Danny was one of the first ones on this morning. He and I were going over some the tips and tricks for using Chuck's presentation gallery. We lightly looked around and chatted about the progress. After that, John joined and he and I helped Danny with some links to YouTube videos. Danny and Marisa are making new smaller videos and then posting them around the site, where they are needed and may be referenced easily. These are like embedded help files or help videos on the pages that use those features. This is just a small snippet, compared to the bigger project, but making progress.

I also spent some time this morning paying bills, scanning receipts, and other to do list stuff.

Chuck and I jumped into some code review for the elements of time, time templates homepage section. Chuck had redesigned the page to make it look nicer. We had to check code between the older classic version and the newer snow owl theme. We also added a delete option for time templates that have not been used in the system. We coded that section together.

Just for fun, we have a corporation with an id number of 1 (one). We call it our dummy corp. Chuck was saying that we should call it our graveyard corp instead. When we coded the delete function for the unused templates, we simply flipped them over to corp id number 1 vs a real delete. Anyways, the graveyard thing was just having fun.

John joined the meeting first today. He, Cory, and I went over some of his projects and where he is at. He has pushed up a number of smaller branches in the past few days. One of them had a number of JavaScript changes to the discount engine. He reported on that and then we switched over to servers and system admin stuff. John wants to document things but he is concerned with security keeping the procedures and processes out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them. We talked about some options for distributing and securing those documents.

John also reported on chasing other smaller bugs and putting out small fires. Going back to the key person, systems admin docs, currently, lots of things are hinging on certain key players and their knowledge. We need to capture that knowledge and put it in writing, as best we can. We also need to keep those documents in the high admin's hands vs public knowledge. Anyways, we will start going through things and collecting what we can, while having the security thoughts in front of us. We'll find a good mix.

After John finished, Alan checked in and let us know where he is at with his projects. He is still working on the new sub inventory object model code out in ecommerce land. He still has a few things left with that project. It's been a big lift. Also, he was saying that he currently can't pull that new code inside adilas (out of ecommerce land and into the main secure adilas platform) due to some legacy issues. Not insurmountable, but at least a decent amount of work.

One of the blockades is the number of black boxes and custom code that exist out there. We need to figure out a way to bring in the new code into the legacy system. Alan has a few ideas, but we may end up having modes (new and old) and being able to flip flop between those modes.

Some of the new stuff is more object oriented vs in-line code that runs from page to page but requires a certain step by step process or chain of events. Some of Alan's new stuff deals with objects and inheritance, less hits to the database, and all around more efficient code. It's all part of the process. You have to start somewhere and eventually, things tend to morph and/or mature, in logic and processes. It's all part of the game.

Alan was showing us and talking about some crazy tax calcs and recalcs and how the models and objects handle those changes. One of Alan's goals in this project is to stabilize some of the pieces and isolate the variables. In the new models, he watches and monitors things like quantities, target prices, costs, price per, rounding errors, taxes, etc. Pretty deep.

I thought that it was interesting to hear Alan say that one of the barriers to him finishing the project was the number of black boxes or custom code pieces that are out there. We love doing custom code and it really helps our users, however, there is a cost to that and it tends to hit our developers and how easily they can roll out those new changes. Basically, easier for the users, but potentially harder for our developers. Lots of moving pieces.

Cory and Alan were talking about MVP models for the new sub inventory pieces. We could jump off into super deep waters, but we need to get the project done. We can always circle back around.

After talking about sub inventory for awhile, the topic switched to Metrc (state tracking and compliance system). That 3rd party integration is more than a fulltime job. Anyways, they were talking about importing inventory, comparing inventories between systems, and other required interactions. Lots of moving pieces, plus you have two separate systems that work completely independent and we are trying to keep them synced up together. It can be very challenging. If they change something, we have to follow suite and/or create a bridge to what new requirements are needed. If we make a change, we have to make sure that we aren't breaking anything that already exists.

After Alan was done talking to Cory, he left and just Cory and I were left on the meeting. We started talking about how long certain projects take, how deep they are, and how they tend to morph from what was originally created into something completely new and different. This lead to some discussions on the complexity of being a public or publicly demanded company (our clients have a say in what we do, when, how much, why, etc.). Sometimes I wish that we were just developing our own little software solution and then we could just sell it to the public. Instead, we are building, changing, refining, and trying to please our clients along the way. That is ideal, but it also adds all kinds of pressure and other variables.

Cory and I got talking about real costs and what it takes to please people. We had a client that came up with an idea, it sounded easy, but has turned into a huge 4 month project and has cost us over $30,000. Sure they want it, but did they pay for it? Sadly, no, we are stuck with the bill. We tend to do that a lot. That hurts and especially if you keep doing it. We love to build and can get sucked into that very easily. Having said that, we are getting better at asking for seed monies, billing out the clients, and sharing the load. Sometimes we just need to vent a little bit.

As we were talking, my mind started to think about how hard it would be to fully rewrite the entire application that we are building. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to and I think we could come away with some huge benefits but there is a cost. Some of those costs are real costs with money, resources, talent, time, etc. What about the things that are harder to see like stress, pressure, demands, wear and tear, burnout, changes in physical ability, mental ability, and other unseen costs. What if we just try to build on what we have? That's what we are doing right now. What if we just kept going and didn't try to redo everything? Just keep refining, polishing, and tweaking things as needed. Still a lot of work, but it may be a better solution (at least right now). I was thinking about fracture (future project) and where we want to go with that project and those pieces.

Merging and pushing up new code for Chuck and the time templates homepage. Looks good. More evidence that we could take the older code and make it look nicer without redoing everything. See attached for some screenshots.

Helping Chuck get a missing folder back in place for his adilas docs project. After that, I recorded some notes from earlier today. Chuck reached out again and wanted some help with some code snippets and custom page setting stuff.

Met up with Bryan to go over some of his projects. He is currently working with a number of 3rd party solutions - e-checks, merchant processing, EMV chip reader stuff, and cash and coin dispenser (Paypod). Lots of hurry up and wait or trying to coordinate schedules. He has to flip flop between branches quite a bit. Anyways, we went over a couple of questions from a couple of his 3rd party solution projects. He was mostly looking for some ideas and direction where he was stuck or kinda spinning his wheels. Bryan sure does a great job pushing on things (doesn't give up very easily). Once he gets some direction, he will head off in that way or manner.

I went back and recorded more notes on other elements of time for the day to finish up the timeslot.

Merging in some code for Chuck and work that he is doing on the adilas docs.

I got an email from Chuck with some more ideas for the new time template settings (for elements of time). I added some notes to time id # 8004 - where I was recording some ideas for the new time settings. This may be an ongoing project, but I love the direction.

After I finished up with Chuck, I went back to working on some of the time template settings. This was done on paper (system pages that were printed out) and highlighter markers and a pen (making small notes). I also had an open Excel file with all of the new verbage changes that we are trying to do. See attached for what it is looking like. Everything in orange is going to be dynamic and changeable. Making progress.

John and I were touching base on security and encryption of usernames and passwords. John is building some documentation for super high systems admin persons. We were going over how some of the login credentials work and what kinds of encryption, hashes, and reverse look-ups that we use.

After John and I got finished, I went back to working more on elements of time and new time settings. Pretty big project.

Cory joined and I reported in and showed her what I was working on with the new element of time settings and new time template settings. We did a small over view, I recorded some notes, and I showed her around the printouts, marker/highlighter stuff, and Excel spreadsheets. I did some drawing and tried to explain where we are going and heading. We also talked about planning projects and being able to turn those projects over to other developers.

