... I've got a challenge for you. Back in the day we only had the classic version of the site. So, to get more options, I wanted to run a contest to see if anybody could come up with a new design. Russell came up with 5 new design options. They all look totally different but are based on the same raw HTML code. Only the CSS code changes. I'm wondering if we could make some bigger, global changes for snow owl so that we didn't have to rewrite every page. I'm thinking ROI and bang for the buck. Basically, can we make some global changes to the existing CSS that would make everything have a more up to date look.

Here is a link to a page that has some of the old stuff.

https://data0.adilas.biz/css/index.cfm - The page is totally static (fake data) and most of the buttons and links are just dummy links. Some of the buttons do work and interact with the pages. If you right click and view the page source, I have the rules for the game (old ones). The page is also inside of Git and Bit Bucket and part of our code repo, if you want to play around.

Anyways, I would be interested to see what this might look like for a generic snow owl theme. That currently doesn't exist on that page. I would be interested to see what it would look like and what improvements we could make globally vs page by page. Basically, tie into the cascade part of CSS. If you want more information, I could help.

Here is the help file for that page. It has links to all of the different versions that Russell setup. If you view them, scroll from top to bottom to see how they interact with all of the existing CSS. At the time, every known class was and/or is represented on the page. I would love to get some newer more modern look and feel pieces tied into the older classes that already exist inside the system. By way of a challenge, I'm just wondering if we used the older CSS classes and just updated that, what would it look like for the new snow owl theme.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/help.cfm?id=497&pwd=css

Anyways, I'm interested in seeing what it might look like. Would you be up for the challenge? Just tossing around ideas... Thanks Chuck!

Small bug fixes on the printable parts page. A client let us know that there was an undefined variable being requested. Got it fixed and pushed up to all servers. Added two new columns to the Beaver Mountain printable student list report. Quick update. Pushed up files.

Recording notes and trying to stay caught up with adding the developer's notebook entries from the past couple of days.

Dustin joined the meeting and was checking in and asking about merging in his code. He also had a server 500 error on his local box. Cory, Chuck, and I were talking about parts and items and requested changes. Going over pros and cons of the new look and feel changes. Some people really like it and some people want it to be reverted back to the old way. Cory really wants to include our clients and get their help with testing (power clients) and feedback.

Most of our discussion are possibly leading towards more settings on display and functions. That seems to be the secret. We also talked about slowing down and taking more time to test, get feedback, let our clients know, etc. The discussion turned into talking more about settings and building out vertically or horizontally. Ideally, we will try to build out more stuff vertically vs horizontally. It just scales better going vertically. For example: We have a corp-wide settings table that has over 400+ settings. That makes that table huge (horizontally). We are actually trying to flip that and run everything vertically (variables value pair) and add new records for any new settings. Database tables are built to have millions and millions of records (vertically stacked records). We are heading that way, to lighten the load on some of the huge database tables.

We ended up talking about some of the new pages and even rolling things back and making it look nicer (going back to the old way). We tend to assume a lot vs getting real feedback. Sometimes those assumptions can really hurt you. Anyways, we were pitching some small proposals and ideas around.

Cory and I on a meeting going over projects, quotes, and questions. Cory was mentioning a podcast "Built for change" and really listening to customers and using and taking their input. She was also saying that the person that does the podcast was saying that all businesses need to be a tech company, as that is how all businesses are doing business. Basically, lots of business happens through tech.

We were going over quotes, budgeting, and saving for future projects. Lots of talking about form vs fashion (function vs fashion). I ended up doing a bunch of emails and other follow-ups.

John checked in with us earlier in the day. This meeting did not happen.

Working with Chuck. We merged in two branches. One for the view parts page and some changes on the sub inventory tab. The other one was for the customer queue. We pushed these things up to the dev testing server. After that, I spent some time checking on banks and doing quick phone calls.

Emails, balance sheet items, and internal bank stuff.

Fixing bugs and cycling through emails and fixing bugs that were reported. Checked on show/hide items on the web for a client, then on to sub quantities on the view parts page, and then working on add/edit part weight and bin numbers. Pushed up the pieces that got finished.