Working with Shannon on help files and defining parts of the interactive map. We put in a whole new intro section and started moving some of the numbered sections around. Overall, a good session. Here are a few notes for me...

- Go back to October 2010. I was planning things out and trying to figure out where things fit together. There are a bunch of brainstorming documents that deal with what are the topics, what is the scope of each topic, how does it play into operations, how does it play into accounting, and who are it's buddies. That brainstorming session, over days and days, was the initial catalysis for the adilas interactive map. Specifically, we were planning and mapping out how the balance sheet fully works. Here is a link to that info: October 2010 in the developer's notebook.

- It feels like we are slowly coming up the chain... This is an analogy with food and baking/cooking, but it has similar things that have happened with how we pitch and promote adilas. We started out talking about the ingredients, then moving up to the functions of things that you can do, and finally getting to the results and/or what you can create. So, in food, ingredients are things like milk, sugar, flour, butter, salt, eggs, etc. Functions are things like baking, cooking, boiling, mixing, frying, roasting, chilling, freezing, thawing, etc. The outcomes and/or results are things like pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, cinnamon rolls, ice cream, smoothies, etc. This is what people really want.

- In the adilas world, the ingredients are things like invoices, quotes, inventory items, customers, vendors, PO's, expense/receipts, banks, deposits, etc. The functions are thing like POS (point of sale) systems, CRM (customer relationship management), CMS (content management systems), ERP (enterprise resource planning), accounting, inventory management, etc. The outcomes and/or results are peace of mind, clarity, trust in your numbers and the story that you are getting, being able to make decisions, gaining visibility, accountability, business intelligence (BI), digital storytelling, confidence, etc. We are wanting to get there... to the outcomes and/or results. We are only now seeing that we have been spending all of our time telling people that we have invoices and customers or we can do POS mixed with CRM stuff. We haven't quite gotten to the part that people really want. That's where we are heading.

- This little analogy about cooking and baking as compared to adilas business platform and system tools (see above) could be a super fun graphic. We are learning and we need to show what is really possible. In Steve's words, we need to sell the sizzle, not the steak.

The other part of the adilas glossary (A-J) is on element of time # 4030 in the adilas university site. Web link - time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=4030

K

• Keep - This is usually some sort of an action where you are maintaining or keeping something for later use. It could also involve something that you do continuously - for instance keep clicking on this, keep drilling down, keep refreshing, keep checking back, etc. Saying either save that or continue on that path. 
• Kill - This is a general term usually meaning to delete, destroy, make inactive, hide, etc. It is a general term that means to get rid of something. Other times you might talk about if it is going to kill the system meaning too heavy of a load, too intense, too many sub details, etc. 
• Knock knock - Who's there? It could be a joke but actually we use it in computer speaking when we are trying to gain access to API sockets. You play knock knock with the server. The server responds who are you? What do you want? Then you have to respond that those questions/requests. It is kind of a back and forth protocol.
• Knox Report - Special sales report for invoices and payments made. It has the ability to show quick stats, counts, and other math totals. You can also run comparisons on different date ranges if wanted. The original report, and all of the columns and/or numbers, were requested by an operations manager named Phillip Knox, out of Canada. Thus the name. It's really just an awesome sales report.
• KPI or Key Performance Indicators - These are a set of values (totals, counts, averages, sums, etc.) that are used to determine how things (people, processes, or campaigns) are doing. Some of these KPI's are used on reports, dashboards, and in other areas. Basically, someone setups up a rule and and benchmark goal. Then things are evaluated based on those key performance indicators.
• Kush Cart - This is a version of the internal shopping cart. The three main versions are the classic cart, the Kush cart, and the mini scan cart.

L

• Labels - Can be printed via browser settings from multiple locations in the database. Item labels can be used to add items to the shopping cart, item labels can be printed from within the shopping cart for certain industries, labels can be printed for plants from the cultivation homepage.
• Label Builder - Special application and/or functionality to help with custom labels. Inside the system, there are various label builders. Some are very basic (auto linked from specific pages to the label generator) and other allow for all kinds of drawing, graphics, dynamic text, colors, rotation, barcodes, QR codes, custom naming, saving, etc. Multiple versions, based on needs.
• Liabilities - Financial obligations of a company. Tracked on the balance sheet.
• Line Items - "Meat and potatoes of a form." Can be inventory items on a PO, expenses on an expense receipt, and invoice sales on a deposit.
• Link - A link could be an actual web link where you go from page to page. These are often used in navigation or drill-downs. A link could also be things that get connected or tied in. Such as an invoice might be linked with a customer or an item is linked with a PO. Another definition for link is an item within a chain of a process. What are the links that it needs to go through?
• Locations - Way to sort inventory, allocate sales tax rates, organize operations in the database. Completely dynamic.
• Lock - A lock usually means that something becomes more secure. It could be locking people out, locking things down, it could be advancing something so that people with lower permissions cannot access or see it. Another example could be a system being put or going on lock down - like the system or a database table. A lock is used to inhibit access. 
• Logout - Function that allows a user to leave the database. Once logged out, another user can log in from that computer. Note.. logging out does not clock out the user.
• Logs - Associated with customers/clients. Area where notes may be kept for historical reference.
• Look and Feel - Basically this deals with what you see. Your interface colors, your color choices, your navigation buttons, your interface layout design, your defaults, your style, etc. The software system allows for all kinds of dynamic colors, fonts, watermarks, graphics, logos, and styling to help with your look and feel. 
• Look Back Date - Usually this means that we are going back in time to look at data or content. Very common for inventory levels, sales, and balance sheet items.
• Loyalty Points - This is the process of assigning points and values (dollars) to a customer or client who purchases from you. These loyalty points can have ratios (how many points for how many dollars spent), date rules, redemption rules, etc. Inside the system, you have to turn it on, but the system will automate this process for you (checkout, accumulation, redemption, etc.). The bigger section is called special accounts and deals with things like loyalty points, gift cards, vendor credits, in-store credits, etc. The use of loyalty points, in the system if built-in, once turned on at no extra charge.
• LPI (Lines Per Inch) - This is a printing term that deals with resolution. Another common one for this is DPI which is dots per inch. Often computer screens and printers deal with DPI where LPI is for professional print shops.

M

• Main - The software application uses the term main in multiple different ways. It could be main homepage, main navigation, main or core logic. The word main might also refer to sub homepages such as main customer homepage, main invoice homepage, main deposit homepage. Going deeper the word main could also mean the starting of the object. Anything that can hold subs is a main. For instance the main invoice details or main element of time. We end up adding sub details, such as line items and payments, to a main bucket, item, or container. It is very common within the application to see the words edit main. This deals with going directly to edit the details required to start or initiate a new object within the system. 
• Make/Model - This is tied to serialized or stock/unit inventory. The make is usually similar to a brand name. Then the model is usually some sort of a sub division within that, that has some known attributes or pieces. In the system we allow you to define the makes/models and the underlying presets that go along with those. These are set up into one to many relationships where one make can have an unlimited number of models.  
• Manager's Time Clock - This is a permission/section that allows a user to oversee time clock records for departments that have been assigned to that manager. Time clocks have three different levels. You have the user level which is easy to add but you cannot edit anything. Then manager's time clock which allows you to add and edit but only at a certain level. Then admin time clock that allows for corporation wide adds, edits, and reports. 
• Mark-up - This usually deals with a pricing model where you take a value and you multiple it by a cost to arrive at a new price. Depending on if you are doing widget (small, bulk) type inventory or serialized (stock/unit) inventory there may be multiple levels of mark-up. Another way that mark-up is used is sometimes on coding language. A mark-up language is where certain things have tags, attributes, and parameters. 
• Media Content - Technically media/content is any kind of file, which could be spreadsheets, text documents, PDFs, graphics, photos, scans, audio files, video files, etc. that may be added to the system. Inside of the application we allow media/content to be added to any of the 12 main items, any of the 12 main player groups, or just generically to the system as a whole. Basically this is your paperless office function. 
• Merchant Processing - This is a general term used to talk about credit card transactions, authorizations, and processing. The system acts as the client side or software piece. It sends transactions over to a gateway which authorizes, confirms, and holds secure data. The merchant part of it deals with converting that data into real monies that will get pushed into the company's bank account.
• Meta Data - This is data about the data. Usually used for database or describing things. Say you have a PDF document. The meta data might be things like the title, the category, the feature it explains or is part of, who created it, the date, the last date modified, the page length, etc. This is just one sample. It is basically any side data that describes or helps categorize the main data. It is used in web technologies all the time. Meta data helps the browsers and search engines know what the page either contains or is for.
• Metrc - This is a state compliance agency that tracks regulated items through the chain of custody and uses their own RFID tags and subsequent system to help in that tracking and training process. Metrc is pronounced "metric", like the measurement standard.
• Mini Conversions - A conversion is where something gets converted into something else. Usually it deals with units of measure. For example gallons of water, liters of water, cups of water, drops of water, etc. The reason we use the word mini conversions is that we are trying to track a semblance of what is happening instead of a full conversion that might be unalterable. These mini conversions are simulating the breakdown or conversion into smaller or bigger groupings.
• Mini Scan Cart - This is a version of the main internal shopping cart. The three main versions are the classic cart, the Kush cart, and the mini scan cart. The mini scan cart is the most flexible and customizable of all of the shopping carts. It has a number of toggle on/off settings, you can rename buttons and even show/hide different possible functionality add-ons. This shopping cart also has a number of touch screen specific options and settings.
• Mix - This could be the mix that you have on your sales floor (what inventory items you have in-stock - example: what's your mix or let me show you my mix) or it could be the act of blending one or more pieces together. Often the word mix is used to mean some sort of combination or process to get a result. Inside of adilas, we often are mixing and blending different business functions or technologies together. The goal is something different than what or where you started.
• Mobile - This could mean mobile as in on a mobile device where the sizing or layout changes based on screen size. It could also mean the ability to carry, transport, or move around. It may also mean the ability to transfer pieces between things - the data can become mobile. The ability of the data to transfer between places such as to different corps, other software, different places in the application, etc. Often you might hear the words mobile app or mobile ready - that usually means a software system that runs natively on android or iOS devices.
• Modal - This is a special popup window that is used in or on a web page. It appears to be a new window, but actually, it is just a layer that sits on top of the other browser window. Without getting super technical, a modal helps show/hide additional information so that the page can remain less cluttered.
• Money Types - Options for making and receiving payments.
• Money Type Settings - List that shows all existing options for making and receiving payments. Boxes may be selected or deselected to customize payment options based on form (Invoice, Shopping Cart, Deposit, Expense)
• More Options - Button provides access to links that are associated with the page in use. At the top of most pages.
• My Cart Favorites - Custom preset buttons that determine how items assigned to those buttons are sold.
• My Settings - This deals with access to user level settings within the software application. This could be anything from password and profile information to default cart types, expense types, Flash buttons, etc.

N

• Ctrl N - This is a keyboard shortcut on windows for creating a new tab in your browser window. Often you can do the same thing by right clicking a tab and clicking new or duplicate, etc. 
• News & Updates - Updates and how to's are posted here to alert users of new functionality within the system.
• Normal Parts/Items - The word "parts" is used to mean any item that is tracked as a group (including labor and services). It is also important to note that the words "parts" and "part number" are editable on a per corporation basis from the corp-wide settings. Specific items are called units or stock numbers (serialized units) and are handled through a different section (usually bigger ticket items). Sometimes the word normal parts applies itself to how things are tracked meaning tracking things in and out.
• Nxtlinq - AI technologies company. The Nxtlinq group helped to make the adilas.biz AI agent "Adi". They are a 3rd party solution in the AI technology space.

O

• One to Many - This is a database concept and usually deals with some main element that may have subs, children, add-ons, additions, or some unlimited number of connections. Some examples could be one customer has multiple invoices or each invoice has multiple line items. We use the concept of one to many to talk way beyond just database things but that is where it came from. 
• One to One - This is also a database concept and usually what it means is a direct relationship. It's the opposite of a one to many. Often a one to one indicates a switch, a toggle, an additional value that may be conditional, an option of being turned on or invoked. 
• Online Bill Pay - This is where a customer would actually get a button, a link, or an email where they could go pay for a statement online using a credit card. 
• Open/Opened - This is a common term that we use to talk about being engaged, active, selected, etc. An example might be open this package, meaning make it active or current. Or open the invoice homepage, meaning go to that page and open it. Or you may hear someone say tell me what tabs you have opened, meaning what do you have showing. 

P

• Ctrl P - This is a keyboard shortcut on windows for printing a certain page.
• Packages - This is used in a number of different ways. Often it deals with batches for sub inventory. Sometimes they are called packages or child packages where you get into parent or child relationship. Packages could get into shipping. Packages could also be used for a certain set of features. For example if you were in a certain industry and wanted to buy the extended package that would be a set of extended features. Sometimes it is also used in the recipe/build area if you are creating certain recipes to create a package, or a kit, or some sort of group. 
• Page Settings - These settings deal with what happens on a single page. As a note there are corporation or world-level settings. There are group level settings such as invoices or PO settings. There are individual settings, there are also these page settings which deal with just how certain pages act, interact, show/hide, react, etc. 
• Parent - This usually refers to inventory and kind of a parent-child relationship. The parent is usually the main element or place holder. We then refer to the parent as the main item and the subsequent children are those related to that parent.  
• Parent Attributes - These are optional but these are classifications and categories that can be associated with different inventory items. These are ways to group and flag your inventories. This can help with sales and filtering of items/products. These are unlimited and often help in categorizing or searching or sub-filtering pieces together. As an example, say you bought outdoor equipment from a wholesaler but you really wanted to make sure that things were known for their brand. Not necessarily the vendor you purchased them from but the brand. This could be one example of a parent attribute but there are unlimited possibilities.
• Parent/Child or Parent - Child - This is a relationship for inventory items. The parent is the main item. If there are differences or a need to track sub data, special descriptions, changing costs, alternate prices, and other attributes, we use child or sub inventory. Super flexible and powerful but does require some additional steps as compared to normal or parent inventory tracking. Not required.
• Parent Inventory - Inventory items. May be sold as is (status active) or may be set up not to be sold (allow subs only) but to act as name holders for sub inventory (see sub inventory). May also be set to inactive if no longer needed for sales.
• Parts - Items or services that are sold. The name 'part' can be changed to reflect the 'widget' inventory and or services. 
• Part Category/Categories - Organizes items into a subset. Technically a part category helps in searches, in your reports, and on your financials. It also helps if you are going to be setting up any sub inventory attributes. Most of your sales reports are done by category at the top level and then by item. 
• Parts Homepage - Main inventory homepage. May search for inventory by vendor, category, or item. Printable views also accessed from this homepage, as well as a multitude of advanced searches.
• Patient - System default is customer- patient is an example of a choice for renaming 
• Payee - Refers to individual or business being paid, either vendor or employee.
• Payments Not Yet Deposited - As invoices are created, payments are applied. This verbiage stands for the state of these payments. They are 'waiting' to be included on a deposit.
• PDF-Portable Document Format - a file format that is used to share data. Many pages in the system may be exported to PDF through the click of a button.
• Percentage Calculator - This is a feature that allows you to calculate a percentage based off of either the cart total or a line total. Once the percentage is calculated, you have an option to alter or change any verbiage that is needed before adding the item to the cart. Often this is done to help cover credit card fees or some other percentage calculation. Normally used as part of the POS (point of sale) interface. Only companies that use this feature need to know about it. Normal retail actions don't use this special calculator.
• Permissions - Over 150 rules that allow or block access to functions within the database.
• Plant Tags - This is a term meaning an RFID tag for monitored items. Usually used in cultivation and harvesting processes.
• PNG Image - Portable Network Graphic- type of image file that is accepted for upload under the Media/Content link located on most forms in the database.
• PO's - This abbreviation stands for both Purchase Order, used to receive inventory and Production Order, used to record and track light manufactured items.
• Post - A post has a couple different things that it could be. One, any time a form is submitted it is called a post in technical terms. A post in accounting usually means let's lock it down and make it tight, also meaning lock it down from lower permission users. A post could also mean when you take smaller details and combine them into a summed entry, this entry can also be called a post. If you are talking about fences, it's the big tall thing. :)
• Presentation Gallery - This is a small web-site devoted to quick sales and marketing slides. The full set is around 50 sides that cover main topics of what we do at adilas. There are sections for essential business functions, application player groups, and core concepts. https://news.adilas.biz/sales-gallery/adilas-advert-index.html
• Printable - View of data that is condensed in order to print more succinctly. Editing is unavailable in the printable view.
• Printer Friendly - This is a term for certain pages and reports. Printer friendly means that minimal navigation or header/footer values exists. Usually, you have to go to that page, say an invoice or quote, and then click a button that says printer friendly. There are printer friendly options for multiple areas within the site.

Q

• Quick Search - This function appears on each page and allows one to quickly search for any element.
• Quote - The step prior to creating an invoice. Can be skipped if desired or created and turned into an invoice.
• QR Code - A two dimensional barcode that holds more data than a one dimensional barcode. 
  
  

R

• Raster Image - This is also sometimes called a bitmap image. Usually what this means is that there are little blocks of color to make the image. If it is blown up to big it can become pixelated. For example, people who work in PhotoShop deal with raster images all the time. The opposite of a raster image is what is called a vector image, which deals with smooth mathematical lines, arcs, and curves. Vector images scale very well because they are mathematically based. 
• Recipe/Builds - Method of selling items grouped together into a 'kit' or 'recipe'. Pulls inventory onto the invoice in set quantities.
• Reflexive Flex Grid - This is a piece of flex grid or flex grid tie-in that goes in the opposite direction. A normal piece of flex grid connects a single record to a source (say one of the main 12 application player groups). A reflexive piece of flex grid does a reverse connection from sub to main vs main to sub. Here is a quick example: Say you have a customer that needs a refund, you could go from the expense to the customer or from the customer to the expense. Either way. The goal is that the items are connected or have a relationship. If you use reflexive flex grid, you only have to make one connection, and the system will do both directions for you. You are trying to tell the story of what happened. Time saver.
• Refresh Queue - A queue is basically a digital line. This could be used for projects, people waiting, people who need to be served, etc. Refreshing the queue typically just means what is the current status or order of these people or things waiting. Some of the pages actually have settings so that the queue will refresh itself at an interval the company has selected.
• Refund - This is the act of returning or giving back an amount for something that was purchased. Inside the system, if you need to issue a refund, you will do a negative quantity (I'm getting something back). Not all refunds deal with items. Sometimes is just money trading hands. Depending on the side of the equation you are on, a refund could be monies going out (someone is asking for a refund) or you could be asking for monies coming in (I was a refund).
• REI's - This is short for a reimbursement. A reimbursement is money that was paid out of a person's pocket that needs to be paid back directly to that person. These are very common in the expense/receipt side of the application. For example, say I was out and bought a new broom and wanted to have the company reimburse me for buying the broom. On a technical side reimbursements in the system must be paid back in full. There is something called a split in the system that you can chip away at an expense and make payments to it but a reimbursement must be paid in full. There are tools in the systems to combine or pay reimbursements in bulk. 
• Reoccurring Elements of Time - Often you will have things that you want to reoccur over and over again such as company meetings, a set/reoccurring due date, even a person's schedule - things that happen over and over again. Inside the system you have to create one primary element of time that exists by itself, then you can tell it to reoccur or choose how to reoccurs. The master needs to be created first and then you can duplicate that master to create the further elements for reoccurring. 
• Reoccurring Expense Receipts - This is some sort of a bill or expense that happens over and over again. This is very common for rent, insurance, draws, auto-transfers from banks, etc. You set up the master and then you can tell it when to duplicate itself and advance it's dates for creating the additional expense/receipts. 
• Reoccurring Invoices - This is charging a customer over and over again in some kind of a reoccurring subscription, or repetitive purchases, etc. Once a single invoice is setup it could be set to reoccurring if there is some sort of constant, regular billing. If the invoice amount changes you may not want to go this route. This is best used for the same items/services and amount reoccurring on a regular interval. Once again you have to have a master invoice and then it knows what to copy. This section inside of the system can do it both automatically and as a manual reminder in case things need to change. 
• Request PO - This PO type is used for ordering, requesting, or getting quotes from vendors. This PO type records all of the main PO info without taking it to the next step (receiving). The PO request may easily be turned into a "Basic Live" PO by switching the PO type. When this happens, the request will hold all of it's original info and becomes received (actual or live). At this point, it will function just as a basic live PO would (inventory counts and payables). This PO type is vendor specific. See corp-wide settings for custom naming.
• Responsive - This has a couple of general meanings. One of the most modern ones is called a responsive webpage, meaning it sizes well for different devices. The layout will change depending on the size of the screen, that is called responsive. Another use of the word responsive is talking about clients getting back with you, vendors, or even the server - such as the server is not responsive meaning that it is not responding to requests presently which could mean it may be asleep or dead for a bit.
• Restore to Cart - This means you are taking something, usually a quote, and putting it back into the flexible shopping cart mode where you can add, edit, change, and use the bulk tools in the shopping cart. As a note, restore to cart is from quotes but there is also an option to duplicate to cart which is taking a completed invoice and restoring it to the cart. 
• Results - This is also a general term. It could mean a goal - what are you desired results. It could mean results of a query - what came back from a search. It could also deal with testing results for something such as new code. Results are also trying to find what you are looking for. What do you get out of this thing that you are looking for.
• Retail - The term retail usually means something along the lines of sales or selling something. Inside the system, retail could be a name of a certain interface or dashboard - retail dashboard, retail homepage, retail interface (POS interface), retail sales report, etc. Retail usually means taxes, where wholesale means non taxed, at the current time of the transaction.
• RFID - Radio frequency identifiers - Used in the cannabis industry to track all inventory and plants. Unique number associated with inventory items.
• Rounding - Rounding deals with the level of accuracy, usually with number. This could be decimals to decimals or decimals to integers. It is also important to know that the deeper you split something apart there might be virtual saw dust or shavings which is referred to as rounding error - trying to get it split apart or broken down as close as you can. Rounding is often used in taxes, discounts, and eventually needs to be equated into money if you are dealing with dollars and cents. Sometimes inside of the system we allow things to be flexible up to 5 decimal points - the term we use for this in the application is the dewy decimal system - this is not related to libraries.   

S

• Sales And Profit - This is a term to show what has been sold (sales) and what the profit or difference between the price and cost are. Sometimes, this is used as a term to mean, how did we do? Inside the system, there are special invoice-based sales report that show this information. The P&L (profit and loss or income statement) also show this kind of information. Sometime the sales are called revenue and the profit is calculated based off of a salesprice minus the cost of goods sold (COGS). Discounts may or may not be included, depending on what you are looking for. Often taxes are left out of this calculation.
• Sales Tax Settings - All settings are dynamic and can be entered on the location homepage. 
• Server (what server are you on?) - All corps are assigned a server that houses all their data. Server number is visible in URL ie. https://data4.adilas.biz
• Settings - Settings are usually some sort of user preferences or default values to help a page or a function configure itself. Inside of the system there are four main types of settings. We have corporation or world level settings. We have group or system player settings - for example invoices, parts, customers, etc. We also have what are called page settings which deal with a specific page function, flow, or process. The lastly we also have a thing called individual or user settings - this is where an individual or user gets to set some preferences such as default types, navigation, other presets and defaults. 
• Shopping Cart - Where sales happen in the database (see also Cart).  The shopping cart is how you sell your stuff. It is the interface between your customers and the entire rest of the system. The shopping cart eventually helps you to create your invoices and quotes. It is literally tied to almost everything in the system. If you took out this piece of the puzzle, not much would be happening. This is the "interface" piece.
• Show/Hide Search Criteria - This is usually a button or a link that helps you collapse or expand search forms. Often pages or reports needs user inputs or filters but showing that right off the bat takes up valuable real estate on the page. So the show/hide search criteria allows you to expand or collapse that when you need to interact with the input, filter, and searching section.  
• Signature or E-Signature - This usually deals with a sales receipt or invoice. A signature is a special written name or approval. An e-signature usually means some sort of digital signature or approval. There are a number of signature settings for invoices, inside the system, including e-signature options.
• Smart Group - Basically, a smart group button is a my cart favorite button that contains all of the functionality of the normal cart favorite buttons plus it allows for pre-set pricing structures (quantities, weights, and prices) to be assigned or connected to one or more inventory items. Smart group buttons allow for both assignments (who gets to play) and rules (how things interact or play) to be set up.
• Snow Owl - This is a look and feel theme or motif. Snow Owl is a series of header, footers, options, settings, and styling for the pages. Originally developed by Russell Moore in 2017. Additional changes have been made. This theme currently has the most modern features, access to tools, functions, settings, and more. Sometimes we talk about Snow Owl in a general sense but this encompasses hundreds of settings, features, and options that are part of running Snow Owl. 
• Software - This is a term meaning any kind of code or program that is installed on a machine. Often software deals with licenses, updates, versioning, etc. Some of it's family members are hardware, firmware, freeware, shareware, and even sometimes vaporware. Even though the system is a web application it is sometimes generically called software. 
• Special Accounts - These are things inside of the system that take on the role of a miniature account of sorts. We use the term special accounts for things like loyalty points, gift cards, gift certificates, vendor credits, in-store credits, punch cards, account balances, etc.
• Special Line Items - These deal with the hardcoded part numbers or "special line items" that are used within the application. Many of them have special uses and special code that is built in to the main application. These are things such as labor, fee, discount, verbiage, other, shipping, trade-ins, and more. Basically these are special parts or items that can be attached to an invoice or PO and some of them even have special treatment on how they are tracked financially on the P&L and Balance Sheet.  
• Special Live PO - PO used to bring in inventory from multiple vendors. This PO type allows the main vendor to be set as the payable (who will get paid), and the line items may contain bulk, generic, or non-vendor specific items. These PO types are used by companies that buy the same item from multiple vendors and don't want certain items to be tracked on a per vendor basis. The items become a bulk or general usage item and are usually maintained under a special internal vendor. 
• Special Parts - This can be two different things, it can refer to unlimited items that don't track quantity such as labor or services, or it can refer to the special built-in application items.
• Special Request - This is the request side of the special live PO's. Very similar to a basic request except it allows multi and mixed vendors. See description of special live PO's above for more info. Once received, all special request PO's will need to be flipped over to the special live PO status in order to show up and become real or live. 
• Specific - Specific basically limits the scope. We use it as a general term and it could mean specific in reference to talking about a specific item or a specific relationship. We also use it when referring to things like corp specific, vendor specific, location specific, user specific etc. Once again it takes that general topic and narrows it down to that scope. 
• Split Cart - Feature that allows user to view shopping cart and my cart favorite buttons on the same screen simultaneously (see M for My cart favorite).
• Split/Splits - This has a number of different features associated with the word splits. This could be split payments - which is typically dealing with multiple locations where you may have to split or divide payments. A general term called splits in the system is a term used for payments that are on account. This is used when you need to pay a vendor and you may owe a larger sum than you can pay right then. You can attribute whatever monies you would like to that vendor's account and it will pay off or satisfy those expenses. Sometimes split can refer to split screen functionality that diverges or splits. If you are dividing revenue sharing you might create some sort of a split.
• Spread - This could mean a spread of what you have (like inventory items or options) or it could be the act of distributing something across multiple areas. The term areas could mean whatever, bills, invoices, payments, security, outreach, etc.
• Start New Cart - Function that allows user to begin a sale.
• Statements - a time stamped report or "snapshot" of who owes you what.
• Status - This term could me a number of things. A status is usually a state of being of some sort. Often, inside the system, a status is either active (use/show) or inactive (don't use/delete/hide). Sometimes the term status could also mean a state of readiness.
• Stock/Unit Cust - A restricted view of serialized inventory. The view is 'customer' friendly, hence the name 'Cust.'
• Stock/Unit Full - A full view of serialized inventory. Includes cost and other info that should be hidden from customers.
• Students - Technically a student is a person who learns. There is a corp wide setting that you can use for your customers and if you happen to be engaged with people who are called students you may change your customer name to student. This can also deal with people who are learning from your media files or procedures. 
• Sub Attributes - Unique information associated with a sub inventory item. This information is driven by sub inventory templates that are created based on the tracking needs of the business (see sub attribute templates).
• Sub Attribute Templates - Templates that carry the unique data assigned to sub inventory items. These are assigned by the business based on tracking needs.
• Sub Inventory - Items in the database that can be sold. Connected to a parent item (parent inventory) which carries the name and some information. Sub inventory is unique and can carry much more unique information (see also Child).
• Switch Corp - If a business has more than one corp they can switch between them without logging out.
• System Assets - Contains all company assets. Deposits, Accounts Receivable, Invoices etc.
• System Basics - Basic permissions and links to preform calculations.
• System Liabilities - Contains all company liabilities. In general all payables that your company owes.
• System-Maintained BSI - Item on the balance sheet that are automatically generated and updated by the database.
• System Maintenance - Section that contains homepages that allow the user to maintain different functions.
• System Management - High security level that allows the user to maintain corp-wide settings and user permissions.
• System Reports - General reports to help you know and understand the company finances, inventory levels and historical data.
• System Time & Requests - Inter company calendar. Used to schedule any 'element of time.'