As a part of our conversation, Cory was mentioning that Steve is working with a client that is paying for some new time settings that they want. We talked about options to control settings on a world (corporation) level and also on a per time template level. Steve is working with his client on some global or world level settings. I am going to be tackling some of the time template level settings. We will work together to make it all flow and happen. I'm seeing that Steve's settings will be considered global and will feed into the template level settings. The the template level settings will control the elements of time that are added under each time template.

Random side note, Chuck did a rework on the time template homepage yesterday and we pushed it up to the server. It looks great (night and day difference). I'm seeing that our future plan - called "fracture" may end up being a refinement of what we are currently doing. I was explaining to Cory how I always envisioned two totally separated projects (old adilas or ship 1 and new adilas or fracture or ship 2). Even though I would really love to do that... (old ship and new ship). We may have to build on what we have. If we get the funds and resources, I'd still like to rewrite the whole thing. If not, we may need to keep tweaking, refining, polishing, and working with the older version to make it become what we are looking for. Anyways, just recording some ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Work session with Shannon on the analogy and crossover between a video recorder and the adilas recorder or business recorder (the adilas application). Just for fun, I thought that I would attach some of the verbage and copy that we are working on. We are still refining things, but here is what Shannon and I are working on. See attached for more info (still in raw format).

Adilas Core Concepts

Why and how does it work? Every company becomes its own world - virtual world building. What does your world look like?

The 12 Main concepts we are going to cover: 

1. Capture & Record The Story
2. Groups, Players, Individuals, & Characters
3. Relationships
4. Trouble, Problems, Needs, & Goals
5. Decisions & Choices
6. Consequences (Cause & Effects)
7. Accountability
8. Permissions & Settings
9. Systems
10. Vision & Future Developments
11. Tech, Tools, & Maintenance
12. Objects & Data Over Time (Tracking Full Life Cycles)

Small Overview

Concepts 1-6: Elements of digital storytelling - characters, relationships, decisions, consequences, etc. 

Concepts 7-12: Tools and concepts we use to allow, and capture, people's stories playing out on the web/cloud environment. 

Game Changers And The Value Of The Story

We have started realizing that Adilas has created a digital way of recording the story. Similar to what the video camera did in sharing widely with people what was possible; we have started realizing we have created a way to capture and record all of the pieces and relationships in the business environment. Imagine the movie of your business. What would that look like?

From a book called, "The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance" by Steven Kotler, one of his topics was dealing with the role of the video recorder. Before the video recorder so many people did not even know certain things were achievable. Once it was recordable, it could become repeatable. People could share that, study it, run it back and forth, and really get into the details. This allowed others to see what was possible, which produced bench marks and standards that caused people to keep growing and pushing the limits. 

As we were thinking about the ability to record and share content, we thought of some other advancements that have taken place in our lifetime. Video recorders used to be very expensive, now people have them almost everywhere. They are on phones, go-pros, and can be small and hand-held. These video recorders have become very portable, low cost, and widely accessible.  They have become a widely used tool for how people document things.

Another neat thing about a video recorder is that you can jump around the video - pause, record, rewind, go forward, slow it down, etc. On the Adilas side, as you work with the system, everything gets recorded as well. This allows you to have all of your data at your fingertips. You can see the current, real-time rolling data or you can access any data in the past. 

In the business world, there are so many things happening, interacting, and a whole digital story that is unfolding. There are different players and relationships. Resources are going up and down. Things are interacting and being time stamped, tracked, and organized. 

What if you could watch all of these interactions and this story unfold from a bird's eye, high level view? What if you could be on the ground where things are really happening, seeing the causes, effects, and relationships play out? What if you needed more details and you could physically get inside of that piece and see the details and logic? This is ADILAS!

People want to see things tracked the whole way through. Once they understand and see the potential and possibilities of what we are doing with Adilas - they just want more.  What if the Adilas recorder becomes a game changer for capturing your business story? Think of the doors that you could unlock if you had a fully integrated system that works and flows together - the possibilities are unlimited. 

Before you think that this is just a dream - you need to check out Adilas. We have a viable, working solution that does all of this right now! This is a game changer. We will continually be building and expanding on the application but these features are available to use right now! Go, do, build, play, and let's start making those dreams happen together!

Trying to catch-up on recording notes and transferring little scribbles into real text entries for the developer's notebook.

Recording notes from post-it notes. Also on a 30 minute phone call with Steve at the end of the day. He had just finished with some meetings and was reporting on what he was learning, hearing, and thinking. Good conversation. We went over some funding options, changes that are coming, and how you have to be in this environment to really understand it (SaaS - software as a service model). We were talking about how it is really tough having customer demands, restrictions, pressures, stresses, funding challenges, and companies that are pushing the limits. Build and break, build and break. However, without that, our product would be a virtual lab experiment and wouldn't be field tested. You almost have to be in the water swimming to keep up with the change that are happening.

We talked about building on what we have and more refinement, polishing, and tweaking as we go. That concept is growing on me, the further that we go along. It really is ok to build on what you have. Just keep making it better and better.

Recording notes and expanding on thoughts and ideas as I type them up. All part of the process.

Reviewing some of the new slides and verbage that Chuck put up for the presentation gallery. More catch-up on recording notes. I've been really behind but making progress.

John and I jumped on the meeting. We were looking at John's backend system admin app for super backend documentation. He was building a whole new login process and that can get pretty deep. Lots of the existing apps, already have that part done, so it is quite a feat to recode a full login process from scratch. You have form fields, modes, lengths, validations, hashes, encoding, decoding, database checks, permission checks, session management, and page flow to deal with (just to name a few things). It's deeper than you think.

After John left, I stayed on to see if anyone else was going to jump on. Today is Labor Day, so I wasn't sure. I recorded notes and played a little bit of catch-up on small to do lists.

Cory and I touching base on some projects. We kept it pretty short today. I did some drawing and explaining to Cory on some of the questions that she had. Nothing major to report for today.

Helping Danny with a merge to push up 30+ files that have built-in or embedded video help file links. We had to fix a small merge conflict and then pushed up the files. Steve and Sean were talking about leads, sales, the game of numbers (touches, demos, etc.), and just plain getting out there and stirring the pot.

One of the biggest problems that we have is keeping our users and clients up to date. We have people who don't even know what we have, and it's been available for years. Steve and Sean were talking about almost having to resell our existing clients on the new upgrades and changes. This in-house, virtual up sale, would be based on who is using what and who hasn't even played with the new features, permissions, or functionality. Sean was recommending that we use the system to see who is using what. We can tell, we just haven't written those pages to check on some of the different usage areas. If we use the system, that would help us figure out usage and compliance from the backend. We could then make a more targeted approach to who needs some follow-up and possibly some handholding. The goal would be to help our clients keep moving forward.

Steve was talking about a simple child's game of red light/green light and playing that with our clients. Red means no, yellow means not all the way, and green means yes or they are using it - meaning features, tools, permissions, and functionality. As a side note, we have to respect and use caution, just because we could check out what our users and clients are doing and using, doesn't mean that we should do that on every aspect. It could flip and go the wrong way and turn into spying. Not that we want it to get there, just saying, you have to be careful and only cross certain lines. This is a small poke, but if you don't define some lines, you may end up like Google and know way too much about your users (just being silly).

Our goal would be deeper customer care and helping our users be more engaged, entrenched, and/or sticky. If we help them get what they want and need, we become more needed and in demand. We want to get them all the way in, so that they love adilas and don't want to leave.

"Use technology to keep pushing our product!" - Wayne Moore, years and years ago, speaking to Steve and I. Small little quote that Steve keeps bringing up from time to time.

At the end of the session, John was showing me his super backend admin site and documentation. We talked about getting things written down and also the security risk of doing that. There are pros and cons. Wayne joined and we got into a small discussion about permissions and roles. 

Wayne, John, Cory, and I were on the server meeting. More discussions on super backend admin documentation and roles and permissions. Let's get everything recorded and then we'll figure out how we want to get it out to our guys (only to certain ones).

We then moved into discussing a small server outage from yesterday. It was Labor Day yesterday, and the servers went down (almost all of them) for 7-15 minutes at the exact same time. Not good but also not really something that happened on our end. Both Wayne and John were looking at log files, pings, reports, databases, and other resources. It seems like it was upstream of us and we responded as quickly as we were able, but it was somewhat out of our control. Servers were, in fact, up and running, we just couldn't get to them and nobody else could either during the period. They are go to look into it deeper. They already have some support tickets submitted to different entities to see what happened.

We briefly talked about updating our email server and the next steps in that process. We talked about getting some grey listing removed and see if that helps with the speed. We also went over some of the transfers from Newtek to Hostek (different server companies). We transferred a couple of servers last week. Most of our servers are now on the Hostek side of things. That has been years in the coming...

The last major subject was dealing with the need to allow for multiple databases to be connected to from the same servers. We are calling this the datasource project or world building project. It would allow a single server to have one set of primary code, but it could interact with any number of databases. Currently, the ratio is a perfect one set of code to one database. That would be expanded as we take it to the next level. Needed, but still in the planning stages. It comes down to resources and time.

I was going to be meeting with Shannon, but that didn't happen.  So, I spent the time recording notes from this mornings meetings. Chuck gave me a text and asked if I could help him out for a bit. We met over the GoToMeeting session and went over a few things. He has been revamping the add/edit payee/user pages. It gets into permissions and Russell had a design to help that section of code be more user friendly. Anyways, Chuck has been translating Russell's dream into physical pages and changes. It started getting past just a face lift, so Chuck was checking in to see what we wanted him to do. We decided that he will finish up the face lift and then we'll need to pass that project on to a backend developer. No problem, and I appreciate him checking in on that project.

Chuck and I also touched base on possibly re-doing the Bear 100 runner portal page (customer or public facing pages for the Bear 100 mile race that adilas helps track). We talked about a mobile first type interface and making that project look better. We also went over the next steps to get the presentation gallery up and live on the adilas servers. Chuck has that site and gallery on one of his servers right now, but we need to flip that so that it will be on the adilas side of things. He has done a great job on that. Good stuff.

Recording notes from the June adilas training event and training conference - a little bit behind (only three months - no big deal). See these elements of time for details. Lots of good stuff.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=7765 - Overview of the adilas training conference with some user requests for tweaks and changes - additional notes attached

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=8232 - Internal adilas team meeting - Friday - June 11th, 2021 - Sales, plans, ideas, shout outs, deep and probing questions for us a company and us a team - additional notes attached

Working on the default money types and payment options. We had a request to add Venmo into the list. At the same time, we also wanted to flip it so that new payment types or money types were not automatically shown, we want the default to be hidden. I then started to cascade that code to other pages that needed the update. It was bigger than I thought and it has about 60 pages that use those custom show/hide money type settings. This idea and request came from the adilas training conference, back in June.

John and Wayne just finished a 2.5 hour training session when I joined the meeting. We talked briefly about some research that John has been doing for a wiki type interface. He is still working on his super backend admin documentation project.

Cory joined the meeting and had a couple of small possible bugs for us to check out. The bug was reported to be on the AFB employee timeclock. It doesn't happen all the time but apparently the system was creating new time cards when it should have been finishing the last timecard. We couldn't get it to do it, but spend some time looking around.

I also showed Cory some of the work that I was doing on the corp-wide settings for choosing and selecting money types. I did a small preview for her on my local box.

Chuck and John were talking about the adilas WordPress site and specs and server stats. They are going to be increasing that box's capacity to help speed things up. They, John, Chuck, and Wayne will end up working together to get the presentation gallery up and live on the adilas servers. Currently, for testing, the presentation gallery is up on Chuck's server until we push it live.

I got Chuck a new time id (project id) for the Bear 100 mile race - public and customer facing - runner portal. We are going to do a small revamp of that site that pulls data from adilas as the runners run the race and check-in at all 13 aid stations. As we were talking, I went in and grabbed a bunch of screenshots of what the old public facing runner portal looked like. It is kinda a social hub for the race. See attached for some screenshots. I'm interested to see what Chuck comes up with for a mobile friendly face lift for that site

Also, dealing with Bear 100 runner portal - we allow friends and family to upload photos. We talked a little bit about uploading photos through mobile and on phones. We are not sure if that is different or the same as normal web.

We then switched to Chuck's current project of the add/edit payee/users layout with a new way to show all of the permissions.

Cory and John checking in on projects and follow-up. Cory wanted to know about the last auto update from master to the different servers. After that, John reported on what he is doing on his other projects. He just finished a 2.5 hour training session with Wayne on backend server stuff earlier this morning. He also showed us a sample of his super backend admin documentation project and progress there.

We use paper and pencil (and digital tools) to record things and extend the memories of our guys and gals. Recording those pieces are a huge part of what we do. The value of the story and the notes that go along with that story.

Cory and John spent some time talking about the adilas phones app and tweaks and changes that are needed there to really make that more efficient. The last subject that they were talking about were some general server errors (null null) and code that somehow gets into an infinite loop and eventually overloads the system, causing it to crash. Sometimes, those aren't super obvious. We had one, one time  that through an error and it called a page that through an error that made it through another error, etc., etc.. Before you know it, it was an infinite loop and caused a crash.

Alan didn't have a ton to report on this call. He and Cory went over a few things. Cory asked him to report in tomorrow, after he had a day to work on a task. She is doing great, trying to keep things going and doing follow-up. Much needed. Busy times.

Cory and I were talking about the use of a buddy, to help push the ball across the finish line. Sometimes, one alone, can't get it done and just having someone else there can help it get finished, whether it is another set of eyes, dedicated time to work on something, figuring it out while explaining it, or just another angle. Good stuff and a great little tool.

At the end of the meeting, I was looking into a reported error with an API socket for calculating taxes. I got it fixed and pushed up some new code.

Revamp the Bear 100 runner portal - make it mobile friendly.

Currently this is the public runner portal - https://data0.adilas.biz/bear100/

The runner portal allows users and persons watching their runners to monitor progress, add comments and notes, and upload photos. They can also see the whole race, check on aid stations, and view other comments and photos for other runners. We just want to make it look great and fun.

Here is a link to some screenshots of the old Bear 100 runner portal page - https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=8179

As a side note, Chuck may end up using this new race/event face lift as a spring board so that we could maybe do more events and races. Just trying to carve our a niche or specialty product.

Paying bills, emails, and a phone call with Steve to go over a few questions. Steve and I chatted about taxes, wages for some of the guys and gals, tasks and projects, and ways to leverage some of what we already have and/or that is in use and demand. Looking for all kinds of different angles. We also talked about funding and what we need to do there. We have always been on a garage type budget. We just keep going and that's one of our strengths but it also has some challenges.

I had a small list of questions for Steve and we went through and covered all of them. We talked quite a bit about sales and options for selling both our product and the services that are needed to make the whole thing go around. Some of the other services that we could offer, are worth as much as our code and the main application. However, without the main application, those byproduct services wouldn't be there. Kinda a symbiotic relationship of sorts. Fun stuff.