T

• Templates - Templates are typically grouped settings or presets. It could be a number of settings or permissions that are configured or options that are toggled on and off. Sometimes we use templates in things like sub inventory attributes, elements of time templates (master time templates), we also could potentially use templates to set up corporations on a more global scale - like setting presets for certain industries or jobs, etc. 
• Themes - A theme is similar to a template except it deals with look and feel or what we call a theme. A theme is something that has a reoccurring or overarching premises to it. We do often use this with look and feel and you can see a patter with this, some of these are the classic theme, geometry, Snow Owl, etc.
• Threshold - A threshold is a limit either on the top or bottom of an amount. For example: Say you sell a certain widget item, you may set a max threshold of 50 and minimum threshold of 10. The goal is to stay within your boundaries or thresholds.
• Tiered Pricing - This is the act of automatically applying a price break as the quantity goes up. Inside the system, there are tiered pricing options in the my cart favorite buttons (smart groups) or inside of the parent attributes applied to items for ecommerce sales. Often tiered pricing deals with rules and assignments to different items (assignments) and price breaks (rules).
• Time - Refers to an 'Element of Time.' The object that tracks any data related to time. These are the basis of the calendar and scheduling.
• Time Clock - Time clocks have three different levels. You have the user level which is easy to add but you cannot edit anything. Then manager's time clock which allows you to add and edit but only at a certain level. Then admin time clock that allows for corporation wide adds, edits, and reports. 
• Time Templates - The time templates or master time templates control what the time elements are called. They also control what they allow as far as subs, add-on's, default settings, and functions of time. Think of a time template as a cookie cutter for the actual elements of time. 
• Touch or Touch Screen - Touch can mean a number of different things. It could be an action - who touched my customer log notes? Often, there are system histories to show who touched what parts, pieces, and/or records. It could also mean touch or the act of using a touch screen. This is very common in the POS (point of sale) interface. Certain settings are specifically setup to allow for easier touch options (big buttons or finger related interfaces).
• Transfer - This is another general term. One of the most common usages is what we call an invoice transfer where you are moving product from location to location. Internally we call that a transfer invoice. Another use for transfer is when we talk about a bank transfer - moving money from one account to another account. There may be other uses for the word transfer like transfer of ownership or documents. It generally means something is in movement or there is a change in ownership.
• Transition Invoice - A transition means something that is in-between things. For general purposes a transition invoice is between a quote and a real invoice. We actually allow you to name it whatever you would like. Some common ones might be work in progress, work order, layaway, prepaid invoice, etc. Basically it is something that may not fully be done or finished but we already need to start contributing inventory and payments to the order. On transition invoices some of your normal financial pieces are deferred until it gets changed to an actual customer invoice.
• Try Storming - Similar to brainstorming but with the knowledge that you will be circling back around. You still plan things out, do whatever you are going to do, make your best effort, and then you - on purpose - circle back around. Keep repeating until you have what you want.
• Type - This is a very general term. It is basically a way to organize or flag certain data. A couple of examples might be invoice types, PO types, customer types, etc. We also use virtual chart of account buckets called deposit types and expense types. It is all for categorizing and organizing your data. Another common term for a type is either a category or grouping. Sometimes these can all be used interchangeably and indicate some sort of organization or flagging. 

U

• Universe - Universe inside of the system usually deals with all of the different servers, the different corporations or worlds, and all of the different entities that play together under this larger umbrella. Along this line sometimes we also use the word universal which can mean globally/generally accepted and adapted across the system. 
• Units of Measure - A unit of measure is some sort of a standard way of noting a measurement, a weight, or a length. Common ones might be something like ounces, grams, tons, liters, gallons, dozens, boxes, each, etc. A unit of measurement is assigned to every inventory item. This controls how the items are reduced from inventory and how price is determined in the shopping cart. Units of measure may be broken down further into what are called mini conversions. This is where you have a certain amount of one measurement that creates or equals a certain amount of another measurement. 
• Unlimited Parts/Items - Each inventory item may be specified as either normal, where we count quantities in and out. Or unlimited where we allow it to sell as many as we want, such as services where we don't limit it to an actual inventory value. 
• Update - Update is a general term. Usually it deals with some sort of a database type change where a record gets edited or updated. It is also very possible to update things that are held in memory without hitting the database but usually update refers to some sort of a change, or something new being presented, a feature being updated, or some news and updates letting you know about current or upcoming functionality. 
• Update Cart - Allows user to push new information into the shopping cart during a sale.
• Update Inventory - Function that allows user to update entire inventory via one purchase order (see Update PO).
• Update PO - PO used to update inventory regardless of vendor (see Update Inventory).
• Upload - This is an action. Usually this means a push from one computer to another computer or server. Uploading usually deals with files, images, media/content, or even potential lists of data. 
• URL - A URL is another name for the web address. A web address is usually in the top of your browser and is used for hyperlinks, form submission, and general web navigation. Technically it stands for a Uniform Resource Locator but it is basically just a web address. 
• USAePay - Available merchant processing gateway for internal shopping carts, online bill pay, and ecommerce transactions.
• User-Maintained BSI - Item on the balance sheet that is created by the user and maintained by the user (not automatically updated by the database).
• User Settings - These are settings that are changeable on a per user basis. These could be things like default location, default homepage, a specific invoice type you like to use, if you are paying expenses it could be a certain payment type you typically use, a default shopping cart, etc. Basically they are setting that are changeable to make your user flow more customized and helpful for the user. The number of user settings continues to increase and there are also places that you can setup your own custom navigation, links, buttons, and more to come.  

V

• Ctrl V - This is a keyboard shortcut on windows for pasting a certain selection held in memory. Either Ctrl C or Ctrl X are the ways of copying something to memory. 
• Validation - This usually means that certain data meets or matches certain criteria before being accepted. The system actually uses a number of forms of validation. You can have local validation which happens before anything even gets submitted. You also have server side validation where things get checked on the server before they are able to be used, advanced, or edited. There are also things called validation routines which means multiple steps of validation to help walk through a process. 
• Vendor Catalog - This is a term that is used at an enterprise level. Meaning, a list of vendors that may be added or go up/down the chain for multiple locations, entities, or corporation. It is basically a library of vendor information that exists at a high level and then may be pushed down to sub entities.
• Vendor Credit - This is an amount that a vendor allows as a discount or value that does not need to be paid. For example: Say you bought some things and the items weren't quite right. The vendor may issue you a credit or vendor credit. That means that the next bill or things that you pay for will be less money due to the vendor credit (an I owe you from the vendor). Inside the system, these are tracked as subs of the special accounts functionality.
• Vendors - Any person, business or entity that your company purchases services or items from.
• Verify - Verify usually means a second approval. Dealing with banks on expense and deposits, verifying means that the bank shows that same value. There are tools that allow for what we call bulk verify/verification, posting, etc. A lot of this deals with ways of advancing the ball (data) and saying that it is still good and can move on to the next step. ,    
• View Cart - Shows user current shopping cart information. If a shopping cart exists it will be held in memory and often we use the term view cart to get back to that process. Carts are just saved in memory until you actually submit the cart and create an invoice or a quote. There is usually some sort of button or icon in your header that will help you get back to the cart if it actually exists. 
• View Only - This is a state or status of what is being viewed or shown. The view only status or state means you may look but not touch. Inside the system, there are a number of silver permissions (specialty permission) that allow users to search and view things but not add or edit them.
• View Register - Shows user  current bank information.
• VIN/Serial Num - The unique number/letter id of a serialized item.
• Void Options (all the options) - The act of voiding means you negate or return everything to an original state or a state of zeros. The four main places that things are voided are on invoice, deposits, expenses, and PO's. Once things are voided all of those inventory items or payments are reverted back as if they never happened. Almost every other thing in the system has a status, such as active or inactive, which can virtually be like voiding it or making it go away as well to make something inactive. 

W

• Wholesale - This is normally a sale to another retailer or distributor where tax is not part of this transaction. Tax is attributed on later transactions to the actual customer. Wholesale also sometimes deals in bulk. It has its own special rules and regulations. Sometimes wholesale could also mean a reduction in price or selling things lower than a standard retail environment. 
• Widget - A widget is a general term. Widget could mean a small computer application such as a Flash widget, an HTML widget, a mobile widget, etc. This is also a general term used to talk about general inventory items or non-classified items. For example, you might need to update your widget inventory to show the new prices. 
• With Tax Included - This is a tax setting where the company sets a fixed price out the door and then the system back figures what the tax should be to make the price plus the taxes that out the door pricing. The brother to this setting is called normal taxable and that takes the item price plus the tax which then comes up with a new total. 
• World - This is a general term. Often it denotes some sort of sphere or area that has certain characteristics. Another synonymous term is something like land where we might say eCommerce land, invoice land, or invoice world - denoting when you are in separate areas. Another definition for a world is a corporation or an entity. Often we use this when talking about world building. When we talk about your world it is your business entity. 
• World Building - World building is the act of gathering all of the different pieces and putting them into play in a system that simulates your world. Disclaimer: the term world building is used by authors and those in film to build a world with characters, cause and effect relationships, some sort of trouble or problems, and some sort of a goal that ties these things together. This creates a symbiotic relationship. 

X

• Ctrl X - This is a keyboard shortcut on windows for cutting a certain selection and putting it on the clipboard for future use. Ctrl V is used to paste.
• X-axis - Part of a 3D model. Time is the x axis (bottom or horizontal side to side). Time goes in both known directions (forward and backward).
• X-out - This is usually a quick way to say X out of that, X that, close that, kill that, remove that, etc.  

Y

• Ctrl Y - This is a keyboard shortcut on windows for redoing something that has been undone. It's brother command is Ctrl Z or undo.
• Y-axis - Part of a 3D model. Money is the y axis (vertical or up and down). The y axis may also be referred to as resources. Not all resources are money but they do go up and down as things happen and business flows. 
• Yearly/Year - This is a term denoting the time period of a fiscal year (accounting) or a physical year (general time period).

Z

• Ctrl Z - This is a keyboard shortcut on windows for undoing a previous action. It's brother command is Ctrl Y or redo.  
• Z-axis - Part of a 3D model. Space is the z axis (depth, front to back and/or layering). This axis deals with additional details. What is happening? Are things moving? Are these things part of some other piece? What are the additional details that give more depth and understanding, that make it a rich story.

Multiple smaller sessions, working on research for roll call accounting and how that plays into the data assembly line. Gathering information, reading notes, looking at scans and graphics, checking dates, and making plans. Towards the end of the session, I had to go in and make a number of changes to the developer's notebook, to fix some formatting and small edits.

See attached for a copy of the information for the adilas user guide, section 11, financials and accounting. Some great stuff.

11 - Financials & Accounting
11.1 - Bank Reconciliation
11.2 - P&L - Income Statement (logic and flow)
11.3 - Balance Sheet (logic and flow)
11.4 - User-Maintained Balance Sheet Items
11.5 - Adilas Theory on Accounting
11.6 - Roll Call Accounting Principles
11.7 - Old School Accounting vs. New School Accounting
11.8 - Vision for the Future

Research on the data assembly line, new school accounting, and 3D levels. Found a bunch of old entries that Shannon and I were working on for the user guide. See section 11, for concepts on financials and accounting. Here are a number of links to show where some of the information is.

General adilas notes from back in 2008. This is when Brandon and Steve were working on the balance sheet. This is when the concept of allowing the data to flex until everything is correct or back to a stable spot. Web link - developer's notebook - balance sheet stuff in 2008

Writing out the progression of what we have learned thus far. These entries go forward from 2008 to the end of 2014. These are some notes from Brandon while helping to train some new interns and developers who were helping on the adilas project. These notes will be shown in two sections. One is the general notes from October of 2014. They will show the general flavor of what is going on at this time in history. The other notes will be specifically 10/14/14 where the actual entries hit the developer's notebook. Here are those links:

Web link - October 2014 - General developer's notebook for the month of October 2014.

Web link - time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=2894 - Specific date in time when the concepts first hit the notebook as a single entry. Progression of operations and accounting.

The next major time period was in March of 2015. This was a different set of developers that had questions and wanted to see how operations and accounting played together. This will have two sections as well. This will have the month of March 2015 and then a specific time when the process was described in more detail, with a slightly different flow, which helped in presenting the ideas. Here are those links:

Web link - March 2015 - General developer's notebook for March 2015

Web link - time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=3618 - Specific date when the process was explained using a giant Whiteboard at Bridgerland Technical College.

Adilas Key Contributors:

Steve Berkenkotter - Main owner and business partner - original ideas, concepts, and training - sales, relationships, dreamer, visionary, custom code, coordinator, builder of the first industry specific skin, and the list goes on. Huge player in the adilas story and timeline. One of the original owners in Moring Star Automotive - where the system came from. There are three known Steve's in the system notes. Most of them are this Steve (99 out of 100 times). He won't admit it, but adilas was his brainchild.

David Berkenkotter - Steve's brother and business partner in Morning Star Automotive. David was a system user and helped us create the adilas quick search. He liked using that feature, the quick search, but it only existed on one page originally. He wanted us to put it on every page. That ended up being in the header. He was also one of the original partners in adilas. Power user in the system. Sadly, he passed away due to cancer.

Shari Olin - Commonly known as "Shari O.". She worked in the accounting department back in the Morning Star days. She has been somewhat of a mother hen to help all of us crazy chickens keep going. She helps with customer support, training, payroll, bill collection, and tons of backend office functions. Major power user. Just being silly, but she can have the mouth of a sailor but the heart of an angel. Part of the adilas admin team and a great friend.

Craig Leitner - Also part of the original Morning Star team. Craig was the automotive floorplan and bank guy. He is a power user in the system and does a lot of bank reconciliation and other tasks. He currently works with Steve and asks as the adilas controller (money flow guy).

Cory Warden - Originally an adilas rep and consultant. Cory become part of the team after being a rep for quite some time. She helps with customer care, client support, project management, and keeping the team on track. She also does all of the news and updates and other training material. Cory does tons of oversight type services for our clients. Power user and part of the admin team.

Sean Carlton - Sean was a manager at a Cannabis dispensary in Colorado that used adilas for years and years until they sold. Steve recruited Sean to help with sales, deployment, and training. Sean brings lots of usage experience. Often, he is one of the helpers if we need to send someone onsite to help with a deployment or training session. Power user.

Brandon Moore - I'm one of the guys that writes most of the developer's notebook entries. Originally, I was hired by Morning Star, the automotive dealership, to help with data entry, accounting, and website stuff. I ended up being one of the main adilas developers and architects. I build content, write code, help other developers and team members, and help with training. Helped start the project back in 2001 under the Morning Star name.

Chris Dunsey - One of the first adilas interns (developers). Helped with a number of projects. Ended up being somewhat of a consultant later on.

Shawn Curtis - Kinda a funny story. He was taking a developer's class at Bridgerland. He knew my brother Russell. He asked to join our developer class and became one of the first interns along with Chris Dunsey. Shawn ended up helping with payroll and other projects. Some of the photo galleries in the system came from Shawn's help. He also worked on the media/content (file upload) pieces. Later on, he did more payroll work and acted as a buddy to Brandon and did some consulting work. We worked together for years and years.

Russell Moore - Russell is my younger brother. Originally, he was added to the group because of his graphic skills. He ended up being a great backend developer and project manager. He has also acted as a trainer and mentor for Brandon along the way. Much of the current system came from projects and efforts that Russell was involved with. He has also been Brandon's AI tutor in recent years. Great help to the system. Huge contribution.

Chris Johnnie - He is an entrepreneur who teamed up with Russell to help create a company called "Adilas For Business" or "AFB". Eventually, both Russell and Chris sold their pieces back to adilas. They were honestly the first ones to really try to run as a white label of adilas. This was back in 2015 and 2016. Chris really helped to push the product to the next level along with Russell's help.

Danny Shuford - Longtime friend of Steve's. Danny helped with some website design, sales, and videos for adilas. He even got into creating custom PDF labels for clients. Light development work.

Marisa Shaw - She is Danny's daughter. Danny brought her to an adilas training event in Denver, CO. Marisa was the star student. She ended up helping with some graphics, flyers, marketing material, teaching, instruction, and planning. Power user. Very helpful.

Shannon Scoffield - Shannon is Brandon and Russell's sister. Her maiden name is Shannon Moore. Huge help and virtual assistant to Brandon. She has helped with training, project management, and content creation. Most of the major content sessions were or have been with Brandon and Shannon working together. When they, Brandon and Shannon, were traveling, Shannon was one of the primary adilas instructors. If she was teaching Brandon was taking notes. If Brandon was teaching, Shannon was taking notes. Power user.

Cheryl Moore - Cheryl is my mom. What an asset. She owns a small business and has owed a few different ones. When we were doing training sessions, she came to every one of them. She asked wonderful questions and was a great supporter. Sometime, I would use her as a test subject - can my mom do this? If yes, we are good. If not, we may need to keep tweaking it. Thanks mom!

Wayne Moore - Wayne is my dad. He was my hiking buddy and more than willing to talk about ideas and concepts on our walks and hikes. He helped out with video stuff and was a great coordinator for making other connections. He worked at Bridgerland (technical college) and helped us get setup with classrooms, computer labs, and other great connections. Huge cheerleader! There is another Wayne, Wayne Andersen, he is a backend developer, systems guy, and database guy.

Wayne Andersen - This Wayne lives in Portugal and helps with all of the backend security, server, and code testing. Major skills, writes code, helps push all of us to new technologies, partially retired but loves to play with tech stuff. If you search for Wayne and it deals with concepts and coordination stuff, that's my dad, Wayne Moore. If you search for Wayne and it sounds like a master backend guy, that's Wayne Andersen.

Alan Williams - One of the lead developer's at adilas.biz. Alan joined us in 2015 and quickly came up through the ranks. Trainer, CTO, team lead, master developer, prototyper, and system architect. Alan has helped with many projects and features over the years. He also helped Brandon with some of the prep work for the adilas lite (fracture) plans and project. Sometimes called "Dr. Alan" by the other developers. Example: This might be a project for Dr. Alan.

Bryan Dayton - Bryan has been one of the most versatile guys on our team. Originally, he joined a development class out of curiosity. He and Brandon live in the same town and know each other from church. Bryan has done more custom code or small system projects than almost any other developer. He also joined the team in 2015. He helps with sales, custom projects, pushing on projects that he thinks will yield a return. Lots of work on the adilas lite and fracture project. Very hard working and versatile.

Dustin Siegel - Developer who helped with numerous cannabis and cultivation type projects. He worked directly under Steve to help with that business vertical. Many of the original pages that Steve built were taken over and remade by Dustin.

Eric Tauer - Developer and custom code guy. Originally, Eric knew Steve and lived in Salida, CO. As a note, adilas is Salida spelled backwards. Eric has a background in database work and data warehousing. Eric has done tons of custom systems for clients. Often, Eric would pioneer certain features or logic, as custom code, and then we would bring those features into the main adilas application.

Garrett Kirschbaum - Adilas intern and then full developer back in 2015. Stressful time of building and expansion. He and others helped run the adilas shop with Brandon's help. Garrett was a great developer and helped us standardize a number of tools and features. He was the first developer to work on sub inventory, back in the day. He also did other projects and helped with some developer management stuff.

Charles or "Chuck" Swann - Charles was an instructor at Bridgerland for web development. He builds custom websites, does amazing mock-ups, prototypes, and is a CSS master (styling a website using code). Chuck worked with Russell to help with redesign work, projects, and vision. Chuck worked fulltime for a number of years and now works and coordinates work done by a small hand-picked design and development team. Anything that needs some design loving gets passed over the Chuck and his small team.

Steve McNew - Friend of Steve Berkenkotter's. This Steve helped prep some whitepaper documents to help with getting adilas standardized and some internal audit type stuff. Mostly white papers and putting things down on paper. He ended up getting hired by the local school district and wasn't able to finish the process, but he got it started. He asked some great questions, and we had some good conversations.

Abby Elkins - Abby is Brandon's daughter. Her maiden name was Abby Moore. Abby, when she was little (10-12 years old) helped with some of the original concept artwork for adilas. Later on, she helped with content for the presentation gallery and then the adilas lite plans (fracture). Currently, she is working graphic artwork for different adilas pages. She's now in her mid 20's and has some awesome art and content skills.

Aspen Moore - Aspen is Abby's younger sister and Brandon's daughter. Aspen helped Brandon with some planning and counseling (mental help). Aspen also did some general business consulting with her dad Brandon.

John Maestas - Developer, backend server guys, and designer. John came to us through Dustin. John was uses as a jack of all trades on the backend and frontend. He did numerous projects, documentation, payroll, and page redesign projects. John was also very help to Brandon in working on the notes and comments on the SWOT analysis document. Many other projects as well. Good vision of the future.

Kiva Berkenkotter - Steve's wife. She helped Steve with various projects and planning sessions. At one point, she was in charge of paying commissions and collecting monthly reoccurring payments. Huge supporter to Steve!

Heather Moore - Heather is Brandon's wife. What a trooper. Cheerleader, support, ideas, and consulting. Huge asset to Brandon (me). Thanks Heather!

Jonathan Wells - Designer and mock-up guy. He helped to map out the system and created a number of deep mock-ups for adilas lite (fracture) projects. Great job catching the vision and putting those pieces into a visual representation. We still refer to his work when talking about fracture (future project for adilas).

Jonathan Johnson - Business consultant from Epic Enterprises. Met with Brandon and Steve in end of 2019 into 2020. Really helped us see some needs and opportunities. Later, helped Brandon with some other consulting when trying to define the fracture plan.

Calvin Chipman - Windows software developer. Calvin also did a bunch of web-based work, database stuff, label printing, and API socket stuff. Calvin was the first developer to use the adilas API's to create a native mobile app for a client. He also built a number of special developer tools used by some of our team to speed things up. He's the tool guy!

Cody Apedaile - Bryan Dayton's cousin, Cody helped with a bunch of JavaScript code and changes. He also spent some time working on the UML diagram for the adilas database. We didn't get things finished, but he was working on a new build your own interface (custom to you) for adilas. We ran out of funding. We want to get back to that project at some point.

Dave Forbis - Dave was the official "high tech gofer". He did a bunch of things. Graphics, project management, brainstorming, planning, sales, and helped with managing developers for the adilas shop. He was another great student. He came to a number of training courses and brought so much to the courses. He was also a big support to Brandon during some rough times.

Josh - There are three Josh's. Josh Wheeler, Brandon's friend and developer. Josh Sagert, developer and adilas user (worked tons on the discount engine), and Josh White, Steve's friend from California. Josh White has brought us a number of bigger leads and bigger players, like franchises, and other higher-end clients. Anything recent is Josh White, from California. He helps with networking, sales, and dreaming of new things.

Suzi Distelberg - Sales, training, and deployment. She also worked with some custom projects and doing step-by-step user guides. She has helped with all kinds of projects and even gone onsite for setups and training. Great asset!

Kelly Whyman - Kelly is Dustin's wife. Kelly was single handedly the best independent sales rep that adilas had. She did training, consulting, and sponsored a number of custom projects. Kelly helped Steve and Brandon with reports, functionality, and other things. She got so good at things, state contracts snagged her up to work at state and multi-state level stuff.

Molly Hennessy - Molly was another independent sales rep and consultant. She had numerous clients and got into doing SOP's (standard operating procedures) and other high-end documentation and training. Molly was an entrepreneur and even started creating some of her own product and services. If you search adilas on google, some of the other results are from Molly. Super creative and a great consultant.

Hamid Karbasi - Developer - He has worked with Brandon doing small websites, training, and small tasks. He currently is a manager at a retail store and brings some managerial type skills to the table. Willing to talk about concepts and how they apply to retail and other environments. He is also lightly helping with some planning for fracture.

Gene Spaulding - Friend, entrepreneur, and businessman. Gene is an old college friend. We had a number of friends in common. He has been a small mentor to me over the years. Way back, before adilas, he helped me get my first business loan for a project that I was working on.

Sharik Peck - Friend, entrepreneur, public speaker, physical therapist, and businessman. Good influence and mentor in ways. Sharik and I used to exercise together back in the day. Many of fun walk, run, and weightlifting session. Learning some conference and training skills from him and his wife. They have done really well pushing their product lines and doing some marketing. Trying to get some ideas.

Bridgerland Technical College - Use to be Bridgerland Applied Technology College. Not a person, but a huge help. This is a local technical college in the Logan, UT, area. Brandon's dad, Wayne, worked there. Tons of assets. They provided classrooms, training options, computers, and even an small incubation spot (starter office space) for the adilas shop during the startup phase. Huge asset!

McCorvey's Pro Shop - Also known as Bowling World. Client that had multiple locations. The started out with around 30 and grew up to the 90+ location level, all using adilas. Long time client.

Emerald Fields - They were the first client that wanted their own fully dedicated box and server. They had multiple locations and requested some custom code, reports, and features.

Beaver Mountain Ski School - Client that we helped them track their ski school (snow sport) lessons. Students, instructors, classes, and schedules. Custom interface dealing with elements of time and flex grid.