Meeting with Eric, Cory, and I to go over expense/receipts and what we want things to look like as we pay for or lower the sales tax liability that Eric is working on, through his sales tax aggregation project. We made some great progress and things are looking good. It was fun to see Eric get excited as things come together. Sometimes, as we build these projects, it feels so disjoined and then it starts coming together. There is a natural high that happens as it starts working or get that lightbulb moment where you get it. That is fun.

Most of our conversations were dealing with lowing the system generated tax liability and declaring earned tax credits or discounts for early re-payment.

One of the keys to what we do is try to help the system simulate or follow what happens in real life. If we can capture the data, and then make it flow out in a natural way, than we have done a good job and have a digital simulation of what happens in real life. We keep shooting for that kind of cross over - simulate what happens in the real world.

As we wrapped up the meeting, there was some conversation about branches, merges, resolving merge conflicts, and mass migration on the live servers (update routines to prep data, tables, corporations, and servers) for the new changes.

Eric is excited and is seeing things better as it unfolds. Your view changes when you start seeing the whole picture or bigger picture. That is fun. Everything just takes time. Eventually, it comes down to building it, deploying it, and then being willing to do the required maintenance on it. The maintenance piece is a big piece, not as fun, but very needed. Good lesson for all of us. Remember the maintenance!

Research on wages paid to some of our guys. Emails, uploading documentation, and checking on payables. I did some preliminary budgeting and checking into some funding options. I also spent a few minutes trying to look for a reported bug in the AFB timeclock app. I couldn't find anything on first glance. That one may take some more time.

I will be in California from 9/9/21, through the Weekend.

Morning meeting. Pretty casual. John and Steve were talking about servers and auto deployment from the master code branch. I was recording some notes from yesterday. Cory joined and her and Steve were checking in on some projects and other follow-up. Alan joined and gave Cory a small report on a task that he had and is working on. Mostly just all doing our own little things.

On a Zoom meeting with Euflora and FlyHi to see a live demo of what they have been working on. I was quite impressed. It was a great demo and they have really done their homework. It gets a big thumbs up from me and the adilas side of things. Here are some of my scribbled notes while I was watching:

- Nice, simple, and pretty opening interface. The backend is fully tied to adilas.biz and is run over backend API sockets. Basically, FlyHi is the customer or patient frontend and adilas is the database backend. All done over API sockets and different connections. I was impressed.

- As an app, it was definitely set to mobile first - nice looking - simple screens - full shopping and delivery app.

- Lots of turn on/off settings and features from the backend side of the app - open/closed, availability of items, filters, etc.

- Full cart, full delivery, full dispatch, and fulfilment through the dispatch process - very mobile friendly for customers, drivers, dispatchers, fulfilment persons, and owners.

- I saw sections for histories, wallet balances, drag and drop assigning orders to drivers, multiple ways to approve or deny progress and service. Easy steps to follow.

- Lots of different apps interacting and quickly loading needed pieces and data connections. Lots of app to adilas interactions (backend API sockets and endpoints).

- Uploading images, documents, building manifests on the fly, back and forth text messages, etc. Great tech and great use of that tech.

- Tons of moving pieces and endpoints being used. From end to end - full circle from start to finish - looked good!

- Fully automated and fully paperless

- As a fun side note, they are using tons of custom parent attributes for their items to run the whole process. Anything special that they need, they are just adding using existing tools and features inside of adilas. Basically, a core product with extendible data points and database fields. Pretty cool!

- As we got into the demo deeper, they are having to do some major hoop jumping and major compliance issues - lots of back and forth. They have done a great job thinking out the process.

- Eventually, they (we) would like to form some strategic partnerships to push this combo product forward. We told them that Steve Berkenkotter from adilas would need to be involved in those decisions.

- They are mixing Metrc (state tracking and compliance), FlyHi, adilas, and their mobile app to do inventory management, ecommerce, online shopping, delivery, dispatch, and compliance stuff. Cool custom mix.

- They said that they have been working on this for 2 years as a development project. It looks great! Nice step-by-step processes and screens.

- For us (adilas) - it would be nice to build a bulk parent attribute updater tool. The other request is a global product catalog to help with normalization of the all the data points and pieces. This includes vendors, photos, descriptions, weights, attributes, categories, units of measure, etc.

- Towards the end of the meeting, I was impressed with how well Cory was doing in coordinating with the client on their requests and next steps. That is awesome! I love it!

- Marisa, from the adilas team was chiming in as well. Good feedback.

- Basically, they are using the huge adilas backend as a big piece of their puzzle - that is awesome! They are building their own app and flow based on API sockets and using a mix of multiple pieces to get the custom interface, functionality, and data storage that they need. I was impressed. In Marisa's words - They are taking the adilas customization options to their own custom levels.

- One of the last topics of the meeting was dealing with how many hoops, loop, and moving pieces. As it keeps going, eventually, who is going to manage what? Lots of pieces to the puzzle.

- As a small side note, I sent Steve a text message after the demo meeting telling him that he needs to see this. Exciting to see what is possible.

Small validation fix for Cory and sub inventory. Spent the rest of the time recording notes.

Checkup meeting with the Paypod folks. They had three guys on the call and we had three from the adilas side (Cory, Bryan, and I). We were touching base on the Paypod project and integration process. The goal was also to see what is needed to take it to the next level. Currently, according to Bryan, it is somewhat hung up due to a certificate issue between the simulator and the ColdFusion server. We setup a meeting for Monday to meet with them (tech to tech) to see if we could resolve that issue.

The Paypod guys did a good job selling and pitching their products. They are trying to completely eliminate all cash in the front of the store(s). They are providing self checkout options as well as self pay options.

Some of the meeting was talking shop and business options and strategies. Their model is to sell the products and then support those products through a service agreement. As far as working with us, they have offered some technical support and help on that side of the fence. We will both (both companies) be pitching in on the funding of the project. Cory worked out some details about billing and expectations. She did a great job negotiating and communicating from the adilas side of things.

To close the meeting, we did a light recap and setup the next meeting time. Murray, from there side, seems to be a good project manager and likes to keep the ball rolling. After the Paypod guys left, Cory and Bryan touched base on some other projects that Bryan is working on. Making progress!

Recording notes from earlier today. Lots of meetings with outside parties. Back looking into a possible bug with the AFB timeclocks.

Phone calls, emails, paying bills, uploading receipts.

Steve and Danny were talking about sales and different angles. They were also talking about the Flyhi demo and what a great job they did in building out the full integration and process. I was very impressed as well. Danny was talking about the possibility of showing what they did as one a valid product, and two as an inspiration to others to see what is possible. Great ideas and I love the angle. Click here to view my notes from the actual demo (last week).

Cory joined the meeting and her, Steve, Danny, and I were all talking about ways to harness what the Flyhi guys have done and built. Lots of options. We told Steve that we will try to get him a link to the video recording that they did during the demo. He is excited to see that and also to get on the phone and let others know about it.

John had me push up some new code for the discount engine. Once we pushed it up, we talked about changes and then also expanded the conversation into what are the next steps on the discount engine. Cory and I are leaning towards John going in there and doing some clean-up work. He has been doing great and is the one who has been making the last few changes.

When I wasn't helping others, I was doing emails, checking payables, bouncing between things.

Cory, Steve, and I on a meeting talking about cash drawers and cash management. We have a client that is really wanting a dynamic cash drawer type management system. This would include unlimited cash drawers, options for counting things up, down, over, and short. See some of the screenshots for what they are using for Excel spreadsheets right now. We are wanting to build in a new cash handling feature inside of adilas. Also, by way of a note, the Paypod project will need the same thing, for a cash drawer or cash management feature.

Cory had a question about a quote for a client. We looked into it and set the price. I will end up being the one who does that project. It deals with adding some more preset dates to a drop-down list for a quick sales by category report.

The last part of the meeting was Cory and John working through projects, lists, and going over more discount engine tweaks and changes. Behind the scenes they were looking at code and database values and making decisions from there. Good meeting, kinda random, but good.

Eric and I met up to go over the sales tax aggregates project and what are the next steps. We looked at some code, talked about dependencies, logic, drill-downs, and backend database triggers and such. We also know that we need to prep and condition each individual server before pushing up these changes. Kinda a big merge process with some dependent steps that need to be taken.

We decided to pull his code branch on to my server and run things from the start to see what happened. We got in there and started running some experiments. We found a couple of small issues and kept building out the tick list. Making good progress.

One place that still needs a little bit of work is the add new corporation process. We finished up the meeting by making some plans with what else needed to be done before our next meeting and/or during our next meeting.

Meeting up with Bryan to go over invoice payment flow and credit card processing for a project that Bryan is working on. GLM stands for Green Link Merchants. We got deep into the credit card and merchant processing pages, data, flow, and logic. We uncovered some options and other things that did a similar process to what Bryan is trying to do. Those other code pieces are great guides and virtual handrails. He will be able to follow those other pages and create his own small logic tweaks. Lots of exploring other pages and finding out where the logic switches come into play inside those other pages.

Recording notes from this morning. Then on to working on the AFB timeclock and quick timecards project - checking over existing code and tightening things up.

Met up with Bryan to go over the invoice voiding process and how that works with credit card transactions. There are a couple different routes. First, if the invoice doesn't have any credit card transactions (merchant processing) the void process does its normal routine. However, if it finds one or more credit card transactions, it has to flow a different way so that it can try to clean-up any non batched payments. If a payment has already been batched and processed, you can't just void it. That gets into refunds. Anyways, going over logic and flow with Bryan.

After we finished. I went back and was working on an internal project for selecting money types and defaults for carts, invoices, deposits, and expense/receipts.

Chuck and I jumped on a GoToMeeting session to go over the mock-ups for the Bear 100 mobile app. We already have a customer or public facing runner portal, but it is old school web and is not fully optimized for mobile display. Anyways, Chuck is redoing things and building a fully mobile first mock-up. We went over the pages, screens, and flow for the new mini app. It is looking great!

After Chuck and I finished, I was going back and forth with Eric about some of his special expense types (texting back and forth). Working on the default money types project as well. A couple small texts back and forth with Chuck about other ideas and changes that we could incorporate.

Just Steve and I chatting for the first little bit. We were talking about projects, new settings, and how important dynamic naming is to our users. Certain people want to call things bill of material, others recipes, others components, etc. Every little thing, depending on who is using it, may change. Even things like location, store, department, room, job, event, etc. All dynamic naming for each industry.

Eric joined and had some questions on logic and flow for his special expense type groupings. He had some good questions and you could tell that he was thinking about things and trying to wrap his head around that. Good stuff.

Server meeting with Wayne. Checking in on the adilas phones app. Wayne was talking about some new discoveries that he and John were finding out (doing some digging in the background). The adilas phones app was built by another party and adilas was able to acquire it through a mutual contact. It seems to work well, and we use it for the adilas tech support line, but it is hard to work with (meaning backend stuff). Anyways, Wayne was reporting on the layers of software that it is built on and how some of them are open source packages and some of them are older, non supported packages. Anyways, he was somewhat pitching newer options for either Amazon Connect or Twilio Flex packages and just rebuild it.

Lots of discussion about the topic. Wayne and John are hesitant to resell the adilas phones pieces until we can make a decision on what backend it will be using. Steve and Wayne were talking about the adilas phones app and pros and cons of either sticking with what we currently have and/or rebuilding in something like Amazon Connect or Twilio Flex. There was also some talks about changing the URL or domain name (web path) to the app. The current one that was acquired from the other party doesn't run over SSL (secure socket layer or https) and we really need that to be in place.

Cory, John, and Wayne were coordinating on different projects and topics. The internal email options were brought up and Wayne is going to look into some settings that we can change on the Newtek and SmarterMail side of things.

There were other discussions about reselling certain functionality that we build and what markets are wanting and needing those pieces.

John and Cory were talking about the discount engine and doing some bulk flipping of some records for a client. The client has multiple corporations and multiple locations within each corporation and wanted some global changes made to the discounts that they have stored. One of the request was dealing with the actual discount engine (inside of adilas) and being able to edit discounts and be able to see all previous selections (from lists of checkboxes). You can edit the discounts right now, but it doesn't show the checkboxes (in big huge lists) that you chose. It just shows you what names (text values) of what you had selected.

Towards the end, John was asking Sean for some training in other areas that he doesn't know that well. That is awesome. We want to encourage that (cross training).

Working with Shannon. We spent the first little bit going over some highlights of what is going on in different areas. We talked about the presentation gallery, the new facelift for the Bear 100 mobile app, and some other happenings.

We had a conversation about the "stone soup" analogy - bring what you've got and through it in the pot, we are making stone soup. The meaning here, is that, if we are playing stone soup, you can't be as picky as say a high end restaurant. We are looking for progress and refining things as we go. If we had all of the talent and funding in the world, we would play completely differently. Currently, we have to play the stone soup game (more of a community effort or just in time type project) vs other well funded traditional methods and approaches.

Shannon and I talked about changing directions. We were going to be working on refining the adilas core concepts for the presentation gallery (verbage and copy), but they already finished the presentation gallery, so maybe we will jump over there and read through things and try to help there. We would really like that to go live and to be able to be used for teaching, training, and helping new clients and prospects get the idea of where we are headed.

See attached for list of adilas core concepts that we were working on. It's not finished, but a great start. We may try to get back to that later on. For now, we are moving on to the next little fire.

Emails, checking on funding, phone calls with developers, and finishing up a project dealing with default money types and how they show on different drop-downs, inside the adilas site. Finished up that project, merged in new code, and cascaded the Venmo payment type or money type to all servers.

This didn't happen. Got pulled in on other projects.

Sean and John joined and checked in. We were all pretty much just working on our own little projects most of the time. I reviewed the adilas and Flyhi video recording and pushed it up to our content server. Here is the link to it, if needed.

I spent the rest of the time recording notes from yesterday and checking on funding.

John and Cory were going over projects. John had a small proposal for some changes on the discount engine. We went over some ways of speeding things up as far as queries, existing methods, lists, text values vs numeric id numbers, and other ways to tighten things up a bit. John wrote down some notes and will look deeper into some of those pieces.

Alan and Cory touched base as well. Alan is still working on some testing but getting really close. There are still some issues with the setting - with tax included, but other than that, things are looking good.

After both of these guys bailed out, I gave Cory an update on some projects that I've been working on. I launched some code last night for helping to hide new money types and we also added Venmo as a payment/money type to all servers. I also got rid of an older Adobe Flash setting for my cart favorite buttons. As a fun side note, these three changes and requests were from my notes from the adilas training session back in June of this year. Trying to get things done as we are able.

Working in Excel - Light planning and reviewing numbers for funding, budgeting, and future plans.