Bear 100 - This was the first event or annual event client that we did. They used the system for about a week each year. They had 350+ runners and their families that would be on the site for multiple days straight. It was a 100 mile running race with 13 aid stations and a small social portal for the family and friends to watch their runners. This one was special as it had custom input options to upload CSV files to populate the database vs normal HTML form field entries. Records were sent in batches from remote places to adilas for storage and race progress.

High Valley Bike Shuttle - Online ecommerce and scheduling client. They also have a cafe and small retail store. Fun online scheduling and bulk flex grid projects.

Herbo - Mike Roundtree, owner of Herbo, was the first company to do a small white label of adilas. Mike has been a great asset to Steve and the two of them have worked on projects, plans, and dreams. Herbo also has a custom payment solution that they are trying to market and get rolling. Mike has been a great supporter for years. He is also a certified CPA and that credential helps us and him. We would like to get other CPA's on board as well. Thanks Mike!

Nxtlinq AI - AI assistant. These guys really pushed us to get an AI agent inside of adilas. Tons of development took place and lots of prep stuff. We wanted to do a 3-part plan for integrating AI. 1. Teach it how to navigate using the AI quick search (check - done), 2. Teach it all things adilas. and 3. Teach it how to be clear up at the consultant type level. We only got the first phase done. Lots of other plans and such, but we ran out of funding.

Grok AI - Steve loves using Grok. He has built a number of image generation options inside of adilas. He is also working with Grok to feed it data to help with analytics and AI insight. This is not finished yet, but we may end up using Grok as an AI assistant inside of adilas. We have simple and emerging connections available right now but need to really polish things up before going live with the AI assistant options.

ChatGPT AI - We have started using ChatGPT to help with code, explanations, explore resources, planning, and help with training and flow for people and other AI bots. Currently, Brandon, Steve, Bryan, Alan, Josh, Russell, Chuck, and Wayne are using AI in either ChatGPT chat sessions or some other form of AI. We have some using Copilot, Gemini, Claude, etc. AI is actually helping in many ways. ChatGPT is a big one for use. Anyways, they are earning their place in the adilas key contributors list.

There are so many more that I can't list. Developers, users, power users, reps, consultants, trainers, clients, accountants, friends, family, and even critics. They have all helped out the idea farming process and progression. Good stuff! We couldn't have done this alone. It takes a community to do what we are doing.

Phone call with Steve. We were talking about the current load and how much is going on. It's hard to keep up. Steve is feeling pretty overwhelmed. He and the other team members are running the ship while I am off on the side trying to work on plans and investor stuff. It's pretty rough. There is also some underlying tension from a miscommunication and overstep on my part. See EOT # 12731 for some back story.

Here are some of my notes from the meeting with Steve:

- We started out and I read a post-it note full of some things that I think Steve has issues with - my personality traits. See attached, if you want for the post-it note. We are all working hard, but we have different opinions on what will help and where to focus. Similar but also somewhat different directions. Neither one is bad, just different approaches.

- He is busy taking care of business and paying clients. He is trying to only work on funded projects and projects that have ROI (return on investment).

- Trying to fill in the blanks (needs of whatever is needed).

- Steve is shooting for full AI projects - code, planning, fixes, etc. Steve is heavily leaning on AI as the backup or fallback. He is totally going in the AI direction for as much as he can.

- He showed me a small website that a guy built using just AI. Here's the link. I pulled it up. It looks great. It is pretty impressive. It doesn't have any real content, just a shell, but it looks amazing. We talked and chatted about that for a while. There is some fear that some of these guys are going to take over and build what we have built over the last 20+ years. Basically, a question of what is stopping them from taking the next step and building it out on their own? I see it, what we have and offer, as way deeper than that, but there is some worry and unknowns.

- He is seeing or thinking that people don't want any real interface... they just want a simple chat type interface and AI will do everything for them. I was telling him that our full interface and existing pieces need to still be there. There is value there. It is nice to be able to do anything that you want (say an AI chat window), but there are also times and places for a quick and easy button or link. We need both. Our interface is not our real product.

- We talked about how Wayne is working with some AI agents to work on the database and some database updates.

- Steve is feeling a little bit of panic mode. He watches and reads a lot of tech news. Huge changes are happening all around us.

- Only working on funded projects.

- Relying on Craig for all money type decisions (controller level control for funds).

- There is an urgency to what we are doing.

- AI is going so fast, it is scary. He is scared.

- Small talk about IP (intellectual property) and how we can't stop AI. If they want to do something, they can just do it, change it a bit, and run with it.

- He wants me to look into complex binary (tech stuff). He is planning on doing some more research there. Basically, skipping the code and going right to binary level commands.

- Brief talk about how people interact with things. He was saying that people don't want to do any data entry. They just want the AI agent or system to do it. Something like this, I have a document, I upload it, I then have the AI agent enter it into the system. Thanks, all done. AI does it all. As a side note, there may be some automation things that we can do, but don't think that everything will be like that.

- Talking about taking care of the business right in front of us. I don't deny that... and I know that there is a need there. We have been doing that for the past 20+ years. It is also a small trap, in some ways. It keeps us from breaking out of our form or container. We are somewhat maxing out our current model.

- If you read between the lines, he and the team are busy, with paying clients. There is a demand for what we are doing.

- We finished up the meeting, and he was going to go jump into another project that is needed. He is working super hard. He is trying to fill in the gaps as best as he can. I'm super grateful for that.

- After the meeting, I was talking with Heather (my wife). We were talking about an analogy of a malt shop or ice cream shop. Say you have a line out the door, small rush, tables need to be wiped, and dishes need to be done. Everybody is busting their buts, except for one guy in the back who is dreaming of a better way to do it. That doesn't fly very well. Sad to say, I'm that guy. I'm not trying to hurt anybody, and what I am doing is super important, it just gets judged pretty harshly. I fully understand. I have been in there busting my but as well, for years and years. I just know that there is a better way. The story above changes when you say, this small rush has been going on for years and years. We have all been pushing on things. It is not just one night, where things get busy. That longer timeframe makes a big difference.

- Tying this back to adilas (above ice cream shop analogy). We offer custom code. That is awesome and totally part of our model. However, we get so tied up in doing custom code that we can't finish what we really need to. We end up getting stuck in that scenario, kinda like the malt shop. There is a balance. You have to have the money to keep going, and that is super important (work right in front of you). You also need to look to the future as well. I heard a guy say one time, there is a difference between working in your business and working on your business. We need both. It's a fine line and tough balance.

Various emails, text messages, and phone calls. Touching base with some of the team members. Physically on the phone with Shari O, Bryan, and Alan. Texting others.

Talking with Alan about projects and AI use cases. We spent some time talking and going over things. We showed each other some of what we are doing. Alan is working on multi-threaded stuff for merchant processing different gateways. I have been working on some pricing structures for the main adilas website.

Phone call with Alan, touching base. Talking about payment gateways and future plans and changes. His daughter is doing better. She is still in the hospital but doing better.

Quick phone call with Alan to touch base. He is helping with his daughter (newborn) and doing some hospital stuff. She got sick and has to be in the hospital for three weeks. We quickly chatted about our projects and where we are headed. I'm going to call him again next week.

Phone call with Steve and then a phone call with Bryan. The main subjects were dealing with pricing and how to help figure things out. Here are my notes.

- Pricing has always been a crazy battle.

- Steve, Josh, and Bryan have been working on some ideas for pricing.

- Bryan was running things through AI (ChatGPT). Here is a small summary of what it recommended. As a note, Bryan sent me a file with more of the chat messages and prompts.

----

Adilas Pricing Summary

Monthly Software Fee "Unlike flat monthly fees that hit hardest when times are tough, Adilas scales with your business-low when revenue is low, and never punishes success."

- 0.4% of gross revenue

- Minimum: $59 per month

- For multiple businesses or monthly revenue over $150,000: Please contact us for a custom quote

Setup & Training (One-Time Fee)

- $300 - Includes 5 hours of system activation and personalized training

- $500 - Includes 10 hours of system activation and personalized training

- Hours are tailored to your needs. Most clients are fully operational within the included setup hours.

Additional Services

- Ongoing training: $65/hour

- Custom development & integrations: $100/hour

----

- As we use more AI stuff, we and/or our clients, may be charged more for tokens and token usage. Currently free, but that may increase as we go. We will monitor the tokens.

- Steve was saying that Josh has been pitching the enterprise system, for up to 10 entities, at $2,500/month.

- Some of our competition makes money on the credit card processing. We don't really care what merchant processing company they use.

- Steve was talking about a potential client that has a consignment type location. He was talking about a pricing model per booth or per sub section of the consignment store.

- The per location question always comes into play.

- We need to set some minimums.

- It seems like the sweet spot is a business that does between $40K to $100K per month in gross revenue.

- Pricing is confusing and totally depends on the model, the vertical, the complexity of the client, and expectations.

- We like to talk to the person... It helps us read the person and what they are feeling and looking for.

- Steve and I talked a lot about showing them the value of what they are getting. Josh has been pushing on that as well.

- We were talking about some folks wanting to do their own coding using AI.

- We offer all kinds of managed services, including training, setup, deployment, data entry, fractional bookkeeping, etc.

- Most system are just a POS (point of sale) - adilas is so much more. Often people are comparing prices of what we offer to someone else who is just offering the POS part of the puzzle.

- We should probably be compared to ERP pricing, but that sometime puts it completely out of range for the smaller guys, smaller clients, and companies.

- Steve and I were talking about impressions. He kept saying, we are not trying to give them any impression. People will form an impression, either way. In a way, we don't know how to brand or pitch ourselves.

- Maybe come up with some categories of pricing and let the clients see where they fit. In a way, how do you (as a client) want to be priced? Percentage, fixed price, per vertical, per location, etc. - Not sure.

- Being on the street. I was proposing things and Steve was saying, that's all great, but you need to be out on the street and see how that is received. I was pitching for higher prices.

- Walking a mile in someone else's shoes - you'll get the idea and figure out where they are coming from.

- Most software is priced per vertical. There are so many verticals. Maybe we offer dynamic pricing... Let's talk.

- We were talking about Finetech (merchant processing company) selling our software as an add-on. Something like this... it will be such and such for your merchant processing. If you want, we have connections with an awesome software company that we could add-on for x (some small percentage - Steve was thinking about under .5% or 1/2 a percent).

- Steve was talking about how he feels that processing is going to change. Dealing with more mobile type ways of accepting payments and auto tying things into a POS or some sort of system. Robot type stuff.

- At some point, we would love to bill for usage, storage, and processing (called throughput). He was saying that it would help to have some case studies and some examples. We would love to get there, but we are not ready for that yet.

- One of the most common things that we can tie a price to is revenue. It seems to tie things together.

- Most software systems are sold by the seat. With adilas, you get it all.

- We are trying to get a ballpark price (self serve - online). To really get it tight, we would like to talk to the client.

- Get a hold of us. Let's talk.

- We are US based, for our tech support. Steve was saying that was a big question that he has been hearing. Where is your tech support based out of? Am I going to be able to understand the person on the other line? Legit question.

- Switched over to talking about load balancing our servers. If we were to make some changes there, we could cut some costs. Steve is working with Wayne on this. Dealing with server backend coding languages and licenses.

- Databases, datasources, and converting the bus into motorcycles. Maybe create a new database that has corp-specific database tables or some other changes. We have wanted to do this project for quite some time. We have called it the datasource project or the world building project.

- In database land, if we could make things go away (clients and accounts), we could potentially allow for anybody to setup a system. It would either make the grade or get fully removed. Currently, we don't remove anything, we just set it to inactive (virtual delete).

- Drawing the line somewhere. That could be price, company size, business vertical, etc.

- Questions about servicing the account - if it is so small, it makes it hard to service it, there isn't much buffer to cover any tech support costs. Maybe offer a tech support plan or a be able to pre-pay for a certain number of tech support hours. Just some thoughts. This is mostly for the really tiny accounts.

- Talking costs and split commissions. Say something like this... Our costs are 40%. The remaining 60%, we could split 1/2 and 1/2 or 30% with whomever is selling or servicing the account.

Anyways, some good conversation topics and ideas. We will get it all figured out. Making progress.

Meeting with Alan and Steve. He, Steve, is having the AI agents write code and he is managing it. He is working on phone notifications. He is using multiple AI bots to compare notes and check direction stuff. As part of the process, he was getting Wayne, our server guy, to install some different things on the servers. Steve was showing us some things that he is working on, some new reports, and new homepages.

We switched gears and I was showing some stuff from what Shannon and I were working on this morning (eot # 12662). Alan is doing some other research to help with things. We talked about using AI for input data options. Quick, snap a picture, and have the AI do the look-up and prep the input. Having it help with predictions and trending and some sort of analytics.

Steve was showing the different AI models. Looking at pricing per millions of tokens and the context window sizes. Things are changing quickly. We want to keep using natural language processes and asking it for help. Talking about future buildouts and white label options. Steve was talking about robots and what is coming (stuff from the news). Talking about data in and data out. I mentioned that Bryan was working with a potential client that wants a simple POS systems and automating things behind the scenes (eot # 12656). Steve was saying that he sees that kind of thing happening over and over again.

Alan and Steve were saying that our dreams can be realized so much more quickly now. In some ways, you can take the code writing hurtle out of the picture. You still have to know what you know and be willing to mix things together, but things can happen much quicker now. Interesting times.

Working with Shannon. Talks about AI cannibalism and what is happening to the SaaS (software as a service) model. This came from an article on X - twitter (link). Steve sent it over to Alan and I to read. Anyways, I was reading it and Shannon was taking some notes. I was then drawing about how people are using AI and where things are going. I was showing 2 main things... companies need to use AI or be left behind. If they do use AI, especially SaaS companies, they are basically cannibalizing their own products and services.

Notes from Shannon - summary of the article on X:

- Biggest irony in tech history... earnings are up and stock is down

- Huge companies invested tons in AI and ironically it is hurting them

- No AI, you are left behind. Yes AI, and it will start to cannibalize your company

- AI doesn't make software companies stronger, it makes them obsolete

- AI is replacing the software that these companies are selling

- If AI can write code, automate flow, do X, Y, and Z - all for pennies - why would you pay for software?

- One AI agent replaces 10 seats, One prompt replaces months of custom development, One LLM call replaces entire software categories

- Companies that invested most in AI are hurting the most

- Companies enabling AI (hardware) made money

- Hardware up and software down

- The AI world needs GPU's (graphical processing unit)

- Don't need software subscriptions when AI can build it for you

- Investors question - will your business survive the next five years?

- Software earnings were up, but stocks were down. How do you compete with free?

- AI is getting more reliable - you don't have to rely on these older SaaS software packages

- One of the biggest market shifts in history - $500 Billion gone in market value in one day

Shannon and I were talking about what the models are going to look like - drawings... molecule (mash-ups) vs a systemized approach. with AI, it will take the mash-up and really make it even more complicated. Little microservices - more than just a mash-up, it will become soup... just being silly - see attached for a small drawing. In the drawing, I was showing Shannon that we have to use it, meaning AI. Most people and/or companies fall into one of three models. The do it yourselfers (pen, paper, spreadsheets), the mash-ups (molecule type model - trying to mix and blend together), and the systems and platform models. Adilas is a platform model. We would love people to add in AI over the top of what we are already doing. It will just make it richer and better and better. Once again, see the drawing for more info.

Building on a platform that supports AI add-on's - we have the engine to build on top of - the platform - really pushing the platform and how it can service the user needs and requests.

Some of our plans... for helping AI do things... see element of time # 12392 - this entry covers user defined prompts, chaining prompts (multiple prompts in a row or sequence), and how to use AI to help do even more

- Switched to reading over the investment options and opportunities for adilas. Read over some new rules from element of time # 12645

As Shannon and I were talking - I was saying that hyperlinks are my way of gathering things... I can interconnect almost anything using a hyperlink. That is awesome.

We read over the entry on 12645 (see link above) and worked on redefining certain pieces. We aren't trying to get perfect verbiage at this point, more along the general flavor lines. Great session.

Meeting with Alan. I was showing him some of the changes and where I am heading (notes from the past few weeks). He then showed me some of what he is working on. He has been playing with continuous development pipelines and playing with other more modern frameworks and such. Sharpening his skills and showing what he can do. He showed me a quick demo. He's been working on a small app in some other languages and frameworks. We also chatted about what the future might hold and where things are going. Good conversation.

Meeting with Cory. Going over some questions on vendor credits (special accounts). Talking about the balance sheet and how those vendor credits are tracked. She then had a small list of things that need to be changed. Light tech support stuff. She also requested a couple of code changes to some pages and new custom tools to help make her job easier.

Quick GoToMeeting session with Alan. Trying to figure out plans and where we are going. Talking about sales and different companies. We both reported on some things that we are working on. Also, what is in the near future - projects and features. Quick touch base.

Quick meeting with Alan. Touching base and both sharing where we are heading and what we are working on. Rescheduled another meeting for each week in January.

Good meeting with Steve. We went over tons of different things. Here are some of my notes.

- Fixing the Grok AI Agent. It is available but not yet trained. We have it hooked up, but hidden... Just us can play with it right now. It will be an ongoing project. We made it so that we could push it up live but, once again, no one knows about it and we don't want them to know about it yet. Steve wanted it to show some people that there is some potential (seeding the discussion).

- Lots of talk about sales and generating revenue. Steve wants to work with people who are willing to talk to anyone and then when they want a demo, he and Sean can step in. He doesn't want to train them on everything, just a simple salesperson who can generate leads. He wants our team to do the demos.

- Steve was asking about Alan. We jumped in and looked around at both the system (timecards) and bit bucket. I reported that I had met with him and it was a great meeting.

- We talked about adilas and expectations. There are a lot of undefined rules and assumptions. We are planning on refining some of that as we go. It just is what it is right now.

- Steve is doing tons of small mini projects for Cory. He is really busy doing all of the little things. I would say he is getting buried. I have been there so many time. I feel for him.

- We talked about a couple of possible partners and outside businesses that have expressed interest in what we are doing. Currently, there seems to be lots of demands and not much show of support so far. It is just starting out, and we aren't sure where it is going. We want the leads, the customers, and the work, but so far, it hasn't really produced.

- We are trying not to waste time and energy, but we really don't know where to go. We are basically, trying to follow the money. Picking up the pieces.

- Steve and I talked about options in sales and also trimming down our current team. We have to cut some costs. It is rough sometimes.

- We spent some time talking about payment processing and how they do their billing. They, the payment processors, usually do a percentage of the monthly credit card sales. We would like to do something similar but instead of doing just the credit card processing, we would like to do a small percentage of the total sales per month. We are thinking from 1% to 1/2 of a percent. Somewhere in there. Trying to figure that out.

- Steve was talking about robots and even payment processing is becoming more automated and even mobile. He was talking about advancements in robots and other technologies. He reads a lot and likes to keep up on that stuff.

- We would like to get our Grok AI agent up and working. We feel that we may be able to control that better than having an outside party program and control it. That is still a lot of work. Steve really feels like if we don't embrace the full AI wave, we will be left behind.

- Bryan popped in for a minute. I told him that I would text him when we were done. We were spoused to meet but Steve and I got started late.

- Bryan is working with some CPA's and trying to get them to see the vision of what we are doing. Long ago, that was Steve's vision. He wanted to fly around in his plane (he's a pilot) and go see all of the CPA's and show them how adilas works. Funny but cool, old memory. Still a possibility.

- Steve has been around a lot of salespeople. He was sharing some of his experiences. We need people in places where there are a lot of other people (businesses). We don't have anything right now, as far as a salesperson or a sales team.

- Sales is just a game of numbers. You also have to be willing to be told no. Not all personality types can do that. Steve was mentioning that we have started a bunch of people but they haven't worked out. This may not go here, but I'm going to add it in anyways. Steve and I were talking on Monday, 1/12/26. I had a meeting later on Thursday, 1/15/26, with Shannon. She made an interesting observation. We used to have a rep type model, where the rep, an independent, would go pedal and push our product. They would then get a commission and also be able to get monies directly from the client to help with anything that the client needed. That was very successful. They, the reps, would max out and eventually stop, but each one could handle a certain number of clients. We had some reps that were making great money. Because it wasn't super organized, we decided to pull that back internally. Due to budgets, we have not been able to fill that same role that those reps were providing. We have way more control over what is being done, but we don't have anybody out there pushing on things. Interesting observation.

- Back to the meeting with Steve. After we talked about sales for the first little bit, I changed gears and did a mini pitch to Steve about focusing on people and trying to stabilize the team. That conversation always comes back to funding and where do you get the money from? This has been a common theme over the years.

- I was drawing and showing some ideas. We have focused on features and functionality so much. We keep building lists and slowly clicking through things. I really feel like we need to change the focus to people and the team vs the next cool thing. The sad part is, we have done this for years and years and years. We keep thinking, when we get such and such done, it will all get better. We get to that point and then there is always something more. I honestly can't even see the end of what is wanted (feature or functionality wise). It feels like a perpetual or ongoing list of wishes and demands.

- We jumped in the system and were looking at sales, numbers, trends, year over year totals, etc.

- We may want to allow the developers to go back and bid (put out estimates) on custom code projects. That's what they used to do, back in the day. We tried to pull that all under the main adilas roof as well. That was super expensive. We may need to figure out a hybrid and see if we can make that work. We don't want a full wild west again, but we may need to bring some of the independent pieces back in. It just costs too much for us to fully support a full staff of full time developers. We'll figure it out.

- Our costs are around 40% (roughly). So, if you had a system sell for $100. We would use $40 to pay for servers and other small things. The other $60 would be profit that could be split and/or divided to create some sort of incentive. Steve is trying to see if he can get anybody to play that way. We just have to get more clients. He was pitching a 50/50 split of the profit. So, for a $100 deal, that would be $40 overhead (costs), then split $60/2 or $30 per entity that is helping with the sale.

- We were talking about setup, activation, and selling systems. We are seeing a growing demand for enterprise level functionality. They, our clients, just expect us to have it all built. They really want it, but it is only partially done, not all the way yet. We end up getting stuck in the middle, footing the bill, and not being able to just sell what they want. We already have vendors, customers, and items on the enterprise level. We just need so much more. Well, you have to start somewhere.

- Steve was talking about 10 free hours of training and then rolling into $65 per hour after that. We can help with anything that is needed, whether that be training, data entry, bank reconciliation, inventory help, balance sheet and accounting work, etc. We offer a lot of services. Basically, what do you need? We can help.

- Steve wants to find some power users and see if they would like to work for us. We have had great success by hiring people who were once adilas users and then bringing them in and onto our team. They already know and love adilas. They tend to find a good home with us. It just comes down to budgets again.

- As we were talking... I was pitching things and it kept getting met by something like... We've tried that... We need to do something different. I don't feel like that. If we did try things, the timing may have been off, the wrong person, or it wasn't really tried. I don't want to just keep randomly trying things. I think we need to focus on people, talents, skills, and personalities. If we can get the right people in the right places, and get them trained and supported, it will work. I know it!

- We may need to try things again! Lots of things are changing and been changing over the years. We have been doing this since 2001. Adilas became a real entity in 2008. We need to circle back around and focus on people.

- The topic switched to AI. Steve wants us to use AI to build code for us. He thinks that we can reduce our tech needs by 60%. He uses it tons and tons. I use it as well. We want to get our other developers up and going on it. It's not that they aren't... we just need to keep going. We need to look at it as a tool, not the only answer. It does have pros and cons. It definitely has its place. Certain things still need the human touch.

- We ended our meeting by him telling me that I could look around and work on a plan and then bring it back to him. We have to make some changes. That is for sure. I just don't want to randomly do things that may hurt us in the long run. It takes me so long to train new people. I hate to see them just go away. We have a team, but yes, they are kinda tired. We have been running hard for years and years, almost without any breaks. That is rough. We will figure it out. That's the new goal. Figure out how to make this work and stabilize the team.

Emails, paying bills, reviewing notes from over the weekend. Planning for a meeting with Steve. Reread some great poems that have a great message. Click this link to see the poems (on a different entry from a couple of years ago). Pushing up videos to a new folder inside of google drive.

Translating from post-it notes on 1/11/26

- Sunday morning - I was shaving, getting ready for church. I had a flood of ideas come into my head.

- We go for it on 4th down (football analogy)

- Reinforce the team - goal 1

- Goal 2 - We make sure that keeps working (meaning goal 1)

- Morning meeting at 9:30 am (get some communication stuff going on)

- Let people (our team) run... minimal on the micromanagement

- We focus on people... there will always be more projects and features

- CSS on forms for classic looking forms in the snow owl theme

- Look and feel to snow owl - help fix internal and existing pages look good

- Training - could be internal training, AI training, or external training

- Presentation Gallery - Keep pushing on that project

- Images for the adilas lite plan and the investment opportunities

- Abby - Talk to Steve about getting her involved

- Work with the design team - Chuck, Piper, Sarah

- Move key videos to Google Drive vs on the content server. It just can't serve them up quick enough.

- On the AI Agent - Use what we have - Set it up so that it tells people "I'm good at nav" - Polish the 350 existing prompts and tools.

- Suzi - Step-by-steps - small documents with information and instructions. She is really good at that.

- Sean and Cory - General Training

- Prepare for 100+ new accounts - What would that take?

- Open things up!!!

- If needed, we have others who can help - Dustin, Eric, and John. There are others as well.

- Shannon - She has been such a great helper to me

- Let Alan lead out - Help him succeed. He can do so much more than code.

- Get out of the way

- Leverage debt - put all of the adilas shop or adilas lite stuff into adilas as real payables - bring it out of hiding - true costs and costing

- Co-owner Advocate - possible new title, if needed

- Mini bank accounts for each person and/or department - help the team feel safe, supported, and funded

- Be in someone's corner - believe in them

- Overcoming fear - Satan wants us to run and hide

- Simple 1-pagers (one-pagers) - at a glance

Meeting with Alan. Going over existing AI trends. Talking about our existing model. We logged into the Nxtlinq backend dashboard and looked around (current adilas AI agent backend). Lots of chats and what not, going back and forth about ideas and options. Alan was saying that he has been looking up what customers really want from an AI compliant ERP system. We chatted about that. We then did a small session showing what we are doing and how we are using different AI pieces and projects. I got into VS Code and showed Alan around a bit. We jumped into ChatGPT and looked at how it is helping as well. We chatted about some new ideas and where to help take things, going forward. We also setup a time to meet next week.

Phone call with Alan. Touching base, sharing, and swapping some ideas. What is working, what we are doing, and how things are going? We spent some time and chatted about AI and thoughts and ideas. We are going to get together in a couple of days and do a little show and tell session. See what little tips we can work on and share.

Spent the first 2.5 hours working on the Grok AI agent and getting things tied in there. We are just starting out there and tiptoeing through that process. We are using Grok as the AI agent, for this new one, and then using ChatGPT to help us know how to code the stuff for Grok. Kinda funny. Anyways, we had a great session. We were in deep rewriting code. We were asking all kinds of questions and testing those changes that we were making. I was happy with the session.

The last half an hour, we were looking at the code from Alan and the new CardPointe stuff. We need some new code and changes but were not sure of the status of that project. We looked at his branch and poked around for a bit. I will give him a call. He and his wife recently had a new little girl. I imagine that he has been completely pulled into that mix (life in general).