Chuck and I touched base on the new Bear 100 mobile app (public facing runner portal for the Bear 100 mile race). Chuck is already doing frontend code and going from Adobe XD mock-ups to HTML pages with the pieces and colors and styles built into the pages. I will be his backend wire-up guy for this project. Our plans are for Chuck to hardcode things and add a series of comments and notes so that I can follow along from the backend.

Sent an email to Steve with some numbers, ideas, and options.

Back and forth with Steve about some ideas and options. Recording notes and working on a small custom report that was requested by a client. The new changes were dealing with preset date ranges like current month, last month, etc. Basically, they, our clients use a simple value and we figure out all of dynamic dates behind the scenes.

We were going to work on a cash management tool, but ended up looking into a possible bug out in ecommerce land. The bug was showing up live, but not on our local testing environment. We then did some hidden, live testing, and took some notes. We will have to go deeper on this one. We went from thousands of lines of code down to a set of 300 lines. Having said that, it still may take some time to really get through the rest of this little bug fix.

Originally planned, but it didn't happen. Got pulled in another direction looking into a problem with ecommerce.

Steve was working on a database update for some new corp-wide settings for PO names and recipe/build names. We looked at his code and made a few changes. We then went on and talked about the growing need for super high enterprise or global level product and item catalogs. It seems to be more and more needed, yet it is still out there a little ways.

Steve and I chatted about some funding options and then I pitched some ideas to Steve about the data assembly line concepts. Lots of small little drawings. We are actually doing it, building towards the full data assembly line concepts, but we just haven't really made that our focus. Dustin has already added a phase base process for cultivation. Steve is currently working on some production phases, and we have other projects that have similar flavors. The absolute ideal would be to allow our clients the ability to setup and run their own business processes and let them (our users or our clients) setup the phases, sub locations, options, flow, defaults, timing, etc. of these processes and procedures. That would be really cool!

Meeting with Eric to go over his sales tax aggregates project. The meeting started and both Eric and John were touching base on the project and how we have a need for a high-end database admin (db admin) person for a part of our project. Lots of triggers, stored procedures, and grant permissions are needed. We also have some database level scheduling and other database administrator type tasks.

The topic switched from db admin stuff to code. We were talking about how some of the original code is very linear and in-line vs more object oriented and layered. Some of that is just legacy, but it keeps coming up. We also talked about using abstract getters and setters vs really big methods or functions. Smaller and more modular - able to move and be independent.

After the initial meeting with Eric, he left to keep working on the project. I then met with John and Bryan for a bit. John and I were talking about Adobe XD files out on the content server, but we couldn't really get to them (research, layouts, and mock-ups). We will ask Wayne about that. Bryan joined and had questions on merchant processing and tying things into existing tools and pages as well as offering options from the 3rd party solutions page.

Shannon and I spent a session going over some verbage and copy (text) on the presentation gallery. We added some suggestions for Chuck on his Trello (project management) board for the project.

Looking up a data problem for a client. They had two sets of records for a specific item and only wanted and needed one. I sent them an email showing what I was seeing from the database side of things. As a side note, this same client had us do some custom imports and data uploads for them. It is possible that is how we got the double records. We haven't seen this same thing happen through normal channels within adilas. Hoping and assuming that it was due to the custom imports and possibly bad data (from the client) that made this happen.

I did some checking on some funding and made some calls and uploaded some bank statements to some potential lenders.

Met with Bryan and did a code review on a merchant processing project for Green Links Merchants (GLM). We merged and pushed up some code. Bryan was going to go to each server and run some update scripts before we went to the next step.

I had to field a couple of calls from funding sources and lenders. Trying to shop around for some funding to keep pushing things forward.

Wasn't able to get to this, again. Pulled in too many directions. Good intentions, but it just isn't happing. Not enough time in the day.

Fixing FTP settings, running some updates and pushing up files for Steve.

New custom date ranges, new date presets for the quick sales report - at a client's request to add the new preset date ranges.

Pushing up new quick sales report changes to all servers.

Got some new files from Chuck for the Bear 100. Getting into the new branch and moving some files around. Made some back-ups of the older files. We are planning a pretty big facelift and mobile friendly version to be pushed up.

Steve and I on the meeting touching base. He had some new code that we pushed to all servers. I then went and ran some database updates to add some new corp-wide settings for PO names (internal build and update PO). We did some light testing and pushed up some small changes. Steve and Sean were talking sales and some contact info. Pretty casual meeting.

Cory, Steve, and I on a meeting going over projects. The first topic of the day was 3rd party solutions and who is going to do what. They play a role, but also require quite a lot in time and resources. Talking about who is going to be covering what and what deals are going to be made.

Cory and I then jumped into some review on a cash drawer or cash management project. She had a bunch of notes from different meetings and we read through them. We have a decent picture of what is needed, it just comes down to decisions and directions. As we were talking, we bumped up against another big project for splitting up the corp-wide settings into smaller pieces. I pitched a couple of ideas and then Steve jumped in and added some new ideas. We recorded a few of them on the project inside of adilas.

Regardless, we are looking at breaking things up into smaller tables per section and doing some much needed maintenance. We then got off on another maintenance based tangent talking about some other older projects that we haven't gotten finished yet. We are going to be checking in with Wayne tomorrow on some of those. We feel like they are somewhere between 40-70% finished, but we don't really know and also don't know what it will take to finish them. Just looking at options.

On a different note, I know that both Steve and I are feeling strung out and it's hard to focus, with so many things calling for our attention.

On a meeting with Bryan going over the Paypod project. We did some research on Google and tried a few things. We are stuck on some Windows certificate pieces and how to connect and pass data back and forth with the hardware (or even the hardware simulator). I think that this project is going to take an actual Windows developer who could create a small piece of software as a bridge. Both Bryan and I are web developer, and I'll speak for myself, this project is over my head right now. We are going to need help from someone of the Wayne or Calvin type level. Hardcore software/hardware guys.

As a note, I told Bryan to hit the pause button on this project. I also sent text messages to both Cory and Steve letting them know. We are spinning our wheels right now.

Recording notes from the end of last week. Trying to stay semi caught up. Answering text messages, emails, and other follow-ups.

Working on Bear 100 stuff. Changing event dates, they needed an aid station swapped out, and prepping files for the public runner portal. Uploaded a number of files to start pushing up new changes.

I joined the meeting but not a lot was going on, so I bailed out to work on the Bear 100 new stuff that I got from Chuck.

Quite a few of us on the server meeting this morning. I had a small list to go over with Wayne and we started there. My list was:

- The new Emerald Fields server and custom database

- Training for John - that is going great and we are very happy there

- Talking about the developer's server and making it more into a testing environment as needed - a server that is in total flex - lots of great ideas and conversation here

- Corp-wide settings and carving up the bigger tables. We also got into talking about switching between Application.cfm (current) and Application.cfc (where we are headed). Wayne and John are going to be looking deeper and working on this in the next couple of weeks.

- We need access to some Adobe XD files that we put on the content server. They exist, but we can't download them via a direct URL currently.

- More great talks about the testing and developer's server

- We would like to setup a meeting with Russell, Chuck, John, and others to go over Bootstrap 3, 4, and 5 - We would also like to look at options for other data tables that we may want to use. When we do this, we will eventually want to let Dustin, Bryan, Alan, Eric, and Steve know about decisions and direction.

- John reported to Cory on the adilas phones product and progress there

- John went over some of the discount engine stuff and showed us some of his new plans - light question and answer session between John and Cory

Good meeting and making progress. Good stuff.

Shannon and I met and talked about where we are headed next. We currently don't have any major fires that are blazing, so we looked at our tick list (click to view our current tick list) to figure out what to work on next. It took us a while to figure out which way to jump, but we decided to finish up the new content for adilas core concepts. Along those lines, we took our bigger document (almost 20 pages) and made 12 new files and dumped the raw brainstorming data for each core concept into its own file. We will be going through all 12 of the core concepts and refining things down and making each file able to stand on its own. That's where we are heading.

Recording some notes from this morning and then back on the new Bear 100 code and his mobile first code that I got from Chuck. I also got some new screenshots from Chuck to help with a special events page. See attached for a couple of screenshots.

Working on the new wire-up job for the Bear 100 public runner portal. Also did some back and forth (texts and emails) with Chuck on some feedback on his design for the special events landing page. Most of the session was taking the mock-up HTML files and converting them into Adobe ColdFusion pages with dynamic code that is tied to real databases in the background. We call this a wire-up job, going from a static looking mock-up to a dynamic data driven page.

Meeting with the Bear 100 folks. There were nine people on the meeting/call. We had the race director, radio folks, data team, and two of us from adilas (Chuck and I). Good meeting. We gave them a quick demo of the new mobile friendly design and then got into the backend. We went through each of the main buttons and sections. I was driving and did a bunch of explaining and drawing to illustrate flow, logic, and backend code. We had some question and answer stuff, good participation, and great back and forth feedback. Towards the end, the race director got on and thanked everybody.

At the end, we did a bigger demo of the new mobile friendly runner portal and talking about upcoming changes and updates. That was kinda fun. After the meeting, Chuck and I went over a bunch of things and did some planning and scheming. Good meeting!

Working on the Bear 100 photo uploader for the mobile app site. There were a number of changes from the bigger desktop version of the site. Working on the Bear 100 photo gallery page for displaying the photos and images. Other emails and what not.

Small demo for Sean and John on the Bear 100 (old code and new code). Emails and pushing up files and doing some merging.

Working with John and Chuck. The two of them were talking about creating new adilas data tables and other options. Chuck and I talked about the Bear 100 mobile first site and tweaks and changes that we needed. Chuck helped me with some of the layout pieces. Good little catch-up meeting. Here were a few other things that we covered.

- Talking about special events, possible pricing, and info about sponsoring or running a special event

- Forms for contacting us and info about wanting to sponsor things

- Strategy for mock-ups and wire-ups - Chuck and I going back and forth about what works and what is still needed

- Also, just talking about payables and getting things paid

John and Cory going over server stuff and advancing the ball on the developer's box and converting that into the new testing server. Here are some of my other notes.

- Feedback on the discount engine - John has some small mock-up's and screenshots.

- Light talk on logic and flow within the discount engine.

- Talking about graphs and show/hiding data. We have tons of data and I can't wait to start showing what we got through graphs and charts - eye candy stuff.

- Some people like seeing all of the data and stats and some people want it all hidden and virtually keeping there employees in the dark a little bit - level of who knows what. Interesting.

- We talked about permissions and sub permissions.

- We also got into talking about one-pagers, modal pop-ups, AJAX, and other asynchronous data look-ups.

Alan joined the meeting.

- Alan and John were touching base on the developer's box.

- Alan had some questions on tax settings, discount settings in ecommerce, etc.

- We talked about target price per item and logic and flow for that. We also talked about other values called locked price and original price.

- Order of operations between discounts, customer types, tax category settings, and either changes or updates - rolling things back and forth.

- Small error with transition invoices and restoring them back to the cart.

Working on code for uploading photos for the Bear 100 mini app. Ran into some small coding issues with the modals, loaders, and general page flow. Working through things.

On a meeting with Bray. We did some light code reviews and merged in some files. He then was chasing down a small error while I was working on other stuff and doing emails.

John was reporting on the size of the different database. That was awesome to see. Shari O. joined and needed some small updates and help to setup some new credit card processing accounts. We got her all setup and good to go.

Working on the Bear 100 large photo gallery page. Text messages, emails, and other to do list stuff. Pushing up code for Bryan and then back on the Bear 100 mobile first stuff. Working on aid station stuff.

Shannon joined the meeting and we chatted for a few minutes. I told Shannon that I was working on the Bear 100 mobile first app. We decided to skip our normal meeting so that I could keep working. Thanks Shannon!

9/23/21: Steve working on the api connection. Billing hourly.

Chuck and I on a quick GoToMeeting to go over some minor display issues with the new mobile Bear 100 pages.

On a meeting with the Paypod folks and our internal adilas team. We are trying to hit the pause button for right now. It has great potential, we just can't do that big of a lift right now with our developers, resources, and timelines. We hope to circle back around to this project as things free up.

Working on the Bear 100 mobile runner profile page. Working on different legs of the race output on mobile.

Back on the Bear 100 mobile full race page and full race view.

More work on the full race view for the Bear 100 mobile first app. Also worked on some drill-down links from the runner details (profile) page.

Filling out a tax form that I needed. Back on the Bear 100 mobile app. Working on the full race page, last known aid station logic, and finish line results page. As a side note, the actual Bear 100 race started this morning at 6 am. I was trying really hard to finish up the mobile version so that we could get it up and launched. We still have a few pages that aren't done quite yet. In the meantime, the Bear 100 was using the older pages that have existed since the 2015 race. Bummer, but we are trying!

Bear 100 mobile app work. Working on the general show comments and runner support page. Working on some of the custom pagination (next page of x number of pages).

Shari O. checked in and was asking about server sizes and what servers have space or availability. Database sizes and data counts (how many customers, invoices, deposits, expenses, PO's, users, vendors, elements of time, inventory counts, etc.) per server and per corporation.

Cory jumped on to the meeting. We were talking about monies being owed to us and from us to others. Maybe even holding projects for payment before starting. Lots of talks about cash flow and getting the development funded that we are doing. We do a lot, we just don't charge for everything. That is both good and bad. We really need to charge for the services that we provide. We tend to do a ton of stuff for free, but that is costing us big time.

We talked about a menu board project and who was going to do what. We have developers who can handle the backend, but they don't have the frontend or design skills to really make it look nice. We have to mix and blend who is doing what. We also talked about breaking the bigger projects into tons of smaller, more manageable mini projects. They, the clients, were requesting a 4th menu board (already have 3), new settings, auto refresh, and tied to quantity on hand.

The concept of an "MVP" (minimal viable product) and how that fits into the bigger or master plan. Either way, you still have to manage these projects from end to end. 

Towards the end, Cory and I spent some time looking into the timeclock issue with the AFB timecards and timeclock app. We ended up checking different versions of the code, working with the backend actions, and looking over code with Cory. I was coding and narrating and she was watching and asking questions.

Danny, Sean, Steve, and Shari O. were talking about sales and strategies. Good stuff. While they were doing that I was working on emails and follow-ups.

This is from Steve - He said that his mom had a sign in her kitchen saying "If at first you don't succeed, ask your mother." Kinda funny! He was referring to us, both Steve and I, talking with our wives and getting some great advice and direction.

Wayne, John, Cory, Sean, Steve, and myself were on the server meeting today. The first topic was dealing with bug on certain queries of queries. This was not our fault, but it broke due to an update and release from Adobe. We had to roll all of our servers back to a stable release and then the error went away. Wayne did file a bug tracking report with Adobe.

Wayne and John are working on a project to get all of the main applications and Application.cfm pages switched over to Application.cfc pages. Those pages are an auto include on all other pages under those different applications and system folders. Pretty big impact, due to the fact that they hit almost every page in the entire system. Anyways, they are working on that project.