Work session with Shannon. She really helps me carve out time to work on some of my long term goals. If it weren't for her, I would get sucked into the main mix and other demands inside of adilas. I love it that we get to work on these things (other projects and dreams). As far as work today, we spent most of our time working on new content for the fracture buildout section of the adilas lite plan. Today we were finishing up the stuff on front-end and backend validation processes. Here is what we came up with:

//////

This validation section deals with security of the data being passed around, and/or transferred, from client to server and back again. The term client-side validation deals with checks and balances before the webpage or form is submitted. This front end, or client-side, validation can really help with the user interface and user experience (UI/UX) parts of the system. This type of validation can help catch simple mistakes, typos, or missing information before the data is sent to the server. This helps speed up the process and reduces server load. If the data doesn't pass the client-side validation checks, then the user is prompted to correct the errors before submission. This is a great way to enhance the user experience and reduce unnecessary server requests.

Server-side, or backend validation, deals with what goes on once the webpage or form leaves the user's computer and hits the server. The server is the backend brains of the application. Backend validation is responsible for checking and making sure that anything submitted is viable and can be used in the requested action. This backend validation is very secure, it can exist in multiple levels, and may even be stacked if needed. If backend validation is used, and the data doesn't pass the validation checks, then the server throws an error. Depending on how deep it is, the errors will stop the process and the desired action is not completed. One or more error messages then get passed back to the client. Error messages are required for communication with the users. However, they may lightly detract from the user experience.

The best combination is a good mix of both client-side (front end) and server-side (backend) validation. We, as a company, are already doing a lot of this mixed validation. We are currently heavier on the server-side, but both options are being used. Moving forward in the fracture buildout, we will continue to keep the server-side tight. We also plan to enhance the client-side validation to make the whole experience even smoother for our users and clients.

Talking to Bryan about AI quick search options. We went over some vision stuff and where we are wanting to go vs where we are at. Then we switched over to talking about changing out our prices (lowing them) so that people will buy more. He was showing me some examples: Say we charge a $100/hour or $150/hour, how many hours of custom programming would we get? What if the price was $50/hour or $65/hour, what would that look like? Bryan was showing me some potential curves and what some of that might look like. Fun ideas. We may want to play with this and see what happens. Not everything will go this way.

After the meeting with Bryan, I switched over and did a multi-hour session on AI quick search prompts. Adding photo and scan prompts to all of the main sections. Doing some crisscrossing of the different sections. Switched over to other main navigation pages and their prompts and shortcuts. One thing that was different with this section was, I would code it, test it, create the prompt documentation, add it to the help file, push it live, retest it live. I wasn't just coding or just doing documentation. I was doing all of the pieces, then repeat. Small little sections but finishing them up. That was kinda fun. I never let it get out of balance, I would code, test, and make sure that the documentation was there. Good little session.

Bryan jumped in and he, Steve, and Alan, were talking a bit. They were talking about AI quick search stuff and then some sales. Steve and Alan had to take off. Just Bryan and I were then working on stuff. We made some plans, and Bryan is going to help me try to finish up some of the AI quick search prompts and such. Small work session. Making some plans to divide and conquer.

Meeting with Alan and Steve. We were talking about some new accounts and also helping with the accounting for these accounts (offering other services). The goal is to help fill in the gaps on the accounting side of things. Let them do what they can and then we fill in the gaps. Steve was reporting that a client was saying that they were happy to find us. They didn't know that we existed. Small talks about QuickBooks and how many people use them.

The main meeting was between Alan and Steve. I was there, recording notes, chiming in, and doing a little bit of driving (clicking on pages and reports). Here are some of my notes... Instead of being sequential, they are broken down into things that Alan said and things that Steve said. Good meeting.

Notes from Alan:

- Shifting our mindset a little bit

- What is working and what is not working

- Skating to where the puck is going to be vs where the puck is at right now

- Being proactive in our approach

- Running to the fire vs doing what is needed in the long term

- Say a budget of 30 hours - 15 hours working on big projects or using that time to do some prospecting, 5 hours communication stuff (emails, texts, recording time), 5 hours bug fixes, other 5-10 hours maybe using AI to help clean-up the system or refactoring older code

- Maybe some new dashboards

- AI is amazing when it works

- Using AI to help us modernize our interface

- Talking about time - not too rigid on timelines - we want to finish things... - everything takes time - we never tend to get to things

- Taking about proactive maintenance

- He (Alan) sometimes struggles with communication

- It is easier to just knock out projects at times, then talk to people and/or get distracted by different things

- Code fits into multiple areas - paid, fun, wow factors, etc.

- Taking time to work on their own projects (one of his wishes and/or dreams) - basically either continuing education and/or fun projects (what can we do to make it better) - fixing things that bug us (as devs) - making things easier for others

- Alan's been working on some refunds (card pointe and clover - merchant processing stuff)

- Talking about dreams and what would that look like

- Stuck in between what we want and what we have

- Fearing the slowly sinking into nothingness (an analogy about adilas - like a ship)

- Running in circles

- Chasing a ghost (phantom look and feel)

- Alan asking about the goal with the investors

- Talking about the size of the client that we are chasing... how big of a fish are we looking for? - we may be trying to get too big - who are we? can we handle that size of a fish? - what is our goal and how will we get there?

- Alan had some questions on pricing and what does our ideal client look like? how do we find that person/company?

- other sales related questions - how do you judge a company, size, needs, etc.? - what about customizing things? good or bad? - we don't have a big huge team - we have been burned with merchant processing and other 3rd party solutions

- Talking about adilas and where we are at financially

Notes from Steve - once again, not sequential, but just things that I wrote down that he was talking about.

- Learning to adapt - using AI - it is going so fast - we need to be in that race

- Talking about databases - yes, they are still really needed (good multi-relational databases)

- Steve was showing some of the AI stuff in his demos with some potential clients - that has been going well

- We are really bad at estimates (we have had our lunch eaten time and time again)

- Talking about client churn and companies falling off of the system - pretty normal - we are actually doing pretty good.

- Looking around in the system a bit

- Maybe going with $100/hour for development work and $65/hour for setup and oversight

- AI has sped up Steve's work - he is learning along the way - guiding it along - taking in small sections at a time

- Steve was talking about time budgets and not getting too tight on certain time blocks

- Some of Steve's projects are tiny and fulfilling - inch by inch and little dabs

- We need some firewood (sales and revenue coming in) - we are low on revenue

- Steve thinks that Alan needs a break - maybe getting out there and talking to people about what we have

- Sean has been helping with deployment - Cory is doing more client work

- Steve loves to figure out the angles (problem solving for clients and what they need)

- We have an MVP (minimal viable product)

- Finding people who are happy with what we have

- Investors tend to look at the reoccurring revenue - we are looking for an angel type investor who sees the vision and value and says, yes, let's push this thing forward

- We have gotten it this point without a sales team and without marketing... imagine what we could do if we get that going

- Big fish are expecting to be courted (wine and dined)

- They, our clients, have to be big enough to afford us

- Shooting for $400/month

- No big fish and no little fish (super little) - being able to offer our services and they pay for it

- Learning to say no

- Most companies pay around 3% for merchant processing... say we go less than that - say 2% of monthly revenue - start higher and then go down if you need to - if you are dealing with a big chain, we may have to negotiate with them

- Steve talking about numbers... say we have made $10Million from paying clients. If you take number and divide it by our total client count over the years, for us, it is around $12K per client

- We should be selling stuff - that is a super high number at around $12K per client

- Steve would like to get 5-10 new accounts a month

- Offer our other services - activation, deployment, and servicing the account

- We have done a lot of stuff for free... we need to change that

- Sales - can be broken down into three main things... they are like, trust, and respect

- Just tell everyone what you do (from Kiva)

- Do they have inventory? Do they need to track stuff? Great! - Nobody does inventory management like we do - QuickBooks is sending people to FishBowl and Shopify

- Being outside and out and about

- Helping people with their over needs - these are things that they can't get to - their over needs

- We could offer lots of other outside or inside services - we are $65/hour for those services

- We either do it or we don't do it, go to the next

- Stay on the good side of town

- On custom code, they, our clients tend to really like to dream and can't really afford it - we have been burned on doing too much custom - we are $100/hour, paid weekly, if yes, ok, let's go

- The bigger the lift, the bigger the pain (time and money)

- If needed, we could move forward with bigger teams - like a lawyer, we could work off of a retainer

- We can get lost in "custom world" or "custom land" - we need to steer clear of major custom

- Looking for happy clients - we have a bunch of clients who are not calling us, they are happy

- Trying to stay away from black box stuff - building settings or small bridges

- Being able to remove columns on reports (fracture or adilas lite stuff)

- Simple website stuff (easy hosting) - simple pages and some settings (landing page, contact us, and about us, plus adilas ecommerce)

- Trying to be around $1,000 and then a monthly (have to have an adilas account)

- Taking things off of their shoulders - they are already spending tons for all of these other services (mashups)

- Maybe look at some sport teams - other team sports

- Not trying to sell things, just doing some exploring

- Talking about sales and/or trimming things down a bit (financially)

- We may to stop or curve the development and really focus on sales

- Talking about the AI quick search - going beyond normal API endpoints (URL crafting, AI quick search, mini API, etc.) - Steve jumped into the test site and was showing Alan some of the AI agent stuff that we are working on.

Overall, a great meeting. Some good takeaways as well. Good stuff!

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

Bryan ran this page through AI and got the following summary back

AI Summary:

Sales & Strategy Meeting Summary

Attendees: Alan, Steve, Brandon, & Bryan

Meeting Overview

The discussion focused on expanding Adilas’ service offerings, improving operational efficiency, refining sales strategy, and leveraging AI to modernize both processes and the user interface. The team emphasized the need to balance custom work with scalable solutions and to strengthen recurring revenue and client engagement.

Key Discussion Points

Alan’s Focus

• Encouraged a proactive and forward-thinking mindset (“skate to where the puck is going”).

• Suggested a structured time allocation for projects, maintenance, communication, and AI-driven improvements.

• Emphasized AI modernization for the Adilas interface.

• Advocated for proactive maintenance and allowing time for innovation and internal improvement projects.

• Discussed defining the ideal client profile, pricing models, and balance between customization and scalability.

• Highlighted challenges in communication and prioritization but emphasized long-term goals and clarity of direction.

Steve’s Focus

• Stressed the importance of adapting quickly to AI and new technologies.

• Acknowledged issues with time estimates and scope management.

• Proposed pricing structure:

  • $100/hour for development

  • $65/hour for setup/support

• Highlighted need to increase recurring revenue and attract an angel investor aligned with Adilas’ vision.

• Advocated for focusing on sales growth (targeting 5–10 new accounts/month).

• Emphasized charging for all services—move away from unpaid work.

• Encouraged avoiding excessive custom development to protect scalability.

• Recommended prioritizing sales and marketing efforts to drive short-term revenue.

Action Items

• Define the ideal client profile and align pricing accordingly.

• Increase focus on sales, marketing, and client outreach.

• Use AI strategically to streamline operations and modernize the platform.

• Improve internal communication and proactive planning.

• Explore investor options and sustainable growth strategies.

Phone call with Alan going over plans and ideas. We are hoping to get a meeting with Steve setup for Friday of this week.

Meeting with the Nxtlinq guys. Steve, Josh, Bryan, Matt, Roger, and Vincent were on the meeting. We showed them some progress and sent them over some help file links. Mostly what we were able to show them was the new documentation stuff.

One thing that Vincent said that I liked was "Remove the friction". That should be our main goal in this venture. I liked that saying. If we could remove the friction on other parts, things would be even smoother. Without getting too technical, you have to have some friction, but making things smoother would be a plus. There is a balance point.

Brandon and Bryan went to the Adobe ColdFusion Summit Conference in Las Vegas. Multiple days at the conference. See attached for my notes. Good sessions and good learning.

While down there, some phone calls with Steve and Alan going over plans, projects, and funding stuff.

Meeting with Alan, Cory, Steve, and Bryan on a Zoom meeting. Here are some of my notes:

- Talking about budgets and payables. It's been a long grind for all of us.

- Talking about options to sale a portion of the company (percentages) and what that might look like.

- How can we increase sales and improve the communication (internal and external communications). Lots of back and forth.

- Talking about ideas, solutions, and different lessons learned.

- Spent some time talking about custom work for clients. We have been burned over and over again. Also, nobody knows who is working on what. There is a real lack of communication within our team.

- We are honestly trying, but it gets tough.

- We have so many things going on... that is awesome, but it adds challenges.

- We switched over and spent some time talking about funded projects and trying to focus there.

- The subject switched over to talking about sales... Small list from Steve - like, trust, and respect - that's selling. Helping to solve people's pain. We may have to switch to our sales hat.

- Alan had a number of questions about selling or sales... what can adilas do? How do I sale this? Being able to speak their lingo, meaning our clients.

- Focus on bringing in revenue vs building. That is a hard transition for us, but we can do it. Steve's analogy - go out and get some firewood.

- Towards the end of the meeting, Steve was working his magic and basically selling us on some things... he is super good at that. We are planning on going out to sale systems.

Meeting with Bryan, Alan, and Brian from Finetech. We went over some merchant processing stuff and questions. We talked about some needed changes for Clover devices and some Card Pointe enhancements. After everybody else left, just Bryan and I stayed on for a bit. We did some light training and set it up for one of our clients to accept split payments for ecommerce. We didn't allow it directly, but we used some existing settings to let that happen. We then started talking about AI and how we are using that in some of our development and processes. I showed Bryan some of Steve and I's AI quick search stuff that we were doing (options and prompt to help generate URL's and do custom URL crafting).

Phone calls with Bryan. He is working on a couple different projects. One is dealing with CSV to PO (bringing in new inventory) and they got some duplicates. The other questions he wanted to ask were dealing with the Plaid API (external banking stuff) and recording external reference numbers from bank transactions and id's from outside software systems.

We then jumped on a meeting with both Bryan Dayton from adilas and Brian Mowris from Finetech. We were debugging and checking out an error with Card Pointe. For some reason, one of our merchants (clients) was get an authorization error. We checked the credentials and were able to make a manual transaction happen but could get it to connect to any hardware terminals. We will pull in Alan (other adilas developer) next week, as he was out of the office with his family.

Working through balance sheet entries and reports for vendor credits. Light testing.

Emails and looking into a small bug out in ecommerce land. Got a text from a client and then called him back. Texting with Alan about checking on a possible bug dealing with merchant processing.

Shannon and I were working on new content for the adilas university page. We were talking about education, training, and support. They are subjects that are dear to my heart. Here are some of my notes. They are somewhat random but part of what we were talking about and going over.

- Flat line - What if you could kill an application or system (flat line it) by not providing enough support and training? Can that and does that happen? Looking at adilas financials... Where are we at?

- Filling the gap - If we are missing the training, education, and support pieces... then what? What happens if we are missing those pieces? We have them, they are just small ish... who is filling that gap? Talking about how adilas used outside or independent reps for years and years. That really helped fill the gap. Who is doing that now? Internally or internal teams?

- Talking about a 3-way stool or a 3-legged stool (sys, $, edu) - One of the three legs is the system or the features within the system. Another leg is the clients or the money that they bring to the table by using the system (users). The last leg of the 3-legged stool is education and training. Without a robust third leg, your growth may be limited. Ideally, you balance things out, so that all legs or pieces are equally stable.

- Another 3-way relationship is between maintenance, education, and new. We keep chasing the new features, but we may be missing the education and the maintenance. We were talking about levels of satisfaction. These satisfaction levels usually come from things that are well maintained, users have adequate education and/or knowledge, and things are steady. Or sometimes, people find a level of satisfaction through a constant inflow of new (unlimited needs or lust for new features). I was telling Shannon, that for a job I have with a ski school (snow sports), we often get questions about the terrain park, at the local ski resort. People tend to be happiest with well-maintained features and educated skiers and riders who then use the features in the correct way. Some people only like it if there is something new. This demand is super hard to keep up with. However, if you don't maintain it or educate riders (public users), the new features quickly fall into disrepair and can't be used, thus requiring either more new ones or maintenance and education.

- MVP levels... minimal viable product, minimal viable plan, minimal viable person.

- Structural failure (at what point)?

- New features are exciting but they can become tiresome and non-fulfilling - too much chaos. I would rather have more stability over time.

- We know that there is a need for education and support. We had some of our reps that were making more money than we were making (filling that gap). There is value there.

- I have been in demos and meetings, and the question has been brought up, what about education and support? We do have an answer, but it is not super strong. Support is huge (we were talking about two potential bigger clients). That education and support piece is a huge checkbox that is not being filled. Question, could this be a bigger checkbox than all of the features (feeling the security of being able to get help)?

- See a need, fill a need.

- Fear and how much time it takes to do and learn something. What is an ERP system? We did some light research (see below).

Shannon and I looked up ERP software. Here is the definition that they provided:

ERP software, or Enterprise Resource Planning software, is a comprehensive business management solution that integrates and streamlines core business processes across an organization. It helps manage various functions such as finance, HR, manufacturing, supply chain, sales, and procurement, providing a unified view of activities and a single source of truth for decision-making. By automating processes and offering insights, ERP systems enable efficient management and real-time data access, ultimately enhancing organizational performance.

Paying bills and recording notes. Lots of internal tech support stuff today. Also, at two different times, we tried to jump on the GoToMeeting session but others were using the account. Steve was on earlier in a demo when Alan and I were going to use it. Then Alan was on later when Bryan and I were going to jump in. All is well. I'm glad that they were getting their stuff done as well. Busy day!

Texts, phone calls, and emails. We had to flush and make a small Cardpointe change for ecommerce checkout on data 0 (merchant processing stuff). We were having a hard time with the page clearing the cache and flushing the application scope variables. Working with Alan to get the fix in place for the client.

Law of deferring to something that has more info (postpone action/judgement or let something else take control temporarily). Talking about the balance sheet and the P&L (profit and loss or income statement). We were conceptionally talking about some deeper accounting and deferring (delaying) of certain things.

We spent some time showing Cory and Steve progress on the vendor credit project. It should be finished up by the end of the week. We then flipped over and were talking about how the internal adilas API was structured and created. I was showing Steve and Cory was doing stuff in the background. Lots of drawing and showing flow. Hopefully it helped.

Going back to the law of deferring. I looked it up and it said - The term "deferring" means to postpone or delay an action or decision to a later time. It often implies allowing someone else to make a choice or follow their decision, as in "deferring to someone else's wishes". In various contexts, such as finance, it can refer to delaying payments or actions for potential future benefits. Overall, deferring suggests a temporary suspension of action rather than a permanent decision.

We tend to defer to the object or piece of data that holds the most information or has the best value. It all plays in, we just give certain pieces more precedence than other parts or pieces. That's how we fold the whole thing together into a working system.

A couple of smaller work sessions throughout the day. Spent some time reading over plans for the vendor credit project. Making tons of progress. Checking off things that were done and seeing what is still needed for this project. As of right now, we still need help files, code for voids (deleting expenses), showing vendor credits per payee/vendor (edit modes and printable pages), and all of the balance sheet stuff. Most of the other pieces are done or at least at a good level. I've been working on this project for about a month now.

Sent a couple of hours adding vendor credits to pages that show vendor/payee information. Did this for both normal vendors and employee/users (any payee per corporation).

Working on the vendor credit special account section. This is a sub project of the receive partial PO line items project. Ended up doing some light research on balance sheet watchers and feeders (sub details of a balance sheet item). The ideal goal is to setup a balance sheet item, with custom groupings, mappings, and custom naming. Then we use that balance sheet number as a base where we can show additional details without having to go in and physically add all of those details. We can get the details (of the balance sheet) from other sources.

This is not the only way to use watchers and feeders, but it could be pretty cool. I was doing some research on how we wanted to treat the vendor credits inside of special accounts (overpayments for PO's and expenses or sales tax commissions for early pre-payment). Basically, vendor credits are any monies that are paid to a vendor and we either didn't get anything for it or we overpaid for something and need to reduce some other expense payment to that vendor by that amount.

Spent the rest of the afternoon refining the add manual vendor credit process. Pushed up code into a small side branch for vendor credits. Recorded notes on the partial PO project timecard.

Working on the changes for the mini scan cart and not creating new objects each time we asked or stored data for the shopping cart. Ended up giving Alan a call and he walked me through it (how to make some changes). Spent time cascading code around to help make it happen (creating less objects).

These are some random notes that I had written down on 3/26/25. Just recording them.

- We may want to setup a webinar to help with some demos. Basically, demo once, use many (have multiple parties be on the meeting). It could be pretty cool! I'd like to explore some options there. Maybe even a set reoccurring webinar or something like that. Shannon and I used to do that back in 2014. It's been a while.

- Different subject, as we get new member owners (co-owners) in the adilas, llc (MMLLC - multi member LLC) entity, we may want to schedule some general meetings. Put those meetings on the calendar and then let all member (co-owners) know about those meetings.

- Small note about buying and selling shares (percentages) of adilas. Create a rule that deals with ability to sell based on permission from holders who are 20% or higher (something like that). Maybe look into this and setup some checks and balances. We don't want to create a monopoly within our company. It might be cool if there is a standard way of doing things but also an option to do it differently, based on agreed upon rules and processes. Just some thoughts.

Meeting with Adilene over an online meeting. Here are some of my notes:

- She sees adilas as a full life cycle management system or tool - that's pretty cool!

- She had some ideas about airports and how they need their vendors to pay them a commission for setting up and using airport space for their shops. Currently, there seems to be a lack of products that could help the airport oversee their sub vendors and shops. We could possibly really help them out by allowing some enterprise level reporting.

- Horses and equestrian sports seems to be a bit behind the times in their software management options. Adilene (Adi) has been having fun taking riding lessons and everything is done by paper or something super simple right now. She thinks that this may be a good vertical to checkout.

- We talked about sports venues and sports in general - even the quite sports (not as popular or smaller)

- Steve was telling Adilene that he was working with a company that wanted to automate the remitting of sales tax - show and/or pull amounts - even daily or every week - based on reports and oversight. Some of these companies really want to get their taxes and/or their cut as quickly as possible.

- Adilene loves to daydream. That's fun!

- We talked about GPS tracking - even for horses (animals) or other high value items

- GPS delivery stuff

- Tons of 3rd party solutions - already integrated as options - we are open to do more - as needed.

- Talks about sharing the cost with the customers - having them pay for custom development - we have a standard package and then they customize things beyond that.

- Bottleneck in training and deployment

- User guide and steps to success - training and education

- Help files and archiving some new videos

- Steve was talking about influencers (people) - promoting products and features - that would be pretty cool - YouTube shorts and helping people through quick videos and such.

- Being diverse and still able to penetrate certain markets. Being focused can really help with that, but if you can be diverse and still penetrate verticals and business models, that could be really cool. Lots of talk about industry specific skins and white labeling options.

- You really gain when you can meet the same need or the same challenge over and over again - selling the product with or for the customer need

- Prove the model and then keep adding on

- Find a problem and then address that client need - do that over and over again

- Dedicate a salesperson on a single vertical - help them to focus

- More talks about white labeling and industry specific skins - custom software for a specific industry or business vertical.

- We were talking about investments and such. Steve was pitching the idea of buying in at some value (a percentage or share amount) and then investing monies on the balance sheet. Instead of just normal invest and let the company choose how to use the monies, invest and have some control on what it is used for and how to structure a payback system, even up to 50% of new revenue from that investment. Rates and deals may vary, but that is what he was pitching. That could be really fun. I personally know a few places (inside of adilas or other services that are needed) that could use some loving and could provide some sweet paybacks.

Meeting with Steve and Cory. Going over budgets and funding stuff. Looking for ROI (return on investment). Talking about spending money on different people and things. It's getting rough.

Steve had to jump on another call. Just Cory and I talking... talking about payroll and other projects. Cory was asking me to say "no" to other people who were asking for my time or attention and take care of the priorities that really need to be done first. How much it really takes to get things over the finish line. So many things come down to a simple setting, yes/no, do this, do that, work this way or whatever. It can get tricky.

Steve joined us again and we jumped back on to budgets. Talking about price increases, reoccurring revenue, etc. Talking about efficiency and getting more ROI. Talking about how much it takes to get a client fully onboard and fully happy and rolling (paying and happy). Talking about how to bring more revenue in. Thinking about the long game. We are being scrappy and doing a lot of bootstrapping (creative ways to make things happen).

Alan joined the meeting, and we were talking about his needs and where we are at. Everybody is running out of options. More budget talking.

Meeting with Wayne and Alan to go over options for database configuration options (code words... datasource project or bus to motorcycle or world building project). Light catch-up. Wayne was going over options for running a base service to figure out the corp and datasource (what database to use). The old datasource is the default.

Talking about efficiency and combining corporations and servers. Going over scenarios. The idea is to make the code and the schema unaware (more open - able to connect to any database). For me, I have a bunch of older notes under clustering, solar systems, and galaxies (all kinds of cross-schema options).

For us, internally, database updates may get more crazy, especially for our developers. Talking about possible load balancing stuff. We were talking about master databases, sub databases, and efficiency questions.

- Wayne was recommending a more company related approach (which businesses are connected or have a relationship) vs corp related (single worlds, all by themselves). Widen it out a bit.

- Wayne's branch... WLA/DynamicDSN

- Alan was talking about a wish list to help update things from one spot (one page or one server) vs logging into each server to run it on each server (current process).

- Wayne already uses a script (test script) to run his database updates. He doesn't like to do things over and over again. He would rather build a script or make a tool to do that.

- Wayne wants Alan and I to help pitch it to Steve and Cory.

- We may need to look at and check the edge cases (on the datasource look-up project). They were talking about some known caching issues.

- Places that we need to check... (list of us, internally)
>> shop folder - there is some session stuff but it is different then the top_secret stuff.
>> web folder - API's - most pass in a corp key that we can figure out a corp id number from.
>> public folder - hardcoded per page or FORM or URL scoped controlled.
>> temp folder - hardcoded per page or FORM or URL scoped controlled.
>> database_updates folder - may need to query (get all known datasources), then loop and do updates per schema. basically, layer and nest things vs just plain doing a single update.
>> check the process to create a new corp - some questions there (we are currently using the main datasource and building tables and inputting values based on our create new corp routines).
>> caching - check the daos, services, and cfc's - make sure we do what we need to here to make this still function correctly.
>> search for corp_id IN (? whatever the list or arguments are) - multi corp queries. Maybe be able to set a temporary master/primary corp id where needed.

Meeting with Cody and Alan over a GoToMeeting session. Alan had to join us by phone. We were talking about teams, budgets, and vision. Here are some of my notes:

- Frankenstein computer project. Mixing and blending different styles and such.

- Specialists and filling in the gaps (in our teams). The ideal would be working in Parrell vs just one person on a single project.

- We would love having a known frontend designer. We do have a guy, Chuck and Piper, but both are only doing less than 10 hours a week. We need someone full time.

- Small teams of two

- We spent some time talking about timing, when to push and when to chill.

- A real need for direction (a goal and vision). All going together towards that goal.

- Eye candy, graphs, charts, buttons, containers, widgets, and such. Helping people to get more info graphs and quick summary information (dashboards).