I expressed to Wayne and John that we are really grateful that some server side or server level training that is going on. They have our blessing to continue and good praises there.

The last topic of the meeting was dealing with database sizes and clean-up options (getting the skeletons off the bus). We talked about some options but they are not majorly pressing right this minute. We also talked about doing some database backup and restore processes, as some practice exercises.

Wayne and some of the others left once we got done with the main server stuff. Just Cory, John, and I were left. Cory and John were going over projects, bug tracking, and plans. After that, John and I chatted about maintenance costs and setting up a budget for servers and maintenance. Good little meeting.

Shannon and I were working on adilas core concepts. We started out and did a small review of the Bear 100 from last week and what we are learning and hoping to do in the future. Kinda fun. We then started in on the primary adilas core concepts. The first one is dealing with capturing and recording the story (digital storytelling). That may seem super simple, but that is a huge part of what we are doing. Our goal, is to go over these core concepts and make a small standalone document for each of the main core concepts. There are 12 main core concepts that we are pitching and hoping will get traction and weight. They are:

Adilas Core Concepts

Why & how does it work? Virtual world building...

1. Capture & Record The Story
2. Groups, Players, Individuals, & Characters
3. Relationships
4. Trouble, Problems, Needs, & Goals
5. Decisions & Choices
6. Consequences (Cause & Effects)
7. Accountability
8. Permissions & Settings
9. Systems
10. Vision & Future Developments
11. Tech, Tools, & Maintenance
12. Objects & Data Over Time

We decided that we may end up doing a preface or lead in before we just jump into the core concepts. In doing so, we were looking at some existing verbage and seeing if we could use it. The existing verbage is already in story and paragraph type form. Just seeing what we can come up with. See attached for what we are working on. Also, I added some sub notes and comments to cover some of the other verbage that we are looking at. All of this verbage is from our older website and some PDF flyers.

Merging in some files and custom labels for Danny. Emails and recording notes from the day.

Bryan and I got together to go over a custom project that he is working on. He wants me to help review some code and we also talked about getting Chuck involved to do some design work. I showed Bryan the new design for the Bear 100 (click here to view) and how it is very mobile responsive and mobile first designed. We talked about how to handle custom projects and how to get Cory involved and how to charge and bill for those pieces that don't flow through the main adilas project path.

Recording notes and rereading some older documents on where we were and where we came from (business wise). Heather came down and we talked a little bit about the current state of adilas. We chatted for a good 45 minutes. The good, the bad, the ugly, the potential, the sequence of events, cause and effect relationships, etc. Good conversation.

See elements of time # 8089 for notes from a history bio and old web page with tons of verbage and details about some our our origins, as a company. I would really like our guys and gals to know what we are doing and where we are going. It's worth money to me to be on the same page (virtually) with our team.

Danny was on the meeting this morning and asking about a possible mini training session per month. He was calling it a monthly deep dive, where we could pick a topic or section and do some training on that. We could let our clients know, our internal team know, and then go from there. Great idea. He was also talking about an idea for a feedback form and page for monitoring what our users and clients are wanting and needed.

Dustin, Sean, and Kelly were chiming in. Working on emails and other small to do list things. I unpacked a new events banner from Marisa. It looks great. It has a QR code and a web address on it. It also has the adilas logo and some other graphics including Adi (the blue dog avatar) on the banner. It will be used when we help with other events, such as the Bear 100 and other races, events, or whatever.

Meeting with Chuck. He and I were working on the Bear 100 pagination and styling those pieces. We talked about some other styling projects that are in the works and coming down the pipeline. We chatted about the WordPress stats and how the new website is doing. We also talked about the Adobe XD mock-ups for the payee/user add/edit permissions and user profile pages.

John checking in on some of his projects. He has been helping out with the servers and chipping away at other pieces and projects.

Alan reported in and let us know where he is at as well. He is currently working with cart totals and making more code into functions and objects (refactoring). Alan and I also talked about turnaround time on some of our projects. There are many unseen and unforeseen obstacles in what we do. Talking about breaking things into smaller or mini projects, so that we could get traction. He also had some questions dealing with stuff out on ecommerce.

Emails and working on the Bear 100 mobile site. Trying to get the pagination all working and styled out. Also adding in filters to the runner comments (subs of time).

Working with Bryan on pre-auth's (pre authorizations for credit cards and merchant processing). We also looked into voids, and refunds. Bryan had built some small prototypes and we were giving each other some feedback and cautions. All of these processes have virtual teeth. We decided to use the duplicate invoice to cart functionality and do a quantity flip for the user. This would be the start of our refund process. This was a great idea that we got out of the discussion. Prior to this meeting, we were going in a different direction. This way is much better and puts a little bit more weight and decision power on the user. That is perfect, just what was needed.

We talked about using flex grid tie-ins to keep track of the data relationships (old invoice to new refund invoice) and what not. We also talked about using spreadsheets and scratch drawings to make sure that we cover all of the scenarios.

Working on more of the Bear 100 mobile version for the public runner portal. Working on the runner photo gallery pages. We also had to deal with an SSL (secure socket layer) issue. Some of our certificates weren't letting people access the sites. Nothing was wrong with the certificates, it totally had to do with time zones and where or who was trying to access them. We had clients in one state that couldn't get in, while others in a different state were doing just fine. We are not sure what happened, but something was going on. We ended up reissuing two of the certificates. That seemed to fix it.

Emails and small bug fix for the content server. Making sure that the SSL (secure socket layers) certificates were being used correctly.

"Be a part of the solution" - This is more for me... Sometimes it is easy to find fault or point fingers. I want to try to be a part of the solution and thus need to act as such.

Working on the Bear 100 pagination and photo gallery pages.

Working with Shannon online over GoToMeeting. We were reviewing all of the verbage and copy (text) on element of time # 8089 in the shop. It has a ton of older history or biography of the adilas origins and what we are trying to do. Click here to view that document (also see the subs or additional notes at the bottom for even more info).

Working on origins and concepts and how they have played out (been uncovered or discovered - on our own journey). We are learning and trying to harvest what we are learning. That is awesome! Lots of progression, discovery, decisions, scars, and consequences.

We are (our minds are) geared for stories. We love to hear stories. As history unfolds and unrolls, we are living it and it becomes a part of the story. It also gives it value if your in it and living through it.

General observation - We are virtually running at lightspeed (super busy and understaffed) and having a problem of slowing down or not being able to slow down. Lightspeed sounds awesome, but if you can't stop or can't slow down where needed, you may have a problem. It feels like we are forced into running so fast, we can't slow down to check things out, smell the roses, or even see the roses.

Shannon and I got back into talking about history and our (the) story. It seems to come down to asking, what comes next? Being willing to keep exploring and pioneering. It's part of how we do what we do. We honestly don't know everything, we just keep pushing on and asking what is next and how does that fit in? Ideally, we want to help provide people with the correct tools, concepts, knowledge, and principles to allow them to succeed and grow. That can be a real challenge.

See attached for where we are working on these origin concepts.

Email to the race director with the Bear 100 mile race. Light sales pitch and trying to sell some of our other services.

Fun meeting with Audrey and Marisa. Kinda like a small interview. Both of these girls help out with our marketing stuff. They were asking questions and I was drawing, showing pictures, and presenting some of the history behind what was happening (then and now). I had a great time. I think that they had a good time as well. Basically, a quick 45 minute tour from here to there - How did adilas get started and some key points along the way.

See attached for an older Microsoft Excel document with some timelines and key versions of the adilas platform.