- Sometimes, cool isn't useful... to certain people. Cool can help sell things.

- Cody was talking about adding graphs and charts to the custom homepage builder. That would be super cool.

- Finding out what would be beneficial to our users. Fill in the gaps. Ease of use to help train people. Seeing information, counts, and summaries quickly.

- Talking about visual homepages for all of the main players.

- From Alan - eventually using web sockets to show real time data and changes.

- Ideas on new homepages... we could take all of the old ones and turn them into an old or basic home, add new graphical homes, and maybe the last 15 entries of the data for some super simple home pages.

- Focusing on manager type tools. Top paying customers, group counts, bestselling products, busiest times, etc.

- There always seems to be some stress over money and budgets.

- Cody was grateful for the time to meet with Alan.

Alan had to drop off, we (Cody and I) then switched over to the adilas label builder and talking about direction and eye candy options. We are going to try to help focus on some tools and visuals for manager's and help them save time or feel like adilas gives them some time savers... One of our main goals is helping people out.

Recording notes from the day. General clean-up stuff. Ordered a Dymo label printer and some labels for Cody to help do some testing. Emails out to Alan about meeting with Cody and I to go over things.

Phone call with Josh and Phillip from Yogen Fruz. Good call. See email review that I wrote on Monday morning. Decided that it would be best to pause the adilas pilot with one of the Yogen Fruz locations. We are coming right into the biggest and heaviest gift card and loyalty points part of the season. Adilas can handle that, no problem. The main problem was that Phillip and the Yogen Fruz folks only have one location on adilas and all the rest are on a different platform. Without crisscross communications between the systems, it almost puts that one location that was doing a trial version or pilot of the software on a virtual island. We have manual work arounds to help with the process (gift card entries), but we are almost too late for implementing that right this minute. This was the best decision.

The adilas team will continue working on things in the background while things are paused. Steve is working on new hardware bundle, I'm working on some custom requests and reporting, Alan is working on some enterprise stuff. All is well. I'm in full support of the decision. We will keep rolling down the road.

Meeting prep. As the meeting got started, we had Sean, Cory, Alan, Steve, and I on the meeting. Here are some of my notes: Kinda all over the place.

- Sean has set up the logins for the new users up in Canada.

- Looking at what it will take to come up with an MVP (minimal viable product).

- Steve bought some new hardware. He will be playing with it and getting it all wired up and configured.

- How do we keep pushing the ball down the road?

- Setting up limits. We want to play but don't want to get ran over.

- Going over a list of to do items.

- Steve really chimed in on where he thinks that we are at. He really took the ball and ran with it today.

- Risk vs Reward - We spent quite a bit of time going over options.

- Steve is excited about the number of items that the Canada company has. It's really pretty small.

- Number of locations - lots of potential there

- Steve was talking about a book - "The Art of War." - Making deals and business stuff.

- Show what we have done - clover integration - $23K, features, advantages, and benefits, list out an MVP, show a percentage of what we have to still do, things that are not on the list... wishes, future desires, tablets - online orders and delivery, website, ecommerce, we do the POS software. We can help with hardware but that's not our specialty.

- We have some depth - adilas - operations and accounting

- Look at what we can help them with...

- Mission statement - help your business succeed

- Could be some scale problems as we go along

- Promises made and expectations

- Deployments - it can get dicey (interesting)

- We have... list it out - we have a solution

- Get them talking and thinking about something else - distract them what they are worried about - sometimes, what someone is worried about, they are not as big of thing as you think. However, if all you ever do is just think about that one thing, it can change your focus. You aren't taking in the whole picture. Get them seeing the whole or bigger picture.

- Hardware - pros and cons - come up with a valid solution and then allow them to choose, buy, or configure their own system

- We can see our way through a bunch of things - looking down the road

- We can setup corps... we haven't really done much mirroring of corps and settings

- Alan - Sunk costs, new costs, and building going forward

- Alan - Getting direction (where are we going as a company?) - He likes where we are going

- Cory - He (Aaron - owner) needs to invest in us. Money and time - how long will it take and what do we need to still build out?

- Steve and Cory going back and forth - nice little volley back and forth - risk and reward stuff.

- We want Eric to ask for his other stores to be on adilas. Eric is a store owner.

- Alan - Once they are up and running, they may not need more right away

- Steve - We can build anything... there is a line or an end zone - a goal is in sight

- Goal - What will it take to get this thing to launch?

- Alan - Questions about customer support and server up time

- Alan - Other possible services - customer support, training, etc.

- Alan - They are trying to see how serious we are? Almost a test on us

- Alan - We get our hardware stuff up and running and we show that we have a solution

- Steve - Give us a list and we'll cross it off

- Steve - Like a game of football - How much time is left in the game and what are our plans?

- Steve - Pushing this company further down the road

- Steve - This could be our golden ticket - Let's punch it!

- Alan - If we don't do this, then what? Let's use our current team and get it done.

- Alan - this is not vaporware... this is right here in front of us

- Steve - They could be the last client that we ever need

- Helping them see the future and wanting to stay with us

- Steve - What about global ecommerce stuff and then locations where people could pick things up

- Steve - They, are looking for us... they hate some of the competition

- Cory - We may need to fake it (customers, gift cards, and loyalty points) - We have all of those pieces, they are just at the corp and cross-corp levels. Not at the enterprise level yet. If needed, we could just have them run per corp until we get the other pieces. That's our fall back.

- Alan - Just noting that we only have some data (not all of the locations). If needed, we could do it per location

- Cory - Wanting to setup some action items

- Steve - Wants to start a list, send it around, tout our horn, and show who is doing what

- Steve - Assume the sale

- This is a test

- If you are going to fake it until you make it, you need to pretend that it really works and it already exists - smoke and mirrors. We've been at this for over 20 years. There really is a lot there.

- Alan - We can't over promise - stick to the basics

- Steve - We are working on... Steve-hardware, Alan-enterprise, and Brandon-reporting

- Communication - short and sweet but keep it moving

- Steve - Asking about customers... direct vs enterprise

- Sean - On new customers, they just need a few fields... such as: first name, last name, email, cell phone

- Alan - Let's do the customers and gift cards at the corp level - We'll clean-up later

- Steve - He is planning on using one printer to handle both receipts and cup labels - sticky receipt paper

- Steve will work with josh a bit to help with direction

- Alan - Enterprise is a value add-on piece. We need to figure out the pricing structure there.

- Alan - We will gain some momentum as we keep doing the enterprise stuff - this is where we are heading.

- Alan - We add a lot to adilas but we never up our prices - We need to manage that better to recoup or get ROI - Dynamic billing

- Steve - no Metrc (statewide compliance system), under 100 items, not even tracking inventory yet - Let's do this thing!

- Sean - On ecommerce, they aren't really tracking inventory, they just need to use their menu and go for it.

- Steve - simple on what they need, scale on the reporting and needs - here we go

- We are figuring out where we are going... Okay, let's go!

Meeting with Cory. Going over balance sheet items and questions. Costs on unlimited items, PO payments, paying things over and under, and payee corps. Talking about other projects and needs.

Phone call with Sean to go over some things for a client.

Yogen Fruz Projects:

Completed:

1. Ability for the Browser on the FranPOS to access the adilas SAAS. (Suzi)
2. Setup test system with all items and buttons. (Suzi)
3. Reconfigure and add settings to POS environment. (Brandon)
4. Beverage and inventory labels (Stephen)
5. Research on Menu Boards (Stephen)
6. Setup e-commerce (Suzi)
7. Live test transactions in Canada for 2 days (Suzi)
8. Clover processing integration (Alan)
9. Live pilot in Canada (Sean and Brandon)
10. Icon Report for Eric's store(s) (Stephen)
11. Gift and Loyalty (Brandon)

In Progress

1. Gift and Loyalty (Brandon) - done
2. New hardware testing (Stephen)
3. Website discussion (Dustin)
4. Enterprise scaling (Alan)
5. Small update to the Icon App Report (Charles)

Future Projects (Included or Co-Funded)

1. Menu Board (Stephen)
2. Website (Charles / Dustin)
3. Delivery API (Alan)
4. Additional Reporting (Brandon)
5. Canadian nomenclature, such as State being called Providence, and Zip Code being changed to Postal Code (Settings)

Up helping with the Yogen Fruz deployment with Sean up in Tronto, Canada.

Here are some notes and recap:

Sunday - 10/27/24 - Drove to Colorado. Needed to get a passport and Utah didn't have a passport agency place.

Monday - 10/28/24 - Spent the day in Denver getting my passport. Had to go back to the passport agency a couple of times. One for the initial appointment and another time to pick it up and verify information. While waiting, did some research on my cart favorite buttons, smart groups, tiered pricing and rules and assignments for the smart group buttons. Met up with my brother for dinner.

Tuesday - 10/29/24 - Went to the Denver temple in the morning. Spent some time playing around with Affinity Designer and learning how to control color and saturation levels. Graphic stuff. Drove to Salida, CO. Met up with Steve at his house. We chatted about some upcoming projects and challenges. I really liked his house. He had redone some rooms, cabinets, counters, rest rooms, and such. Super cool! Craig came over and gave me a bunch of adilas checks. We talked about goals and ideas for the Canada trip and venture. After that, I met up with Mrs. Shari O. up in Buena Vista, Colorado and we had dinner together. Great time and fun chatting. I then got to go see Shari O.'s house and dogs. Super cute. Visited my friend Andy Maupin and then drove up to Denver.

Wednesday - 10/30/24 - Slept in my car in the airport parking garage - fun! Flew up to Canada and Sean picked me up in Tronto. We went to the hotel, got settled in and got some dinner. After dinner, we went and found a store to get some snacks and other food for the week.

Thursday - 10/31/24 - Trick or treat... We got tricked... :) We went to headquarters and met with some of their team. We got there at 9:30 am in the morning. We didn't leave until after 12:30 am, that night. Super long and stressful day. Tons of hardware issues. They wanted us to fully configure the old FranPOS units (7 year old Android tables with a locked software system installed). We were attempting to run adilas (web-based system on that unit). The browser part worked great (normal adilas stuff). The ability to interface with the peripherals and hardware were crazy tough. We couldn't get anything to work. Totally beating our heads against the wall. Trying all kinds of stuff. We did have some help from one of their team members (Harsha) and that was about it. At one point, it looked like that was the end... The main boss on their team was saying, it doesn't look like we will be able to deploy this software. Sean and I asked for leave to go to the computer store and purchase some things that we knew would work (new hardware). We were also somewhat waiting on another one of their team members who hadn't come in yet. He was a tech savvy guy who had been able to hack the locked code on the FranPOS on the last visit from Suzi from the adilas team. Without going into crazy details. We got some new hardware and started setting it up. We were also blessed and the other IT guy (George) from their company came and was able to get some things going through on the older hardware. Pretty stressful day.

Friday - 11/1/24 - Went to the mall (Square One mall in Tronto) to help get the system up live for the client. We were needing some help from the IT guy. He was a little bit late, we had it mostly running before he came. He put the icing on the cake and made it work. In the meantime, I ended up recoding some of the my cart favorite buttons, making them bigger, and styling the mini invoice (customer receipt) format. Sean was doing some training and by mid way through the day, it was going super smooth. If it wasn't for the hardware issues, we could have been in and out in just a few hours. Anyways, good day and they seemed to like the system. Answering random questions here and there. By the end of the day, they had done over 150 invoices (sales tickets) through the system.

Saturday - 11/2/24 - Went back to the store (Square One) to help out and see if they had any questions. Had lunch with the owner (Eric), great guy. I spent most of the day fixing small little things to help with flow and settings. Fixed a few information messages and added a new setting to control the auto print option for the mini invoice. Good day.

Sunday - 11/3/24 - Woke up early to update all of the time zones on the servers (daylight savings stuff). Sean and I went to church and then did some site seeing (Niagra Falls and such).

Monday - 11/4/24 - Back to headquarters. Worked on uploading customers. Sean was helping and doing some training. We spent some time and put together a small email with a list of to do items. We then had a meeting with some of their team to go over the email and to do list. That was really good. I met with a couple of people and setup some new accounts for some of the accounting people. Towards the end of the day, I got a chance to chat with the main operations boss (Phillip). I enjoyed that. Trying to show him what we do and how we do things. He has a lot of things going on.

Tuesday - 11/5/24 - Sean dropped me off at headquarters and I worked there all day. He took the rental car back and flew home. I spent most of the morning working on loyalty points and getting data entered into the system. Various questions, different sessions, etc. Towards the end of the day, I did some group training for four of the main people (Phillip, Rex, George, and Harsha). I thought it went good, hopefully they enjoyed it. There is a lot to cover. At the end of the day, I found a good spot to stop and did some light planning. One of the guys gave me a ride home (Rex). He was pretty cool! Just being silly but I got back to the hotel and said, "I'm alive!". I was super happy. We still have some things flapping in the wind but nothing that we can't tie up and/or fix. All in all, I was pretty happy.

Wednesday - 11/6/24 - Took a cab to the airport and got all checked in. I spent some time going over emails and what not. I hadn't checked them too much for the past week or so. Somewhat behind. Flew home and drove from Denver to Grand Junction, Colorado.

Thursday - 11/7/24 - Drove home from Grand Junction, Colorado to Logan, Utah. Stopped along the way and had a 2 hour phone call meeting with the adilas team (Steve, Alan, Cory, Sean, and I). Had a little car trouble but got home safe. What a trip!

Meeting with Alan and going over an update on the discounts and smart cart logic. We talked through a few things. He showed me what he is working on (mini cart display version) and we talked about discounts, showing things, and helping show the customers the total savings. All current projects and shopping cart stuff.

Meeting with Alan. We went over projects and assignments. Alan is acting more in an admin type role. We also talked about budgets, other developers, and levels of commitment. Stress levels are high right now in different areas.

Recording notes from last week. Meeting with Cody, Wayne, and Alan. Going over progress and new interfaces ideas and options. We then let Alan and Cody talk about API sockets and how to set them up and use them. Tech talk stuff. They got into some deep topics and Cody was asking for some samples. Both Wayne and Alan were chiming in and giving him tips and pointers.

Meeting with Alan and going over budget stuff. Projects for me... check write bug and reference number on PO's. We then went over some API structure stuff and how that all plays into the mix. Small meeting.

Meeting with Cody. Going over a small bug in the check write settings. We ended up spending quite a bit of time there and making a pretty good plan. As we were talking, Cody was saying "Being clear in communication makes a lot of difference." He helped me format my notes better so that it wasn't assuming things, they were clearer, and it was all spelled out so that anyone could have read it.

After we finished up with our plans on the check write bug, we switched over and started talking about custom responsive web pages and a custom interface and navigation builder. That sent us off to talking about good visuals, eye candy, graphs, charts, and custom components. We then spent some time talking about API's and how to connect to the API sockets internally. Basically, getting the data from the database and mixing both server-side and client-side languages (code). I'm going to set up a small meeting with Wayne and Alan to make sure that we are all on the same page.

From Cody - If you provide good visuals and have good structure, that is good story telling (meaning, we can help tell the client and user stories better by having in those visuals and correct formats). I liked how he tied it into story telling or digital story telling. That's where we are headed.

Phone call with Alan, recording notes, and doing some follow ups. Sent an email to Alan with a small list of MVP projects. Here is what I sent in my email.

-------

Here is a small list of projects that I feel need to be done to help with an MVP. There will always be more, but here is a good start.

- In-store credits
- Coupons
- Tips and being able to split tips
- Adilas label builder - version 3
- Stable and standardized chip reading and merchant processing - retail and ecommerce
- Revamp of the shopping cart (mostly done)
- Time and scheduling - vertical time view - scheduling from out in ecommerce land
- Discount engine (rework)
- Smart cart engine and logic (overarching cart logic to handle discounts, coupons, and tiered pricing)
- Rework sub inventory
- Consistent look and feel
- Text messaging and push notifications and reminders
- Database changes - allow for either clustering and/or being able to move corps around at the db level
- Customizable homepage or build your own interface (not really required but I think that it would really help)

Anyways, that's a quick list of some of the things that I think would really be helpful. We are getting closer and closer. I know that people can use it right now and have for years, but these are some of the things that have been asking for. I hope that helps.

Developer meeting - We were calling it our "pause and pivot" meeting. I started out and we talked about some of the new development that we have done. There are some cool pieces and projects that have been pushed out recently. We then rolled into an MVP wish list for ship A (small project list that we would like to get done). We then talked about the crunch that we are in (financial and cash flow stuff). It's not super bad but we are struggling a bit. We have spent huge amounts on client acquisition stuff. Trying to make people happy. It gets super expensive.

Alan did a small slide show and presented on some things. Alan did a great job. We had some open question and answer stuff. Dustin had some questions about maintenance budgets. See attached for Alan's PowerPoint. He started out with the 4D's, where we fail or fall short. We then talked about some cycles and how we plan on breaking those cycles.

Steve talked to the guys for a bit and then we wrapped it up. Quote from Steve "What you think about, you bring about." Not sure where he got it, but I liked it.

Basically, the plan is to pause and pivot, meaning, we will stop development projects for a bit until we can get caught up. The developers will do direct client work and custom code so as to relieve the burden from adilas. We are going to help them get projects and also help them with oversite, consulting, project management, and code sign-off. Another big goal that we have is to define ourselves a little bit more vs just going wherever the wind blow. This is both in people, roles, expectations, and development efforts.

Meeting with Steve and Alan. Going over budgets, pay offs, timing, talking about the approach, don't talk about positions, pitch the sale ($150 internal vs $75/hour - using some of our guys directly). Steve was and has been selling pieces of custom code to our clients. He would like help there and have the guys pitch their own services.

We spent some time talking about our identity and who and what we want to be. Taht is coming along. Here are some other general notes from our conversations (multiple topics):

- Help protect our clients...

- Set some caps on how much our developers can charge

- Communication back to the clients - weekly reports and billing

- Billing - weekly

- We can't let our developers rough up our clients

- Helping our guys succeed - plans, billing, communication, oversite, etc.

- Possible kickback - commission to adilas

- It takes so much time to crunch things up - sales or custom code - the reality of what it takes

- Can't keep pushing things over to the balance sheet (code or projects for Kelly) - it costs of too much. We pay the developers and we owe money back to Kelly.

- Consultation document or a checklist type doc

- We are generic on purpose - if you want it custom... you've got to pay to optimize it

- Setting up boundaries and being firm on that

- An add-on cost for custom work - they need to pay for it - they may need to keep paying for it (reoccurring) - maintenance

- Selling what we have

- Our development and sales focus is as a general business tool

- Elevator pitch - web based, SaaS (software as a service), we focus on operations and accounting, we have a base model, and we allow custom

- We want to be generic. We want to cover a number of industries. We want to be a great companion software for any business.

- This is who we are - defining ourselves and what we do

- Plans for our upcoming meeting with the developers - take care of business and setup another meeting where we have some plans all made up.

- The developers may have some ideas on how to make things work

- How can we get some of the cool stuff exposed to the public? Selling what we have. - sales - nobody is pushing it, our tools and features, as a product.

- Alan had the idea of using an outside marketing firm - when ready

- There is a need for marketing, education, etc.

- YouTube influencers - quick, short, and powerful mini messages - short and to the point

- Podcasts - how to run your business, tips, tricks, and best practices

- Piece work - we have tons of stuff - what if someone could harvest that kind of stuff? - YouTube, Facebook blogs, podcasts, etc.

- Alan would like to talk about the future - looking short term, medium term, long term, etc. - talking to Steve, Brandon, Shari o., Wayne, Cory, etc.

Brainstorming on documentation for the pause and pivot proposal. Prep work and recording notes.

Meeting with Steve and Alan. Going over some rough budgets. Alan had done some prep work there on the budgets. The budgets were in two categories - per people and per area/department (with some flex). The extra portion on the budgets will help each department with R&D (research and development) stuff for their department.

I was pitching some things and we had some good back and forth (conversations and discussions). I took some notes from our meeting. Steve was reporting on meetings with Mike and other possible investors. Here are some other notes that were recorded as part of the meeting:

- Inside look (efficiency) - using modern tech to solve those problems.

- -Problems with bids (hard to figure out actual costs).

- Our developers doing custom client work. What would that look like?

- Steve was saying that is really helps playing both sides of the fence (developer and a user).

- Our clients eat with their eyes. They are looking for the pretty or shinny type tools.

- Sometimes we oversell ourselves. We start offering custom without having them try things first.

- Let's talk and make a plan (talking about interactions with clients). Some clients like to help fund development and others just want it all the way done and then pay.

- We talked about an approach like this: Just try it out, if we need to change something, let's talk, but give it a try for 3 months.

- Steve was talking about sales. He was saying, just talk to people about what we do and offer. There are lots of people (potential clients) who have needs.

Towards the end, Alan and I talked about swapping out some training stuff (adilas stuff and code stuff). Quick phone call with Steve to go over a few things. He had to drop off early due to his laptop running out of power.

Working on a proposal for Steve and Alan. Looking at a number of pages and pieces from earlier this year and end of year last year. Reviewing, planning, looking at numbers, and doing prep work for the proposal.

Met with Alan again. We were working on some plans and rules and expectations. We logged into adilas and did some looking at budget numbers, revenue, and expenses. Good session, trying to figure out a plan and what processes and/or rules to put in place. The further we go, the more set some of these processes need to be. We are making good progress.

Meeting with Cody for code review on the version 3 adilas label builder. Introduced Cody to Alan and let them talk for a bit. Going through the pages and finding bugs and going over code. Deep code review of his project. We went through a bunch of pages for both ColdFusion and JavaScript pages. Looking good.

Phone call with Alan talking about budgets, structure, plans, and how to get control of the development and planning. Setting up guide rails, processes, and procedures. Switched over to GoToMeeting and did some planning. Lots of talk about budgets, departments, and processes.

Working with Eric. Going over some AJAX Json parsing errors. Lots of back and forth and trying different things. Couldn't find the error or figure out if the page was refreshing itself or somehow routing differently. Kind of a weird error. He may need to get with Alan (other developer) to see if they could figure things out. I helped where I could and was a second set of eyes, but it was kinda getting over my head.

Phone call with Alan. We went over a bunch of topics. We started out talking about mins and maxes (inventory controls). We then moved into a number of other topics. Here are some quick thoughts:

- Life, motivation, and feeling appreciated.

- Upcoming Adobe ColdFusion Summit - Coding conference coming up in the end of September and first of October

- Talking about percentage ownership of adilas and what are goals are

- I've got a new project coming up for the Bear 100 (new CSV uploads and exports). As a fun throwback... Alan and a guy by the name of Nick helped me the first year we did the Bear 100 code for helping to track their runners and such. That was back in 2015. Crazy!

- The value of a buddy to help you get through the mud and the muck. Sometimes changing the focus from the task at hand to helping out a buddy or having a buddy along helps you get through the rough stuff.

- Alan was saying that he feels like we are developing a "Frankenstein type application". Our plan is to make a whole cohesive application but we tend to do sprints, change out an arm or a leg, and then the rest of the application stays as is - Just for fun, imagine an arm made out of metal, a leg out of wood, etc. Sort of this mismatched or hobbled together end product. We have good intentions. We get hamstrung by fires, funding, and talent. It's a constant battle. What you end up with is - a Frankenstein type application. Kinda funny and kinda sad. It is what it is.

- It would really be nice if we could onboard or help people get going easier. That is one of Alan's goals, going forward. It may take a minute to get there, but it is important and hopefully in the near future (next couple of years or sooner).

- We spent some time talking about the cost of chasing clients and client acquisition costs. That scope or value has gone up for us in the past few months. We have to be careful there. It, meaning costs, can get out of control pretty quickly.

- Alan would like to build some standard templates to help people upload things - items, part categories, customers, vendors, expense types, employees, etc. That would help with the onboarding process and put the power more in the users hands vs waiting on us and/or us holding their hands to do actions like that.

- We are going to touch base next week and see where things are at. That will be good for both of us.

Meeting with Dustin, Alan, Bryan Dayton, and Brian Mowris to go over the CardPointe merchant processing integration stuff. We chatted, got caught up, and ended up doing some tech support and code changes to the services. We changed ULR's (web addresses), help files, etc. It really helped to have all of the guys on the call to get the coders, the deployment persons, and the outside rep to make it all happen.

Just making a note about the need for good communication and good documentation (help and developer help). We spent hours today, not our fault, chasing assumptions from emails back in March. Finally, we got everyone connected and on the same page (ish) and we are making progress. We didn't get the help that we needed, nor the direction (from the outside party). We thought that we were done and all of the sudden, they want us to do a bunch of other pieces and validation testing (sub process). It took our guys, a new live account, and the outside rep to bring this all together. The test account was working perfectly. However, the transition between test and live got a little bit bumpy. No problem, we'll get it all fixed up. Just making a note on what we are learning.

Working with Wayne - server-side tech support - checking into some random files on the data 0 box. Working with both Wayne and Alan and trying to check out logs and access points. A few different meetings over Google meet. Wayne decided to save a copy, then nuke the files, and then redeploy a new image. Eric joined and we talked about merchant processing, tips, and surcharges. Wayne and I were talking about upgrading security and updating Adobe ColdFusion to newer levels. No fun to be on a security call but it was good to touch base with some of the guys.

Tracking down an error for Cory. It was an undefined line in the variables. The error message didn't give us much to work off of. We had to dump the page line by line until we found it. I made a temporary patch job and then let Alan know.

Meeting with Cory. Handing over the torch to Alan to work with the developers. Being wise about how we are spending our development money. She lined me up on a few different projects. Pretty short meeting.

Meeting with Bryan. Going over golf club (image a country club) type business options and how to use adilas to help with certain tasks. Things like scheduling tee times, tons of restaurant type needs, etc. Bryan was asking all kinds of questions. We have all of the tools, they just need to be tweaked a bit. Eventually, our meeting got into a who knows what type conversation. For example: So and so knows about this part, and so and so knows about this other part, etc. No one knows all of it. I was telling Bryan about some custom work we did for a Mexican Burrito place and how we were using ecommerce to help them place their orders with certain choices. I know that Sean and Dustin know about tons of other stuff. Alan has helped with other setups and custom code. Steve, Shari O., and Cory all know other things.

We talked about normal cart stuff, delivery, fulfillment stuff, custom webpages, and setting up custom skins or custom flow processes. I ended up doing some consulting, talking to Bryan about custom skins, and setting up a demo site. It takes effort to configure the tools. Once set up, the flow is much easier. Ideally, we would like to gather up all of the knowledge and put it in one place for use by others who want or need it.

Meeting with Chuck and Russell. Touching base with Chuck. It's been a while. Working with Russell on some CSS tweaks for the adilas lite site (mobile ready). Then back to working on our dashboard mock-up project with Adobe XD and AJAX stuff. Russell was prepping things and building out his own components. While working in Adobe XD, get close but not pixel perfect. Just enough to get going. Everything will be dynamic (data wise) later on. Building out custom components and zooming in/out to make sure that we get the visual ranking correct (what is the most important). We also talked about not being limited by the template (CSS theme or template). It's okay to go custom if needed. Asking lots of questions. What do we want to show, why, where, what is the most important part of it? Balancing out the visuals, the user experience, and gently leading the user to what to do and what is important. As a light goal... is the user experience good enough that they could use it without training? The design determines the architecture (what is needed). Good session.

I joined the meeting late, but Alan and Steve were going over SG&A costs when I got there. They have a client that is wanting to virtually plug the SG&A numbers. Steve was talking about how that is playing with fire and not good accounting. After that, Alan gave a small demo of his production and advanced recipe/build process for sub inventory. It looked great and had lots of heavy client-side JavaScript stuff going on.

We covered a bunch of topics. Here are some small notes that I picked up from the discussion. No specific order.

- Steve and Alan were discussing settings and adding more settings for production and manufacturing.

- Steve was asking for input on direction, on the sales side of things.

- Alan was proposing some industry specific skins to help with sales.

- Alan was also saying that we should circle back around and build out more reports or even dashboard level pages to show all of quick data, counts, and totals. He was saying, we should stick to our name - Adilas - All data is live and searchable - stay true to that slogan. Along with that, we were talking about some places that still need some help and a little bit of loving. Sub inventory was a big topic along with other histories.

- Steve mentioned that he is working on some job costing options and reports. Tying in expenses, invoices, deposits, PO's, and time cards to elements of time (the job or projects).

- Small observation - both SG&A costs and job costing are dealing with deeper tracking of sub pieces and components that make up a bigger thing or item. Kinda interesting. That's some deep terrain and more than just simple inventory tracking. It's a mix of operations being tied into accounting.

- There have been more requests for more charts, graphs, and eye candy type stuff. At one point, we really wanted to do some graphical homepages to show and highlight some of that data. We have all of the data. It just isn't presented in an eye candy and easy format to see and look at.

- Alan is thinking that people (our clients and users) are going to be looking for more and more efficient ways of doing things and tracking things. There seems to be a draw or trend towards efficiency.

- We spent some time talking about AI stuff (artificial intelligence). That is a big buzz word right now. What if we redid some of our homepages (made them more graphical) and helped to show trends and month over month, year over year tends and patters. That could be really cool!

- We talked about the history homepage and how it shows a great overview of what was done or worked on throughout the day. That is some great information and a great daily summary of what happened in the system. Steve was showing that piece to a perspective client and they were super impressed.

- Back to AI stuff. We may use some verbiage like, we do such and such, similar to how AI works, without actually saying that we are using true AI. We already do a lot of that type of stuff. We feed data in, we then train the system to do certain things with it. As we go along, we can see areas that we could work on and turn our interface into a more AI oriented type product. We're not that far off, even right now.

- More talk about comparing patterns, comparing trends, and showing business intelligence (BI) level stuff.

- Mike, would like us to work more on the backend accounting pieces to help round out the system. Mike is a CPA that Steve has been working with for years.

- We could gain a lot, even on the virtual AI level, if we started to build out reports that show the known issues. We have a whole page that lists places and scenarios where things can get off the tracks or in the ditch (virtually). Date problems, number mismatches, disconnects, cart before the horse stuff, etc. That would be super cool to get those pieces built into the system.

- We circled back to sub inventory and possible ways of fixing things up there. We would love to add part id's, part category id's, and other key attribute id's to help the retrieval be faster and smoother. We can get the data in, it's the getting it back out that makes it a little bit harder (current database relationship structure). Anyways, some talks about ways to sure things up and fix some of the underlying pillars in the system.

- Quite a bit of discussion about Biotrack and Metrc (state compliance systems). We spend a lot of time and money trying to keep these connections up to date and working correctly. It's a moving target. We also want to pass on some of the costs to our clients and users.

- Our clients have some great ideas and tend to tell us what they are wanting and/or needing. That is awesome! We just need to figure out how to charge them for those upgrades. Basically, who is going to pay for the changes? Sometimes that can get tricky - either way, it's still part of the game we play.

- Most of our clients want real-time data going back and forth (live - not batched or staged).

- Alan and Steve were talking about ways to simplify the current API connections.

- Light talks about what some of the other developers were working on.

- We would love to be able to bill for real usage and what features our clients are using.

- We keep seeing costs increase. This is costs to us, costs to our clients, and even costs that 3rd parties are pushing and/or passing on. Everything seems to be in a state of upward flux. Along with this conversation, there were talks about some of the 3rd parties limiting throughput and/or limiting the number of API socket requests without a price increase.

- We talked about changing some of the file names. Some of the pages started out as a cannabis related page. We are now making those things more general so that we can use them (the pages and features) for our other clients.

- Going where the money is (based on client requests).

- Steve wants us to quote/estimate some new code for a client. Alan was recommending that we break things into phases and stages. Good discussion on this topic.

- Steve is doing some high-end business consulting for some of our clients. Helping them make decisions and plan for the future.

- The last topic of the day was thinking and finding ways to harvest the services (service byproducts) that our clients want or need (adilas marketplace stuff). If we help our current clients, that is an avenue of funding that comes from inside vs having to get new clients. Basically, help them get what they want. Steve put it this way - make your choice and then build up that choice (meaning software choice and pushing that software further along).

Working with Shannon. We talked about it (meaning adilas work) getting personally too expensive (for all of the team members). No one coordinating creates more chaos. Ideally, we want to let Steve decide and make some decisions. Shannon and I were talking about a possible compromise for doing sales (current request) but with the plan of making and working on the plan (together). We need to determine the highest priority. Triage - fix the worst things first (head wound vs a cut on the finger).

I showed Shannon a small acronym "RAPD" (like the word wrapped) from the children and youth booklet. This is a process that we go through to help us decide and develop our talents and work on things. R=Reflect, A=Act, P=Plan, and D=Discover. Ideally, the process works best if you go in this order DPAR but I liked the acronym RAPD better. It's a cycle...1. You discover that something needs to change. 2. You make a plan. 3. You act on that plan. and 4. You reflect on how you did or what worked and/or didn't work. It keeps going, over and over again.

This is a note for myself... I'm currently seeing that a plan needs to be made. What if we acted and helped Steve out knowing that we will circle back around to the planning phase? For me again, maybe I'm doing too much planning. Sometimes we get stuck in survival mode. This makes you desperate. You are willing to try everything that you (I) can just to try to get some traction (almost out of control). Most of us tend to go back to what you (I) know. If you are in a panic mode, thinking that everything is over my head (feeling overwhelmed), that becomes a full drain mode. It affects everything. In relationships, we tend to think... if other people would get their act together, it would solve my (your) problems.

Shannon and I spent some time talking about books dealing with change and psychology. That was kinda fun.

Book by Jordan B. Peterson - "12 Rules For Life, An Antidote For Chaos"

Adult version - For older audiences - Chapters
1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
8. Tell the truth - or - at least don't lie
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something that you don't
10. Be precise in your speech
11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Kid version
1. Tell the truth
2. Communicate precisely
3. Learn from others
4. Take care of myself too
5. Don't compare myself to others
6. Pause to appreciate
7. Take control of myself before taking on the world
8. Do meaningful things
9. Don't be afraid to fail
10. Keep good company
11. Act like my best self
12. Bring honor to my family

Other notes from our meeting:

- Humor - what a great antidote

- Aligning our lives - Alignment - I really like that topic

- Shannon was talking about a doctor and what they do before taking a case... looking back (timelines and what happened - gives some understanding)

- I am wondering if Steve is feeling abandoned? Ship A and Ship B stuff (back in June of 2023).

- Real hurt there (feeling abandoned)

- Reactions to not match the input - emotionally - there may be a deeper wound

- How to acknowledge hurt without putting yourself back into the pain spot

- Play with better boundaries

- Once a problem gets so big... a disruption - sets everything else off of balance

- Relief becomes the ultimate goal - it may not be solving the real issue

- What to do if someone else is stuck in a bad place - how to help them

- Looking at the long-term solutions

- The pain of the problem needs to more than the pain of the solution - this forces changes

- Just for the record, these are some things that Steve has been saying for quite some time. They are kinda related but slightly different. "Ringing the bell, the bell is broken" - "Go get some firewood - stop staying around the fire and go get some firewood" - "I'm so sick of the plan, people just need to do something" - "We have enough cool-aid, let's sell some cool-aid" - This may not fit here, but most of these are dealing with sales and the need to get out there and sell our product.

- Balance between planning and acting

- Concepts - boundaries

- I imagine that I drive him crazy that I write things down

- Seeing patterns and taking time to look at things

Working with Steve. He was having problems with local machine/box. We had to force to https and change the port numbers. I sent a text to Wayne. After that, we were looking at labels. Spent the rest of the time following logic and debugging the bulk print labels stuff. We ended up finding a small black box logic piece that was playing through (from times past) that was interrupting our current flow. We put some logic around the special include and got it working again.

Working with Eric on the chart of accounts project. Light history about how and why we built what we built. Proposing a tabular view for the P&L and the balance sheet.

Meeting between Steve, Alan, and Brandon. From a previous meeting, we had some assignments. When we started today, we let Alan start. He knocked it out of the park. Great job! Here are some of my notes:

- From Alan - Regularly scheduled intervals

-- Weekly/bi-weekly - Group meeting (15-30 min)

-- Monthly - budget meeting w/ admin/billing (30 min)

-- Quarterly - in-depth goal/vision meeting (1-2 hrs)

-- Annually/Semi-annually - co-owner meeting (30 min)

- Agendas - Alan

- Rotate facilitator - who is leading the meetings

- Small budget talks from Alan - he had worked up some plans

- More salary type options - Alan would like to see us get away from hourly and do more of a salary type approach

- Paid time off

- Get files from Alan - he has some great stuff

- He even did some great work on goals, mission statements, and budgets

- Keeping true to - all data is live and searchable - acronym for adilas

- Monitoring usage and helping to automate things - use technology to see where most people are going and then help speed up those places or parts of the system.

- Getting to an automated free version (trial version) - easy onboarding and setup type scenario - let people try it out

- Following up on people who use or try the free version - sales leads

- Demos, videos, and ways to learn the system

- Working backwards - what do we have already, fill in the gaps, and make it better as we go - different way at looking at the system. Instead of saying, we need to rewrite the whole thing, look at what we have, find the gaps, and then fill in those gaps.

- Updates and videos to help with training for new features

- Cutting costs - lots of talks here

- It got kinda ugly - small internal finger pointing session... everybody is feeling pressure at different levels. Not very good :( (frowny face) but... we had a small little war. It got a little bit heated.

- The subject switched from cutting costs and HR problems to sales and getting out and making sales - everybody, developers included

- Get out and talk to people - slow down and sell it - finding people who fit

- Who should we be selling to? Who are we looking for?

- From Steve - Firewood and analogy of going out, leaving the fire, and looking for firewood

- Changing the approach - we are developers - get ideas from other people and just talk to people - as you talk to people, things will just open up and you'll get a chance to talk to them about what you are doing or hope to be doing. Just open your mouth.

- Eye opening, if you get out there - If you are out and about, you will be amazed at what is out there.

Meeting with both Steve and Alan. Originally we were going to be discussing some ideas on company structure and where things are headed. We got a little bit sidetracked and ended up covering a number of other topics. These are some of the notes.

- We spent some time doing a general catch-up. It's been awhile since we have met as a group.

- Steve was talking about some of his friends that are teachers and have been forced to do online school (prison camp for the teachers). They, the teachers are being watched super closely. They, the teachers, almost feel like it's a prison camp type atmosphere (too tight).

- Advances in software

- Age of our kids, they are growing up

- Business, everyday wondering what you will do today and tomorrow

- Kelly has been pushing hard on us

- Master/slave relationship

- The squeeze - by clients, internal owners/users, and in general. We are feeling it!

- Analogy of a bug vs windshield - which one are we?

- How do we find our way forward? Plan and vision

- Super loose structure - our current plan is very loose

- Wild west thing - our current mode of operation - minimal rules, laws, expectations, or structure

- Getting spread thin

- Alan was talking about teams for projects but no one takes ownership

- Still dealing with teams, they didn't want to be left out but didn't want to really participate

- So much to do but the turnaround is so slow (how quick we can get the projects across the finish line)

- Frustrating/mental health

- Building and not finishing things

- MVP (minimal viable product) - Leaving stuff that is still flapping in the wind

- Whirlwind (bouncing all over)

- Discussions on funding and a centralized office

- Drift & culture

- Deadlines and nobody caring about it

- Why don't you care?

- Managers of Steve's stores - back in the Morning Start Automotive, Inc. days - They really kept things rocking and rolling

- Not taking any crap and rolling some heads if needed

- In the replacement business (people) - When you deal with employees, you tend to be in the replacement business (from past expierence)

- Reviewing peoples work and making sure that people are on task

- How big can you get before it implodes on itself? Experimenting...

- Managers and assistant managers

- Employees and workman's comp

- Payments, lawsuits, HR stuff, discrimination - more employee/employer stuff

- Filling in the gaps

- Start with a manager

- Manual of what your duties are - put it in writing

- Defining roles

- Part-time or variable working schedules

- Part-timer's may end up costing you money

- Scheduling and who is working when

- Missing the employee/manager piece

- Independent contractors and putting requirements on them

- We are all part owners but what does that mean?

- Alan had some questions like - Co-owners and having to pay to be paid? How does that work. Basically, we had to pay money to become a co-owner and then we get paid by the company for doing work. Just trying to figure things out.

- How does joint ownership work?

- Defining responsibilities

- Who wants that management position?

- We (humans) know right from wrong

- Too much oversight or pampering

- Learning curve

- Moving on

- You could always get someone better - or not - That's a variable

- We can't hire people that need help all the time

- Avoiding things

- We have all been trying really hard

- Good guy/bad guy and letting people go

- Fitting virtues to the jobs that they can do

- Efficiency

- 1 person can manage 5 or less people

- Are our people remote or local

- Going over some possible structure options

- Getting the managers setup

- Being able to crisscross over departments (some flexibility)

- Each department does their own R&D

- Able to switch things up (bring new life)

- We have so much stuff that our clients could use but we don't do the client retention stuff (letting them know about stuff like gift cards, loyalty points, new carts, etc.)

- Each department could use a programmer

- On purpose, rotate people around

- Bare bones - What do we need, right this minute?

Meeting with Shannon to go over ideas for the adilas company structure. We spent the whole time putting together a two-page proposal on where we would like to go with the adilas team, an admin advisory board, and four internal departments. See attached.

We got some of our info from element of time id # 2284 inside of adilas. These were notes from Brandon and Alan as they were doing some brainstorming. Basically, Shannon and I took some of that and put together the small proposal. It still needs a little bit of work but has a good flavor, in my opinion.

Jumped on a meeting with Eric. Debugging some code and running some tests for stock/units and wholesale carts for his tip project. As we were working, it was amazing how many places (code pages) that this little project hit. Over 48 pages that needed changes. That is just adding tips to invoices. Cause and effect to statements, deposits, accounts receivable, accounts payable, balance sheets, tons of different invoice versions (pdf, mini, printable, add/edit pages), reports, searches, logic, etc.

Lots of moving parts.

Meeting with Alan. It's been a while since we have met. We started out doing a little bit of catch-up. We were talking about direction and goals. It feels like we are sort of scattered and don't have a focus. Alan and I are planning to meet to start working on small goals and projects at least once a week. I was mostly talking and drawing (on the screen) and Alan was chiming in and giving feedback. Here are a few things that I remember - I should have written other topics down as we talked about them.

- What are our main goals? Lots of time spent here hashing over things and lightly stating some of our goals.

- How big do we want to get? How big are we? Are we the right size or do we need to grow or shrink?

- Efficiency - pros and cons to that. Not everything is done purely on efficiency and that's ok, if there is a reason for that. We would love to be more efficient but that is not the total main goal. It will be a mix.

- We need a plan!

- Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew or take on too much. We need to break things into smaller pieces. Basically, get some things across the finish line, even if they are small. That's better than trying to take on a huge monster/elephant and not getting any of it across the finish line.

- We have 10 or so projects that are half baked (or some percentage done but not fully completed). Maybe Alan and I can circle back around and work on some of those projects together as a small team. Just an idea. Maybe plan a day or a time and then chip away at those things. Currently, we are all working on our own or individual projects.

- Talks about teams and sprints, vs individuals and solo projects.

- Cycles and phases - We tend to build up, then have to trim down when things are tight due to a money crunch or money crunches (plural). We recover for a bit and then tend to build up again. We then repeat the cycle. It seems to be a reoccurring theme.

- We are a general business tool. That's who we are. We then try to get too specific and that kills us. We spent time and resources trying to tweak things out for a single client. We have spent tons here, virtually chasing little rabbits. Just being silly, but an old proverb says... A fox who chases two rabbits catches neither. What about a fox who chases 10 rabbits? Just being silly!

- Looking into our goals and direction - where do we see ourselves in 5 years, 10 years, 2 years, 1 year? Really taking stock of what we are doing and where we are heading.

Great little meeting. We are going to meet next week and push on setting some goals and defining our direction. Then chip away at that. I'm excited to see where things go.

Catch-up phone call with Alan. We talked about the current projects that we are on. We also setup a time to get back together to talk about ship B stuff. We are going to meet once a week to get things back on track. We got busy over the holidays and what not. Good phone call.

Emails and light tech support for Cory. She needed some backend database values for a client who is using the API to do sub inventory reports. Reaching out to Alan to setup a time to meet and chat. He had reached out to me.

Three different meetings. First, I jumped on a meeting with Eric to look over some tip stuff. We ran an update on data 11. We also looked at a CFC (code and database queries) and I made some suggestions. Something was erroring out with invoices and combined tip amounts.

----------

Met with Cory for a bit to go over a new quote for Kelly. She really wants a new report format for both the balance sheet and the P&L (income statement). Her end goal is to get us closer to a consolidated report that she could mix and blend corporations and financials. She is calling it a chart of accounts report. That's kinda what it is, but we'll just go with it for now. We went over a video that Cory and Kelly recorded a few days ago. I took some notes. It was a pretty good video and really explained well what she was looking for. Her main goal was visibility and exportability.

Here are my notes: The video does a great job but Cory has that.

- kelly wants all existing columns in a full grid...

- combined view system generated and user-maintained items

- going clear back to the top level groupings

- they want to see destination, groupings, types, accounts, etc.

- visibility

- all three parts (bsi, p&l, expense types, deposit types, bsi types)

- destination, category, group, sub group, account/type (item name), system generated or user-maintained, drill-down - show everything

- they want chart of account numbers

- need balance sheet numbers

- show active and inactive

- show sort order

- working toward a consolidated report - multi corp - enterprise

- corp id and corp name

-----------

At the end of the day, I was helping Bryan with some code. He needed something merged and pushed up to a server. We did and then tested. We ended up rolling it back. He will look deeper and we'll push it up later on. It was for a custom report and needed to be tested with actual live data.

Meeting with Cory and Shari O. on projects. We went over some yearend documents and forms and progress there. We spent quite a bit of time on some new quotes. One was a revamp on a prior quote. We added in some new requirements and needs for histories for flex attributes. Randomly enough, there were other requests for other hidden history records and reports. Some of our clients want us to watch almost every single place and record histories (some visual to the users and some that are hidden and only seen by administrators). I thought that was very interesting and something that we need to be on top of for fracture and adilas lite.

One of the places that they want us to watch was settings and who turns things on/off (like a gram controller for the shopping cart) and other setting changes. We also went over more requests to tie things to elements of time (like PO's and E/R's). We have some clients that are using elements of time for help with production runs and delivery options. Interesting what people need.

The last quote that we worked on was for a better or more standard report or export for the balance sheet, P&L (income statement), and general chart of accounts (deposit types and expense types and balance sheet types). The requests was for a report that showed each segment in a nice grid like fashion. On some of the existing reports, the values are all there, they are just hyphenated, the request was to break each data piece down and export it in a simplified grid, no other formatting. I think that the end goal is to pull it into Microsoft Excel and do some tweaking of the data and values there. Just guessing.

The last thing that I wanted to say was put in another plug for better aggregated data to help provide some better speed and business intelligence (BI). We have this planned as part of the fracture and adilas lite project, it just takes time and resources to get there. There is a whole project called the adilas value add-on core model where we will be working on these layers over and on top of the transactional core. Just for fun, here is a link with other references to the adilas value add-on core model.

Various tasks. Looking into Will's pull request for the balance sheet. Made a few small changes and pushed up a small update. Texted Will with some feedback. Bryan wanted me to check on a timeout issue on data 39. Ended up sending Wayne an email with instructions and specifics on the data sync (table copy) stuff.

Spent a little bit of time adding in popup modals for the bulk clear customer loyalty points project. Added a new help file and cascaded it around to all servers. Light clean-up.

Going over the tip rollout plan with Eric. Talking about dependencies, plans, stages, and steps. We ended up running the first round of database updates. We then merged in some code and ran the updates on all servers. We may need Alan's expertise to help us push stuff to the next the level. We'll do what we can and then circle around.

Working with Eric. Going over a rollout plan for his tip stuff. His branch has 24 files, 2 current conflicts, and 15 cfc's (ColdFusion components). Lots of dependencies and internal changes. Tips sound pretty easy on the surface. It is going to get deep. It affects reports, invoices, math, deposits, payouts, balance sheet items, accounts receivable, etc.

We also talked quite a bit about USAePay (merchant gateway that we use). We have a need for some of our guys to have the actual hardware devices in their hands. We have some simulators, but the actual accounts and products are only available in a live environment. That adds a challenge. We talked about the need to better equip our developers with the correct hardware to help them in their coding and debugging processes. There is a cost to some of that. There is also a cost on the not having those pieces (more development time and even some guess work).

Anyways, we spent a little bit of time going over some ideas to help us out with R&D (research and development) type projects. We may look at getting our guys better hardware to test on and actual full or paid accounts vs just test accounts and simulators. It depends on the project. Anyways, at least having conversations about the needs there.

Two different sessions with Eric, going over tips, payments, and use cases and scenarios. Our first session was in the morning from 9:30-10 am. I had to bail out to meet with Cory and Shari O. We met up again at 11 and did some more talking and discussing. The main goal was tips, flow, and keeping financials in balance and in good shape. We also talked about either creating and/or using some mappings for new expense types and/or deposit types. We talked alot about EMV/chip readers, tips, and how to handle those credit card type transactions. We also talked about cash/check scenarios and how that is sometimes treated differently for tips and repayment.

Each corporation does their own stuff and handles tips in their own way. Some treat it as cash and cash out every night. Others hold it, track it, and pay it back out with payroll, taxes, and a rolling payment method. Lots of companies in between, including some companies that don't allow or don't even deal with tips. Lots of possible scenarios.

Some of our discussions got off into the weeds a bit. Adilas is so flexible, we allow our clients to sort of make up their own rules. That is great, but we may also need a way to help steer them in a good direction and/or help them enforce their own rules. If we create something, we can't just take that away. We have to leave it alone so that it can play through any past transactions or user history actions. That complicates things a bit.

We talked about a dedicated tip screen on the checkout process. That would help us gather the correct information and even provide us with enough information to process things how we need to, to keep everything inline.

Meeting with Cory and Shari O. over a Zoom session. We were looking into an issue with one of our client's balance sheet and some gift card transactions. We had to update the created date/time on the corp special account transactions for some gift cards that were partially done in the old way and then converted to the new way. As a side note, we may need to allow that date/time field to be editable. I had to do it from the background. That might be nice to have that as a standard feature.

We talked about the discount engine project and came up with a small plan for going forward. The new plan involves a database change, retrofitting the old discount engine code to use the new database changes, then working on the new discount engine code. Ideally, we get the database piece done and then allow our users to pick if they want to use the old or the new (for a while). When ready, we fully transition to the new code base. We also covered some other questions and what not.

Meeting with Alan over the GoToMeeting session. We did some catch-up and then started talking about plans and priorities. Alan was saying that we could potentially break things down into smaller and smaller pieces. We totally will and need to do that. Just for fun, he said, we could start fracturing fracture (project codename). We looked at the 7-8 projects for adilas lite and talked about priorities and how each one plays into the others. We are planning on focusing more on the value add-on core model project next. We need to lay some things out, define it, and then (even now) start building some of those pieces.

Anything that can be reusable, including concepts and code, we want to build out those pieces. Be able to reuse as much as possible. That way they can help both ship A and ship B out. Good catch-up meeting.

We decided that for the next couple of weeks, we would both focus on some ship A stuff to help out the main adilas system. We have a small deadline to try to hit by October 1st.

Great two-day conference. Took tons and tons of notes. See attached.

So, Sharik Peck, owner and founder of Rezzimax allowed me to come watch he and his team put the conference on. I brought my mother, who loves that kind of learning and content. Those people (the participants) were her kind of people. That was fun to watch all of them interact. I ended up loving it as well. I learned a ton, tried out the products, and even contributed a bit to the conference (questions and comments). My main goal was watching what they were doing, how they interacted with the conference participants, and observe little tips and tricks that I could pick up and use when I do some training events and conferences. Good stuff!

Here are some of my notes. Once again, this was more of me observing and picking out tiny tidbits of information vs taking notes on what they were really doing and talking about. I hope that makes sense.

- The Dream - telling a small story. Dreaming and then trying to put the dream into reality. Just the motion of following a dream led to a whole other set of ideas, situations, experiments, and achievements. Basically, the whole journey that ensued and is still going. All from following or attempting to follow a dream.

- One of the main goals was sharing knowledge and getting manuals and resources out to their users. One of their biggest problems was - How can we replicate "Sharik" (fill in the name of whomever is a major key player or awesome influencer)? Sometimes, to start with, lots of the main knowledge and/or know how resides in a few key players. We have to get that information out, virtually duplicate that person, and let others help run with it.

- They spent some time, right at the first, trying to get the conference attendees to help pass the word along. They did a whole section on the affiliate program that they are using. This could be done through referral links, commission structures, affiliate program website, training, certification, and specific tracking of coupons.

- They used some guest speakers to help spread the word. They also have done some research, written articles, and gotten things published, in order to get the word out. Some of that takes times and networking. Along with that, it is always good to bounce ideas off others in your field. Collaboration and idea farming.

- "Form follows function" - they kept saying that

- Small pieces of world building - I saw interconnected system, relationships, finding and fixing problems, addressing pain and disfunction, and seeing how those interrelated pieces worked together to almost create a world. This is an older entry dealing with some world building concepts.

- The smallest change in a system can play through and create new problems and new solutions. Trying to get a good balance - along the way.

- Straightening out disharmonies

- Helping people help themselves - teaching them coping and learning skills

- Deprogramming - things that run in natural or normal habits that may be unwanted or causing problems and issues. Deprogramming, in a way, means undoing or rerouting paths and avenues.

- Lots of experimenting and being okay with that - nothing happens by magic.

- Practice and hands on training - they were giving additional instruction during the practice session. The instructors were miced (had microphones attached to them) as they were walking around and helping others with the practice session. Everybody was able to gain from the instruction and feedback given to individuals.

- Durning the presentation, they would bounce out to a well formatted video to help encourage the participants to go to their YouTube channel for more information.

- Talking about alignment and getting things in-tune or aligned - This was tied into a foundation and going back to the basics. This included basic knowledge and basic techniques. The alignment seemed to be a key factor.

- Focus your mind on what you are grateful for... One of the best sources of change.

- Over the years, Sharik has gone onsite and helped out many people - where they are (to their place, their home, or their business). That seemed to be a reoccurring theme.

- Look where you want to go - If you do, you'll have a better chance of getting there.

- Victim or Advocate - Question - I make things happen or things happen to me?

- Thinking about thinking - an active approach

- They used their tagline over and over again. It was - "Tune out pain and tune into life!"

- He, Sharik, tries to surround himself with people who have lots of skills, knowledge, and talents.

- They had products and samples that they gave out and let people use, try, and experiment with.

- Their packaging was very professional looking. Nice glossy info sheets, nice visuals, everything looked very professional.

- Matching frequencies - we don't want to stay out of sync very long. We tend to want to match what we are hearing and/or feeling.

- Great interactions between the instructors and the conference attendees.

- Consistency and creating good habits.

- Don't be afraid to try something new. Learning over time and recognizing patterns.

- There were a few different times that Sharik would talk about the process of inventing - He would wake up, write things down, react to things as they keep coming (from any source), and keep moving forward based on where he was and where he wanted to go. I loved the stories.

- Quite a few user stories (from the participants) and testimonials. You could tell that everybody liked the products and the procedures (protocols).

- Lots and lots of great hands-on practice sessions. He even had a number of people (assistants) who could help him out, there at the conference.

- They kept referring back to their website for videos, information, manuals, products, etc.

- They had a new product that got introduced at the conference. You could tell that a lot of time, energy, money, planning, and excitement were part of the new product release. They introduced their mini's or mini version of their calibrated vibration tuner. It was pretty cool! Everyone there got one to play with and experiment with it. Lots of ideas and scenarios started to play out. The participants were expressing ideas and possible solutions, almost imediately. That was really fun to watch.

- Feedback was requested and very welcome.

- Sharik has been doing some public speaking at different events for quite some time. Great way to get the message out there.

- Loved the light flexibility in their agenda. They switched things up on the training as needed. If you were a person who fully expected perfect clockwork, you would have been disappointed. If you were ok with some flexibility, then you/they were spot on. They still kept it moving but there were definitely some custom alterations on the fly. I really enjoyed it.

- Recipes - basic steps to get a certain outcome or output. They called them "rezzipes" for Rezzimax but they were virtually recipes - simple steps to get certain results.

- Harvesting ideas from others - giving credit where due.

- Lots of personal stories, details, knowledge, hints, tips, and experiences. That made it fun.

- They kept showing success stories - it almost made you want to be one of the success stories. Almost a level of marketing without actually marketing. That was cool!

- They ended the first day pretty casually and soft - they didn't teach clear to the end. Sort of a soft ending on day one. Light interactions, hands-on experimenting, networking, etc. Quite a few people hung out and chatted, asked questions, and had some great interactions.

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

Day 2

- Small suggestion from my mom - A bag with your logo on it. We got lots of goodies and new toys. My mom recommended that a bag would be nice. It would be reusable, helpful, and people could see your logo and name as the people carry their stuff.

- Sharik started the day off by asking for feedback.

- He had a few people that could only be there part of the day. He was willing to change his agenda to help accommodate some of the people who needed to leave early. Those people wanted to cover a specific topic. That showed great flexibility and a personal touch.

- He, Sharik, made some fun and great introductions to those who were helping him out. His fun introduction added credibility to the presenters and/or helpers. Whatever their role was.

- They showed a new mobile app to go along with their new minis (calibrated vibration tuners). Super small demo. Talking about upcoming changes. The users wanted to be able to read/write new hardware names (be able to name the devices - in English vs multi-digit serial numbers). They wanted ways to name the device, assign them to a room, or attach a type to the device. Basically, ways to flag and tag things so that they could organize their environments. It was all about organizing their flow.

- They (the users) wanted to be able to turn things on and off remotely. Using technology to help their clients and patients sleep better.

- They also wanted full control to program multi devices with plans, modes, times, timers, and custom options.

- The end users wanted to know timelines, they were really excited to get using it.

- Currently, they are using Bluetooth to connect. They want to be able to do all functions, remotely, including ways to control all of the micro functions, timers, wake-up, go to sleep, modes, cycles, etc. Ideally, they would love it if they could program something remotely and then the device could go pick up that information from a central server or central location. Basically, a web app of sorts. Going beyond Bluetooth.

- Users wanted to know about updates, notifications, communications, and how to provide feedback.

- Not only feedback but also recommendations and feature requests.

- Sharik was asked a question and jumped back into a small history of where they came from. The electric toothbrush story. That was part of the start of the whole dream. In his dream, he was told, "Vibration will heal the human nervous system. Go figure it out!". Through experimentation, they went through over 800+ electric toothbrushes. This is a side note, but I've known Sharik for years. At one point, he was experimenting with handheld sanders (from a hardware store). The toothbrushes were too little and small and the handheld sanders were too big or too powerful. They ended up with their own tuners that allow for calibrated vibration (speed, intensity, and frequencies) and even waves and patterns. All part of the invention process. Kinda fun.

- It was fun to see journeys come full circle

- Back to the minis and the new app - the users wanted to know protocols - who to talk to, what to send in, how to communicate, etc.

- Sharik invited the developer to show the new app. All of this feedback was being thrown at him while he was presenting. They were recording it and others were taking notes. There was no way for the developer to actually take all of the notes for the requests, ideas, and suggestions as he was presenting. It really helped to have other helping to either record or jot down the notes.

- Just for fun - Sharik said about the programmer - "A programmer on a mission!"

- Note about the media guys who were helping - they had two guys recording the conference. One was the primary tech guy. The other was more promotional and marketing. They were capturing testimonials along the way. They miced (used microphones) all of the speakers. If someone else made a comment, they tried to resay it or recap over the microphone. Sharik was also recommending that the attendees get with the media guys to get their stories and/or testimonials. Pretty cool setup.

- Jumping back into the conference and some of the topics. Lots of time spent on "Trauma" - aka problems, issues, and pain. Without pain or needs, no solution is needed. Once trouble or a problem exists, a solution or answer is needed or wanted.

- Pornography, drugs, alcohol, PTSD, life events, etc. All forms of trauma or issues. Some of these things are taken in by the eyes, ears, hands, mouth, touch, feel, or other ways. Eventually, they get into us and/or affect us in some way or another.

- Teaching the law of opposites - joy and misery, happiness and sadness, inhale and exhale, push and pull, etc. Being ok with being uncomfortable. Pairing these opposites and finding patterns. Back to trauma - front door and back door approach. There is always a way in, look around and be creative.

- Let it go! Exposing yourself and being vulnerable. "IT" will come later. It meaning, what you are looking for. Sometimes you just need a catalyst for change. Replacing negative with positive (thought).

- Standing next to the event, not in it (trauma and events). Can you remove yourself from it and virtually watch it play out, what can you learn, do, observe, as you look at it from a different angle. If you only look at things from a single vantage point, you may be limited as to what options are available.

- Going almost empty and then rebuilding and replenishing.

- Trauma has attachments - it could be other traumas or connections with other events or situations. Usually, it is not just a single thing... there are relationships and multiple interconnected pieces.

- Forgiveness and understanding. Forgiveness doesn't make it right. It does have power to help you. At some point, you may need to ask, how is this all done? Where does that lead you?

- Having a safe place to recover and seek healing.

- The ability to connect to the music within you.

- Saying prayers - for self and for others - looking beyond yourself.

- Sharik was sharing his story and tons and tons of other experiences. It makes it real.

- Triggers

- Learning lessons and then passing on those lessons learned. Experiences just happen!

- At one point, they went over a number of FAQ's (frequently asked questions). They had a preset list and it made it easy to just jump through them and/or skip around as needed.

- Different people do things in different ways - that's ok and even encouraged...

- Great discussions and awesome feedback and ideas from the participants. There was enough flexibility in the presentation to allow for that.

- Inspiration and being open to new ideas. Sometimes it takes time to come to an understanding.

- Freely give, freely share - keep it open.

- Each participant comes from a completely different place. Acknowledging the pioneers in the room. Go explore. Learn from your experiences. If you are experimenting, try it on yourself first - controlled experimenting. Fun discussion.

- Mixing and combining techniques and skills.

- Finding out what nature does and either using it (nature or natural ways) or trying to simulate it. Helping to integrate those type of techniques and processes.

- There are tons of other things that can be added into the mix. Take what we have and what we offer and then add to it and even enhance it. Build off of a stable base.

- Back to a topic in the main presentation - deep questions and sequences - Am I safe? Once you feel safe or relatively safe, you can open up and/or work from there. Interesting.

- Making time to care for ourselves.

- Stick to the basics - back to recipes.

- This is from my mom - She can hear the main presenters but can't hear anybody else (other people who asked questions or chimed in). That bothered her a bit. She knew that I was taking notes on my observations and leaned over and asked me to write that down. That can be hard to fix and tends to fall on the presenter to restate the questions and comments. Just noting that was requested (restate what is being said by others).

- Pathways - things that are used over and over. What works for you? Use that and then build and go from there. Along those same lines - think about strategies and figuring out how to duplicate or predict certain outcomes and behaviors.

- Light humor lubes the discussion and/or topics being taught or discussed.

- Gathering information - connecting the dots - even over time. Be patient! Along the way, seek for opportunities and find alternate paths or pathways.

- Sove a problem, then move on to the next... the deeper you look, it will become a map of the environment. That's pretty cool!

- Going back to basics - the goal is the big picture.

- Repetitive processes - that's how we learn.

- More videos and referring the participants to subscribe to the YouTube channels (plural).

- Lots of techniques, tips, and tricks.

- They were talking about self-healing... at times more advanced help is needed - meaning surgery or other advanced help. That is okay! Start with self-healing and go from there. There is a point that we need other people and their skills and knowledge.

- Talking about pain - if you take it all away, sometimes you do something stupid - keep it real - without any pain, you can push things too hard. Pain can be a great teacher. Knowing your limits.

- In their videos... there was a lot of consistency - well done. Some of them felt repetitive but yet different.

- Sharik's wife kept helping them, whoever was presenting, with reminders and helping them if they forgot something.

- Giving service - helping and doing good

- Public speaking and facing fears

- They were talking about sharing energy and sharing energies (plural)

- The feet are great messengers to the brain

- Simple steps - set timing - set steps - make it repeatable

- Watching friendships and relationships being made from the conference attendees - fun to watch

- People cheerleading each other and supporting each other

- Good laughter and fun times

- Emotions tied to injury - making new paths to the brain

- Putting all of the pieces together - creating a system and using other systems that already exist

- This was big for me... what have we found... letting people know... passing on that knowledge

- Just noticing - some of the attendees were standing, going up, getting closer, taking pictures of slides, videoing, recording, and taking notes - internal thinking

- People want to learn - some great questions and follow-ups

- Telling the brain "the map"

- Being developed on the fly... people testing things on the fly. They were putting ideas into play on the fly (meaning the attendees and the presenters). This was especially true as they were playing with tuners and techniques.

- Alignments - keep coming back to simple alignment concepts

- Improvements and seeking improvements

- Major participation - he called someone up to the front, let them do it, and he was commenting and lightly giving direction what was being done. Very hands on.

- Watching for reactions - seeing through their behavior

- Things working together

- Talking about sensitivity and visiting or building up those areas over time.

- Following protocols - set steps to follow to get certain results

- Translating ideas and concepts to different applications

- Personal stories and tying them into parts of the bigger or main story

- Helping to solve problems - daily

- Constant message of gratitude - being grateful

- Good resources - that helps to bring back that knowledge quickly

- Sensitive individuals - start where or wherever they are at - helping them quickly get back to recovery

- If it takes time - take that time

- When they are ready... there is always a timing that goes along with healing

- Question - Are you trying to solve things or just make things better or easier? There is a difference.

- Thanking others

- Explaining why we do the same things over and over again - finding those patterns and reasons

- For me, I loved the stories and how much Sharik and others had helped others, all around the world, making a difference.

- If you do some pain... Make sure you put a smile on their face before they leave.

- Some of the participants want a way to share and pass on advanced tips and techniques. They talked about a Facebook group(s) and making them public or private, depending.

- Wanting to stay connected

- Mindfulness and being focused - going there on purpose

- Self regulating

- A tool to help - not the end all solution

- Primitive reflexes - a return to a pattern - there are both good and bad primitive reflexes - ways to help overcome ones that are unwanted

- Light it up (an area of the body or a pathway to the brain) - the brain loves information - food for the brain

- Asking others to help us get the word out - word of mouth

- Technique - cross grain or crossing - going across the midline and then back again.

- Transforming and transferring energy

- Test it as you treat

- Work on the weak side

- Working through barriers

- Accelerating processes

- Isn't that cool (both ! and ?) - statement and question

- Combos

- Tests

- X is tied to Y, is tied into Z, is tied into... Everything is interconnected.

- Reviewing, even at the risk of sounding like a broken record.

- Spent some time going through scenarios (different changes or alterations based on the circumstances)

- Integrating both sides - of the body or of your environment

- Keep working on things that need help - wake it up - then integrate it

- Mirror therapy

- Don't put limits on what people can do - the mind and body are amazing

- Getting the word out - a small little army

- Making training available - afterwards

- A small price to help cover costs

- Don't worry about charging people from (or for) your knowledge

- Giving back

- What are you doing with your talents

- Small, good gospel messages, in a soft way

- The value of mom's - changing lives for good

- Help and being helped

- Teaching people how to use the tools

- Charity and charities - projects - helping others

- Reusing things

- Some fun toys and takeaways

- Some of the participants wanted to know... when is the next training?

- Some of the participants were interested in setting up their own conference and then having Sharik come and teach - they asked... how many do you need for an event? They were serious. They were going to organize things, set it up, and get people to come.

- There were some ladies from Texas that were wanting dates, travel dates, to setup events

- Social media channels

- They wanted to get the events calendar - up and online

- Public videos - they were asking for even more or videos with tags - searchable

- Being able to share the videos

- 29 new videos on the YouTube channel this week

- Please share this information - connections

- This is soooo fun!

- Reminding yourself - what you have and where you are

- Grounding - getting in touch

- Format - open Q&A - open forum

- Affiliate programs - getting it out there - paid salesman and little army

- "I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this." - Sharik

- This is very tiring, but worth it

- We try our best

- Part of the public domain - sharing

- Day 2 ended... Lots of good networking and talking going on - teaming up, connecting, swapping info, reviewing the conference, etc.

- From my mom - nice to have another technical person there to help out and keep things going.

As my own recap - I really enjoyed the conference. Great stuff and I would recommend it to anyone who either wants to see what they are doing or has a need or knows someone who may benefit from a form of proactive therapy that is getting results. Even in hard-to-reach areas of the mind and body. Like Sharik said, calibrated vibration can heal the human nervous system. That's a great summary. My other favorite part was watching the people (teachers and students). I learned a lot and got a bunch out of my notes by reviewing them. Lots of little gems. Good stuff! Thanks Sharik!

See the Rezzimax website for more info, videos, and events

Hamid works at Walmart and he had to go down and help out another store do some inventory counts. He was telling me how they deal with shrinkage (people stealing) and what not. Pretty crazy. Almost this balance between labor costs (what it costs to have x number of people) and what it costs to write off the shrinkage (stealing). Anyways, we talked about this little balance between the two costs. Interesting.

We went over some Camtasia stuff, video editing, and then onto some Bootstrap stuff. Hamid was checking out a resource for some Bootstrap themes and free web hosting. We are way to big for that, but it was pretty cool (mdbgo.com).

We spent some time talking about the adilas lite outline that Hamid helped me put together. I told him that I used that, just the other day, to send to Steve. That was a big help. I also sent him the Bootstrap theme that we are using for the adilas snow owl theme. Good session.

Emails and getting ready for the day.

Zoom meeting with Russell. See my notes below.

After meeting with Russell, I was on a phone call with John for about 30 minutes. Talking about what is going on with Adilas and Adilas Lite. Going over possible work options. He is going to reach out to Steve and Cory and we'll go from there.

Some of my notes from meeting with Russell:

- Working with Russell on his tool and homemade framework project. He has learned a lot by building it. He can then take that information and know how and apply it to his other projects. Interesting learning method.

- We talked about project bloat - and how using outside libraries and themes are faster, but it tends to bloat the project (you get more than you want or need - code wise).

- Instruction heavy vs automated

- A framework sets a standard. You can then start expecting certain things. Almost like a miniature set of rules and expectations.

- Starter kits vs the end all, be all - You have to start somewhere. Things will keep morphing over time.

- Tools tend to be built as a box (sort of rigid). Often, people and companies want to add on to the box (customize or add custom code or custom work flow). You then have to ask yourself, does your (my) code fit in the box? Yes/No - then trying to match up tools with company structure and needs. Russell was drawing a standard code set and then a non-standard code set. Imagine one being like a box and the other looking like a blob or a flower with different peddles. We were talking about what fits in the box and what has to be custom. We had some good conversations about that. What is the core? What are the plugins? What is custom? What is allowed? What tools or tooling is being used? Etc.

- API's and API sockets - Allowing outside parties to virtually play at the wall - The backend code could be whatever. The frontend is more structured, meaning the API interface needs to be open to outside traffic (permissioned and approved) and a standard that could be used over and over again. Basically, how it is presented back to the user or developer, needs to be well documented and as standard as possible. The true backend has more flexibility. The backend creates the content that is given back. It also interprets the inbound requests.

- The system and it's architecture and code are all based on trade-offs. You then have to accept those trade-offs. Speed, flexibility, rigidity, rules, scale, custom, standard, hardcoded, dynamic, etc. You have to look and balance the trade-offs.

- If you are doing the full API socket thing, you could actually do a headless CMS (content management system). Basically, if you are going the API route for quick and dirty stuff, it (the new application) doesn't have to look like or follow the same rules (thus becoming headless). You separate the content from the layout or view of that content. Imagine a WordPress type app that is built better and interacts with our internal pieces. We talked about the flexibility of the API. It would be so cool if you could mix and match API calls (quickness) and the whole power of the adilas backend. Inbound and outbound requests could return simple JSON. Lots of potential here. For fracture and adilas lite, we want to run the whole thing off of API socket calls. Our own internal headless CMS, in a way.

- Doing everything on your own (one man show or lone wolf) requires you to know too many topics and subjects. Jack of many trades, master of none. You can gain a lot by allowing for specialists and teams. Correctly done, they can make some amazing things happen.

- Setting up rules and then enforcing those rules. Firm, fair, consistent.

- When pushing API content back, sometimes it is helpful if you can add in helpful stuff to help out the users - For example: Pagination values and page links. Ideally, it is all done through settings, requests, and options. Only return what they want, but make it available if needed. Try to think - what would help the user and/or developer on the other side of the API request?

- Building out basic functions that could be plug and play (self-documenting, self-validating, etc.)

- Russell is trying to build an auto generating REST API for his stuff. The auto generating portion is based on the database (data dictionary). Virtually a set of interpreted rules, assignments, and instruction.

- There is a database level and a service level. Each needs to be built separately. In our terms, we are trying to do DAO's (data or database access objects) and services (things that do something including connecting to the DAO's).

- Build the super complex stuff once, and then use it many.

- We talked about the analogy of a set of railroad tracks. If you build out the known railroad tracks and have proven the methods, you can use it over and over again. Railroad tracks are great for that. If you have to keep building out new ones, and you don't get to use them over and over again, why make railroad tracks, make a simple road instead.

- Figuring out your own testing strategy

- Helping the users use things correctly based on validation and/or information or feedback to the users. Basically, force them down the path and don't give them too much wiggle room (helps the devs manage things). Sometimes too many choices cause more problems.

- Usability and error handling and error messages (good communication back to the client or end-user or even back to the developers).

- From Russell - When your code structure or architecture is bad, your testing will scream at you. If you have a good structure or architecture, your tests should be easy or easier.

- The value of training

- If the servers are down, you don't build tests, you just fix. If you have the time, you build the tests and get the whole thing done.

- Having a good system helps you go faster.

- Dealing with testing, you are going to test anyways, may as well write it in a test. This enables you to be able to go back and rerun those tests. If you have good tests, it should help you in finding those error and bugs faster. Progress moves at the speed of trust. If it's your mess (code), you know how to clean it up and fix it, you also know what it affects (touches or reaches out to - dependencies). What about the other guy (someone who comes in and works on your code)? How do you pass on the notes and instructions? You really have to think about looking out for the other guys/gals that will be coming along later.

We had an update meeting to show progress on ship B stuff (adilas lite and fracture). We had 10 people on the meeting. We had Alan, Hamid, Steve, Sean, Danny, Cory, Shari O., Shannon, Bryan, and Brandon (myself).

We did record it. The recording is right about an hour long. The first 20-30 minutes were from Alan going over market research and tech deck decisions for fracture. After that, I introduced a new website to publish some of our work on the adilas lite or fracture project. Here are a couple of links:

Adilas Lite - Project Home - https://data0.adilas.biz/lite/

Adilas Lite - Videos & Research - https://data0.adilas.biz/lite/adilas_lite_videos.cfm

The meeting went well. As a side note, Shari O. recommended that we have a fun, non work, meeting just to catch-up and say hi and what not. She is kinda like our mother hen, for the adilas team. Fun times. See attached for some other videos and assets.

After the meeting, I spent some time uploading things and doing some light clean-up from the day. Busy day. 

Alan and I met briefly before the meeting. He handed off a PowerPoint slide show for his presentation tonight. We kept it pretty short (about 15 minutes). He has been a great helper on this project. I'm indebted to him for that. I really appreciate the help.

Back working on the website for adilas lite projects (fracture). Trying to get the main pages in place for our meeting tonight.

Alan I jumped on a GoToMeeting session for about 15 minutes to go over the flow and agenda for tonight's meeting. He handed off a PowerPoint for his part of the presentation. I showed him the work that I was doing for the web page for adilas lite and fracture stuff.

After Alan and I finished. I pushed up some new code on the adilas lite (fracture) site for some of the videos that we have been working on. That's a cool little resource and shows a bunch of the videos that we have harvested from Jonathan Wells and his Adobe XD documents. Good stuff. Here is the link to that site (video resources): https://data0.adilas.biz/lite/adilas_lite_videos.cfm

Quick meeting with Alan. We went over a few things that we will be reporting on for our next update meeting in a couple of days. We will be reporting on decisions, training, market research, and harvesting videos from Adobe XD files from Jonathan Wells. Light talk about upcoming schedules for the next couple of weeks.

No real meeting took place. Just a few texts and voicemails messages today.

Recording notes and then meeting with Alan to touch page. We gave each other updates on what we were working on and progress being made. I gave Alan a small pitch to show some stuff that Josh Hanks and I were talking about over lunch (see EOT # 10437) and how we could make a little mini app for projects, time tracking (hours), quick notes per day, and mileage - all tied into one little mini app. That could be really fun and would or could be one of our little industry-specific skins (from the value add-on core model).

Lunch meeting with Josh Hanks. He's a friend from church and lives close by me in Richmond, UT. He has a fun startup story, and I found a lot of similarities to how I got started. He would go work for a company, figure out their processes, make improvements, and help them become better. Anyways, we had a fun chat and were able to find a number of similar circumstances as we got started.

Josh has used a few different CRM (customer relationship management) tools and I was going to pick his brain on likes, dislikes, wish lists, etc. See attached for some of my notes. Fun conversations and topics.

Here are a few takeaways:

- On SaaS (software as a service), here are some of the main complaints (not our product specifically but in general). People don't like extra steps, or required steps added by admin to do simple things. If the interface is too hard or too many clicks, it turns people off. If changes are made to flow, processes, or verbiage, people want to know (and yet they don't want to know everything - delicate balance).

- Mobile is really nice, but there are certain things that still work so much better on a laptop or desktop environment.

- Almost all of us have numerous channels and applications to use and balance. That could be emails, messaging, calendars, software, etc.

- People like to be able to edit things. If you lock it down too tight, it causes different problems. Let permissions, histories, and settings play in as needed to keep things secure but still open.

- People like options to control popups, reminders, feedback, snooze options, finished/completions, follow-ups, etc. They just want to control what hits them (virtually).

- There can be major pain trying to bounce and juggle too many calendars. For example, one for CRM stuff, one for projects, one for mail stuff, and one for personal. It can get kinda crazy. Lots of bouncing between multiple windows.

- We talked about one-to-many relationships and subs of time.

- As a wish list for CRM software - Josh loves to see recent activity, follow-ups, associated quotes, associated projects, progress and completion percentages, and even projections. Other things that are needed are good data, quick access, quick notes, and great drill-downs to other details and information.

- We talked lots about the need for custom fields and custom data points - per industry and per company.

- Opportunity costs and client acquisition costs - the hidden costs.

- The whole last part of the conversation flipped from CRM over to logging projects, hours (timecards per project or per location), quick notes, and logging mileage. Ideally, all of those things all nice and tied together. Josh was wanting and needing an app to do just those things (projects, hours, notes, and mileage). We talked about maybe making a mini version on some adilas features to make that happen. That could be really cool. The other need to that was availability to upload pictures and scans to those calendar events. Here's the kicker, we already do all of those things inside of adilas. We would just have to tweak it a little bit to make it flow, just like he wants. A small custom wire job of the existing tools and features. Pretty cool!

- Lastly, this is more for me, but when we build out fracture and adilas lite, I really want to revisit the settings and options for elements of time and scheduling. See element of time 8004 in the shop for more details. Lots of cool ideas.

Met with Russell over lunch. We ate, chatted, and got into some good discussions. Here are some of my notes. See attached for scans of my handwritten notes.

- Russell recommended some books to read. Good source of learning. Author - Robert C. Martin - "Clean Coder", "Clean Code", and "Clean Architecture"

- Ideas on project management, saying yes, saying no, and some time management concepts.

- We talked about the addiction of "progression" and the pros and cons of that addiction.

- Provide the stable (for you, your family, and others) - then go from there. As a side note, this word "stable" kept coming up throughout our conversation.

- What if it fails? Are you going to be ok? How many eggs do you have in one single basket? Asking yourself questions like that sometimes helps you get a better, more rounded perspective.

- Consistency over small pushes. It may be better to be consistent than push like crazy all at once. Similar analogy to floods vs drips (water).

- Little bitesize pieces

- Dedicated "Lunch" time or some other dedicated time. Carving out something that is special and time for you.

- If it is your project, you will care for it and make it happen (see it through). On a different note, if you can get others to buy in and give them ownership and let them make parts of the bigger project their dream, it becomes more stable over all.

- A good testing strategy is needed. It will build confidence by the bucket load.

- Lots of talks about expectations - Testing and getting everything built out.

- Efficiency - That sounds great, and it has its place, but sometimes there are more things than just pure efficiency. You almost have to play this little balance game.

- Russell was talking about the book and podcast "The Working Genius". He was telling me what some of his strengths and weaknesses were. Fun topics. It helps you get your vision of who you are and how you work and/or interact with others and other tasks.

- Over time, it is interesting to watch strengths and weaknesses playout over time. Letting things play out (both naturally and forced - at times).

- "Keep the stable" - Russell Moore - We kept coming back to this. I think he was trying to get me a subtle message of sorts.

- Continuing education time - make the time for it.

- Not only consistency, but consistency patterns

- Planning out the details of the journey. Looking and planning ahead.

- Russel and I were talking about my wife Heather. She has said over and over again that we are chasing too many things or trying to be too much for everyone. She's probably right and correct.

- Chasing the dragon - (the dream, the final or finished product) - It can be really fun but it could also be really dangerous (both mentally and physically). Just for fun, we were talking about the thrill of it and also the long term phycological effects of that chase. True on all accounts. I love the chase but sometimes it really does affect me (burnout, stress, anxiety, etc.). There is a cost to what we do.

- There is so much more than just building it - That is one of the pieces of the puzzle (the whole).

- Marketing - Pushing it to the next level

- Technical debt - it can crush you! This is when you have so much older code that needs to be updated, maintained, and adjusted. It is called technical debt. It can crush you, it may also crush your soul, your spirit, your will. It can be a huge burden.

- Minimal on the heavy lifting. Who is doing what and what kind of time commitment does that take? Where and what is your job? Don't get sucked into the jobs around the job (whatever that job is).

- Sharing your knowledge. That is fun and it pays dividends.

- If you don't take the time to do continuing education, the world will move on without you.

- Spend an hour a week with Russell.

- Ideally, if you can swing it, 5 hours a week on continuing education. This is your future. You have to future proof yourself.

- Lots depends on the funding... If not, either bail out or keep chipping away at it. Exploring options. Usually it is not just black and white, there are options if you will look for them.

- The dream is awesome but be ok with the maintaining of it as well. It not just the new building of a certain project. Sometimes, you have to pull back and either do some upkeep or be willing to maintain what you have. Here is a link to a small flower gardener (image) with the same question - plan more or take care of what I've got?

- Why does a designer or dreamer code? I'll tell you why, we don't like being stuck. We'll get in there and figure it out in order to make our dreams and ideas come to life.

- From Russell - what is your best path? His answer - Produce features and be able to get revenue (quickly).

- Russell also recommended a video called "Minimal Viable Architecture" by Randy Shoup.

Meeting with Alan. Going over some market research that he was doing. I took a few screenshots of what he was showing me. See attached. Here are some rough notes:

- What does Adilas have that is unique - Everything under one roof, operations based accounting, in-depth inventory management, flex grid (custom data relationships), completely customizable, tons of permissions and settings, and ability to track things (inventory, financials, etc.) through time.

- What do others have - Their sites look more modern/nicer, single page applications, eCommerce integration with outside platforms (they don't have their own), mobile app available, nice page showing pricing, they have done lots of advertising/marketing.

See attachments for more details. We also went over possible ways of integrating adilas lite (fracture) with banks to help speed things up. This could be done by integrating with a system called Plaid or other software. We also spent some time talking about outside eCommerce integrations such as Amazon or whatever. We could still offer our own, plus integrate with other bigger key players (as we choose, or our clients make requests and are willing to help fund the development efforts).

Alan is using Adobe XD as a huge whiteboard and then moving things and pieces around as needed. Basically, brainstorming, putting together different elements on the screen, and then moving or organizing them in a big drag-and-drop type interface. He's using it like a giant whiteboard of sorts.

As part of our discussion, we were talking about our approach vs other company's approach. It seems that most other companies, at least right now, are doing some sort of super mashup type system. They have a product, but the big selling points are the integrations with outside parties or other sites or services. That may sound awesome, but there is some pain there as well (trying to marry everything together). Adilas is more along the lines of a single system that is fully integrated and then ties out to outside sites and services, if needed. Here is a link to a hand drawn graphic that shows the difference in approach.

Towards the end of our meeting, Alan was mentioning that we should focus on who is already using our platform and try to get more of those kinds of people onboard. Create some synergy of sorts. I mentioned that, not only could we do that, but we might be able to offer white label options for certain industries and business verticals.

The last thing that we went over was some market research stuff that Danny is working on. See attached for a screenshot of that as well. After the meeting, I spent some time reading the other sub documents and older sales meeting notes. Good meeting.

Quick meeting with Alan. We touched base on where we are at and how is doing what. I've been looking at Adobe XD documents from Jonathan Wells and doing XD training tutorials. I've also been digitizing notes and linking things together. Alan is working on a small wireframe for the adilas cafe login. He is also doing some research on modern UI/UX requirements and expectations. We talked about some domain names and also looking at billboard type sites for pointers to the main adilas.biz site.

I'm going to be harvesting Adobe XD videos and mock-ups. Alan is going to be working on features and making a nice list of features. I pointed him to a document that Shannon and I did for the presentation gallery and a backend outline of some of the features. This is not meant for the public (yet) but it will be a good resource.

We looked at the calendar and decided that we would shoot for our next group meeting for adilas lite and fracture to be on 8/30/23 (a couple weeks away from today). Good stuff.

After the meeting, I went and purchased a few domain names to claim our spot. Also did some other small to do list items.

Meeting with Alan and going over some Adobe XD assets that we have access to. The originals were created by Jonathan Wells. Our plan is to use Adobe XD to mock things up and get some prototypes out without having to write any code. Basically, just pass on the vision for the feel of the app, the flow, and a rough idea of what it will look like. Trying to keep it super simple.

Talking about wireframes, prepping for a login page with real code (still in scratch or prototype level), and going over some notes from Alan. See attached.

We talked about getting some education and training on Adobe XD and other training videos. We are trying to build up our skills so that we can get the job done. Learning is fun. We are planning a number of fun wireframes and scratch files. Alan would like to organize some of the adilas features. I pointed him to the presentation gallery stuff. We may use something like that or even build and expand upon it.

Working with Alan on ship B, fracture, and adilas lite stuff. We were reporting on what we have been doing and who is doing what. Alan has been digging in deeper and checking out ColdBox, CommandBox, React, VueJS (vue), and other code frameworks. I took a few screenshots of his notes (see attached). Here are some other topics that we talked about:

- We would like to organize the features that we want to include and build out. Still on the wish list - to get this done and all organized

- Code style guides

- Features of CommandBox and ColdBox - products by Ortus Solutions - automation with Git (code repository stuff), sanitizing, formatting, and standardizing data and code.

- Alan is leaning towards VueJS vs React JS. We went over some pros and cons.

- Our current choice or pick for our tech stack is looking something like this: CommandBox, ColdBox, Lucee/ColdFusion, MSQL, Bootstrap 5, and VueJS.

- Lots of talk about routing, events, handlers, and MVC layers and levels (MVC = model view controller framework or methodology).

- Integrated testing for integration test and unit testing.

- Custom layouts

- Lots of white labeling options and data driven design and data driven settings.

- Nesting or sub architecture and modules - inheriting different things

- Little baby apps or configurable widgets

- Building out prototypes and playing with concepts, ideas, and options

- Layers and everything going through API sockets or API endpoints

- We would love to get into drag and drop widgets and options to create your own layouts. This would allow for either preset widgets or mini widgets that could be places, configured, and added to dashboards as needed. Super cool!

- Use of popup modals and one-pager type interfaces.

- We want tons of asynchronous type actions and transactions. Certain things need to flow step by step, but other things can be done asynchronously.

- To start out with, maybe a light mode and dark mode, to keep it simple. We may add more other custom look and feel options later on.

- Doing wireframes and then rolling over to actual mock-ups.

- We would like to look at some of our past R&D options from Jonathan Wells (designer and prototype guy).

Lunch meeting with Alan. He was in town so we hooked up for lunch and to chat. Planning, talking about our team, roles, strengths and weaknesses, and industry specific skins. We talked about the jelly fish model, the value add-on core model, adilas university, adilas marketplace, and fracture (adilas lite) stuff. Fun little meeting. Both Alan and I are on the same page as far as vision. That's awesome!

Emails and texts back and forth to John about the adilas cafe. Working with a document for Danny and YouTube training videos. I then met with Danny and we went over options for some of the videos and training assets that we both have and/or need. Danny and I were talking about things, and he was saying that he knows a company that doesn't even release the next changes until the training is ready, done, and up for viewing. See attached for a screencap of what we were talking about.

Here a couple of the links that I sent to Danny:

- Entries in the developer's notebook talking about YouTube videos - lots of good resources. Once it comes up, do a browser search for the term "YouTube" to help pinpoint some of the options.

- Entry in the developer's notebook talking about a thing called education mode.

As a side note, on 8/14/23, I added this little link to a video on the education mode.

Printing out some elements of time as a back-up paper copy. Prep for a group meeting. Once the meeting started, we did some small intros. There were 10 of us on the meeting. We went over concepts of throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what sticks, organizing things, Alan gave a small PowerPoint presentation (see attached). We talked about exposing the peaks, mountains and ice berg (peaks) analogy, tiered versions, pricing matrix, features & who has access, prototyping with code models, frameworks, libraries, the jelly fish model, a new mini jelly fish model, and tons of other topics.

We got into topics of growth, retention, code development, IT/Servers, and Cafe/Marketplace options. Great discussion on R&D and how R&D plays on both the maintenance side (stabilizing and making the current product better) and the growth side (new stuff and pioneering).

Spent some time talking about the SWOT analysis, lessons learned, and mission statements. This is an idea from Hamid, on the mission statement - Mission: Adilas - Build Your Solutions. We got into some user stories, scenarios, and recruiting help from the guys/gals. We talked about who wants to help and what they could do. Overall, a good meeting. We recorded it, at least the first part (first 23 minutes). It stopped recording when we switched screens and switched presenters. Anyways, see attached for some other notes, the PowerPoint slides, and the link to the video recording.

Good group meeting with a progress report on the ship B, adilas lite stuff, and fracture.

Meeting with Alan and going over the agenda. Light look at the SWOT analysis and making plans. Alan was going to build out a quick PowerPoint slide show for tonight.

Planning meeting with Alan. Light review and updates from each other. Working on the adilas jellyfish model. We came up with a mini jellyfish model. See element of time # 2284 inside of adilas. Working on an agenda and planning what we wanted to do for the group meeting to show progress. Talking about talent.

Meeting with Alan on defining roles and responsibilities for parts of the adilas jelly fish model. See element of time # 2284 inside of adilas for details. Not finished yet but some great discussions.

Master Adilas Plan - Jellyfish Model

- The adilas jellyfish model - covers almost all of the departments and sub sections of what we are trying to be as a company. It is not the main product, but more of our internal and external departments, areas, and general areas that we will keep refining and working on.

- Possible numbers for the jellyfish model. Going from top to bottom and from left to right.
1. adilas.biz
2. Admin
3. Monthly Reoccurring Service
4. Sales & Marketing
5. Setup & Training
6. Tech Support
7. Design
8. Custom Code
9. Consulting
10. R&D
11. Project Management
12. Internal Development & Maintenance
13. Adilas University
14. Adilas Marketplace
15. Adilas Cafe & Community - Adilas World
16. Databases, Networks, Servers, & IT

Tons more details and bullet points on element of time # 2284 inside of adilas.

Meeting with Alan. Going over and reviewing my meeting this morning with Aaron and what we are learning and discovering. Alan was showing us (Aspen and I) some VueJS stuff (JavaScript framework). Lots of shortcuts. Mini caching of variables. Listeners and watchers. Two-way passing back and forth. Comparing VueJS to React JS stuff. Event handling and looking into options.

We switched gears and went over needs for training and outside training resources. We did some review of some older R&D stuff from Jonathan Wells. We talked about some new user's stories. I got some notes from Alan (see attached). Light ideas of what Alan wants to do with adilas lite and fracture. We then rolled into a small work session doing stuff with the jelly fish model. See elements of time # 2284 inside of adilas for verbiage there.

- Small review of what we have been working on

- Planning out the joint meeting on July 18 for the ship B - fracture and adilas lite team

- We spent a ton of time working on some other notes and brainstorming. See attached.

- We talked about using some of the graphics that show the mix of functions and players. See element of time 4989 for an idea of what we are talking about.

Meeting with Alan and Aspen. Alan and I were talking about the pressures of getting all of the prototypes and new learning done that is needed. It's too much. You can feel the burnout starting to set in and that affects everything else. So crazy how quick it can set in.

We are trying to start organizing things. We feel like we have some great ideas, direction, and what not. It's all over the place, so our next major task is to start organizing things. Along those lines, we may have to find some middle ground. We know what we have (old or existing) and we have an idea of what we want (new and future). We may need a few steps in between instead of just jumping from old to new. That's a big jump.

We have tons of other notes that we were working on. See attached. We were looking into ideas about mission statements, plans, pros and cons of different technology stacks, as well as other general topics and discussions. The new notes are towards the bottom of the document.

Before Alan jumped on, I was working with my sister on some ideas for a simple store front or consignment type ecommerce site. She has a bunch of products (hand built crafts and stuff) that I would like to help her sell using the adilas marketplace (future project or future business idea - planning for fracture and adilas lite).

Meeting with Alan over the GoToMeeting session. We started out and I was reporting on a few entries from yesterday. We reviewed what I learned in the Adobe ColdFusion Training Event (# 10256). Went over the scanned notes that I took. We also talked about the virtual obstacle course that we would like to build to test some of our ideas and prototypes (# 10294). Fun little review.

Next, we switched over to what Alan has been working on and playing with. Lots of fun learning and prototyping. Alan spent some time playing with REST API's and GraphQL options. He was really excited about certain parts of the GraphQL stuff that he was learning. Limiting data that is sent back to the users and making things easier on the servers.

Here are a few of my notes from our meeting:

- Alan was playing with GraphQL, Node JS server, Apollo, Prima, and other tools and features.

- Lots of queries, mutations (things or code that alters the raw queries), resolvers, and subscriptions (observer/subscriber type models).

- Small demo on what Alan learned from playing with GraphQL. This included unique ids, JSON web tokens, tons of files and folders (dummy setup files to put the pieces in place and then you go in and build them out - sort of a prebuilt file/folder structure for your app).

- Looking into web sockets and options to push/pull data - going through those web socket options.

- More talk about API endpoints, automation of the documentation, layers, transactions, locks based on transactions (with full rollback if needed), and throttling API endpoints.

- Tons of other topics such as: NoSQL databases, document stores, relational databases, query caching, ORM models (either object-relational mapping or object-role model), properties, tables, access layers, database updates, etc.

- We talked about using REST API's and having our bigger pieces maybe even broken down into smaller pieces. For example, instead of just having a folder for invoices. We may want something like: invoices/single, invoices/multi, invoices/search, invoices/export, etc. Basically, sub sections within the main invoice player group. We have 12 main application player groups. Each one does stull individually, as a group or a whole, and other sub functions. Maybe think along those lines.

- Spent some time going over security options, JSON web tokens, allowing servers to change the data but the browsers can't change the data. Frontend security, backend security, Node JS, Adobe ColdFusion, and options for both sides of the fence.

- Good meeting with some good research and R&D stuff. Good job Alan!

Meeting over the GoToMeeting session. We had Alan, Bryan, Aspen, and myself on the meeting. We started out talking about some ways of generating outside funding and potential financial products that we could offer. See elements of time # 10235 for more details.

We then shifted gears and Alan ran most of the rest of the meeting. He was giving us a demo of a React JS framework and light frontend stuff. I took a ton of notes and so did Aspen. It sounds like it has a lot of potential. There is a steep learning curve, but it has some good benefits as well. See attached for my notes. The new notes are at the end and towards the bottom.

Online meeting with Alan over a GoToMeeting session. We went over the notes that Aspen and I made from our last meeting on 6/22/23 (element of time 10187). As we were talking and discussing things, we came up with some new ideas and notes. See attached for our new notes. The notes have two sections, some from 6/21/23 and some from 6/26/23 (today).

Before my meeting with Aspen, I was still on the meeting with Byan. We took the last 15 minutes and talked about possible ways of modifying ship A into what we want for ship B. Bryan may explore that a little bit to see what that might take. I authorized him to spend 10 or so hours checking things out. He may also look into using a mix of React and ColdFusion. More R&D stuff.

Meeting with Aspen and going over notes from Alan and I's meeting from yesterday - see element of time #10267. Defining and explaining some the notes and ideas. I was doing some drawings, using my hands to explain things, and took a few more general notes. These are things dealing with fracture or adilas lite - where we are headed.

- On the size and pricing matrix, we need to include file storage (photos, scans, images, media/content, and general files). We also need to include database size (how much we are storing).

- On the choose corp page, be able to set the default corporation right from there.

- Look into modern payment solutions such as Google pay, PayPal, Venmo, apple pay, etc. We already do some of that, just make it even smoother.

- Aspen was pitching the adilas portal vs the adilas cafe - naming convention. She liked the word or phrase portal better.

- Education will be a huge part of the marketing and sales. We need to include it from the get go. This may be a person who has to be hired just to do that role. Some of our developers may not fit that mode correctly.

- Aspen's comments on education - We need to pitch education as optimizing the system to be more accessible.

- There is a need for market research and test runs.

- As we were reviewing the document and notes from yesterday, we came across one that talked about simple tax info for small users. That would be really cool if we could help people out and put all of the simple tax info in one place for them. Make it super easy and convenient.

- Along with the taxes stuff, we may want to add more tax and payroll forms to the current system. Make paperwork as easy as possible.

- AI (artificial intelligence) - What do you want to do? What do you want to see? What do you want to track? There are tons of other things that we could let people ask or do. Help them out and even tie in some of this the industry specific skins. Aspen and I were talking about AI a little bit.

- Aggregates and sums, counts, averages, totals, mins, and maxes - Almost a reverse or reversing the direction of the reports and gathering the information. Now that we know where and what we want, let's build that in from the get go. Also, this is for me... If there is a discrepancy, I really want a tool that will help rebuild those aggregated reports and aggregate values. I'd like to automate as much as we can, but if needed, we will have and/or provide manual recalc tools. That's important to me.

- A.D.I.L.A.S. - All data is live and searchable - What does that really mean? "All data", that means that we catch and store it all (the whole system and all of the parts and pieces). That's a pretty bold statement. We love it! "Is live", that means that we allow you to look, retrieve, view, and interact with your data based on permissions and settings. It is a living application, not just a digital archive tool. It's alive. The more you give it (virtually feeding it) the more you will get back (business intelligence and decision helping information). "And searchable", full visibility and full searchability. Every history, every detail, every record, every supporting piece or pieces. Filters, sorts, exports, save as options, you name it. It's your data, we just help you organize it, store it, retrieve it, and secure it.

- Above, is a light overview of what the name adilas can and does mean to us and to our clients. As a fun side note, the actual name "adilas" was proposed by Steve Berkenkotter, at a lunch meeting in the small mountain town of Salida, Colorado. If you look at adilas, it is Salida spelled backwards. The first nine years of the adilas business existence, the primary co-founders and partners lived in Salida, Colorado. Sort of a fun little fact.

- Aspen and I were talking... Are we too detailed (meaning our planning). Do we need to zoom out? That is a great question. It is very easy to get pulled in to the nitty-gritty details and happenings.

- Dealing with zooming out - Aspen asked me what my top few priorities would be right now - without any planning - This is a small list that we came up with. See element of time # 10270 for a small list of current priorities. After we made the list, we then talked about how each one related to the others on the list. That was a fun exercise.

- The first goal, we need to centralize the data. Make sure and catch all of the pieces. Once we have that, we can then worry about how it looks and how to get the data out or back out of the system.

Awesome session with Alan and I working on the plan for fracture and adilas light. We started out and I was showing Alan some of the R&D for the adilas cafe that Jonathan Wells did a few years back. I sent Alan some links to pull down the Adobe XD mock-up files. After that, we spent the rest of the session working on levels, tiers, user stories, and feature lists for adilas lite. See attached for our notes.

Work and planning session with Alan, Bryan and I. We were talking about ways of breaking things down into smaller pieces. We ended up doing some small user stories and lots of brainstorming on the adilas cafe. We also did some talking about a new pricing matrix and other brainstorming ideas. See attached for some of my notes.

Meeting with both Alan and Aspen. I took some notes and Aspen took some notes. After the meeting, I did some more note recording and note digitizing for 6/15/23 and for 6/16/23.

Alan was on with us for the first hour. Here are some of my notes. See attached for all of them.

- Let's build out the MVP for the plan - general fracture or adilas lite planning session - what documents does that mean and/or require?

- Two of the first main things we want to do is define the jelly fish model (business structure) and the value add-on core model. Those two are some known needs of where we are heading.

- We spent quite a bit of time talking about how to break functionality and features up. We want to keep those separate as far as options.

- I showed Alan the presentation gallery and the outline of the business functions. There is quite a bit of work that has already been done there. Great resources.

- Small packages and/or starting points - We could call it whatever - recipes, packages, templates, industry specific skins, presets, etc.

- Alan wanted us to think about tiers and scaling - both vertical and horizontal. I was thinking, what about the Z scale or the depth/layering axis. Just for fun 3D scaling and 3D world building. It might be fun to explore this.

- We talked a little bit about pricing and tier levels. We would like to set breakpoints, ranges, and fees for going over.

- We asked Alan about his vision for adilas lite and fracture - He is really excited about creating a solution that is light weight and very efficient. In his words, he said, How can I get the most power with the least amount of drag? We went on to talk about hiding things that they don't need and getting them to the meat of the operation as quickly as possible. We will do future planning sessions where we look at each section and slim it down to the minimum or minimal requirements.

- This is a side note, but as I have been thinking about minimal pieces, I keep coming back to a concept that we were looking into called standalone declarations (full entries without any other connections and/or supporting documentation). They exist by themselves but they also may be mapped and pointed to the right place. We could sum them up, count them, map them, and keep it super simple. Originally it was going to be something that could be made for financial documents (P&L and the balance sheet)  but technically we could use them in any way. Simple standalone pieces.

- Spend the time and do some market research on what business verticals we could hit and take care of.

- Lots of talk about automation and even automating the setup of new systems. Let people try things out as a free or limited version. We would setup thresholds, limits, ranges, or whatever. We want people to try it out and like it.

- We talked about ice bergs and mountains (perception of how big it is). We also switched and talked about the depth of the water... pretend levels of swimming - Imagine that you are at the beach - you could get your feet wet, do some wading, swimming, snorkeling, or scuba diving. All at the same place, just how deep and serious are you or what are you looking for?

- Once we have a list of things that need to be done and/or worked on, we get to prioritize that list. What do we want to build out and when?

- Alan had the idea of putting our outline information into a database. That way we could just query things (just in time) as needed. That way we could make the lists super small and then allow for it to be expanded at will. Great idea. Simple displays with drill-downs. Almost the presentation gallery for sales, marketing, pricing, features, and education.

- We also want to highlight future plans and what is up and coming. We change things all the time. Make that part of the plan and the part of the presentation. Put it in a database and let our users pull back what information they want and/or need. Self-building templates, feature lists, tiers, and other levels.

Reading notes and making plans. Reread an email from Alan dealing with hours, teams, and roles. Printed out a small document dealing with a small overview of the book - The 6 Types of Working Genius. I got the little packet from Aaron Hill (his results from an assessment that he took). Good reading and insightful. It talked about working genius levels or types. It also talked about working competencies and working frustrations. The packet contained a small summary or summaries of each subset of the six types - Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity.

I ended up calling and talking with Alan for a bit. We chatted and I scribbled some notes. See attached.

Here are a few of the notes:

- Stay a week or so ahead

- Let's plan and do some user experience studies and look into the some of the human factors of our fracture project. Human centered design stuff. Alan wanted to go into this as a career choice. He has some good stills and has taken a number of psychology classes dealing with page layout, flow, navigation, etc. Lots of usability stuff.

- Be agile with the planning - short sprints and focused planning - just in time deliverables vs a huge plan of a plan of a plan.

- It's ok to use hand drawings (at first). Eventually we'll make them tighter and more professional - like Adobe XD or live prototypes.

- Alan and I are planning on meeting a few times a week to get some of the initial planning kicked off and going.

After hours meeting with Wayne, Alan, John, Bryan, and I. Wayne pretty much drove and I took notes. It went for three hours. We have the first two hours recorded (see attached). The last hour, we thought that we were done and it kept going with ideas and more clarification stuff. It may be a lot to read, but I've got 5 pages of notes, all dealing with fracture and where we are heading with adilas lite. Some of these topics are deep, backend, and server and database related. Good meeting.

I have no problem saying this... I was definitely not the smartest person in the room. I've been doing this kind of stuff for over 20+ years and I was impressed. That makes me excited.

Once again, if you want to review the notes, there are a bunch of good things in there for our upcoming fracture or adilas lite project.

These are a few of my takeaways:

- We need to communicate and get some standards setup. This could be what we call things, what code to use and how it looks and acts, and other style guide level stuff.

- Our plan is to build the whole new parts and pieces into an open API socket connection level application. We could then use API sockets as well as let outside developers use the same API sockets. We talked a lot about this. This is where we want to head. The new adilas lite platform will be mostly run on API sockets.

- Rules and assignments - the concept of building the rules and then assigning who plays with those rules was a big part of the discussion. Follow a story-based design for logic, testing, etc. Make all of this data driven.

- Think generic - what is available - what do you want or need? Make everything configurable. Multiple levels of configuration. See notes.

- We will be building a very robust data dictionary and then using that in the rules, validation routines, etc. This is basically a database that shows columns, names, values, rules, defaults, and other information about those columns and/or fields. This is huge and will help us use a more data driven approach vs hardcoding all of the rules, values, and validation per column. We will have a generic set and then let each corp, location, and user tweak a copy, if they want to get that deep. If not, we will use the main master data dictionary list information. Only change and copy what is needed.

- Events and turning everything into small bite sized pieces. Very minimalistic approach. Make as much of this application asynchronous (nonlinear) as possible.

- Let's do the aggregates (data warehousing stuff) right off the bat and get those values in place and being used. We are very good at transactional data and data storage. Let's really make an effort to break into the aggregated or business intelligence (BI) levels. That is a huge goal of ours.

Meeting with Bryan to push the flex attributes for PO's. The flex attributes allow for custom data endpoints per main group (12 main player groups). We currently only have flex attributes for customers, elements of time, and now PO's. Eventually, we want to add this same feature for each of the 12 main player groups. As a side note, originally, these flex attributes were going to be called real in-line database extensions and were going to be the big brother of the flex grid tie-ins. When we get everything out to the fracture level, we want to make sure that we have the flex attributes built out for each main player group. The main player groups are: Deposits, invoices, PO's, expense/receipts, balance sheet items, stock/units, customers, vendors, employee/users, parts/items, elements of time, and quotes.

Another thing that is really wanted, and we would like to build for fracture, is a granular level of both visibility and searchability. The clients want to be able to see everything and then be able to filter it down as well. That seems to be a reoccurring theme and request. Currently we have a number of prebuilt reports. That is great and all and needs to continue. However, to make it even better, we need to provide options on the advanced searches that show every field, every connection, allow for toggle on/off (show/hide) fields and columns, filters for each section, and options for both show and export. Once again, full visibility and full searchability. That's the goal. Adilas - all data is live and searchable.

Bryan and I got his code all merged in and pushed up to data 0 for testing.

Just thinking about some ideas for financial products for adilas and adilas lite (fracture).

- We could offer short term investments - 2-5 years for payouts on investments or loans. These could be higher interest rates as we would be paying them back quicker. May need to research rates.

- We could offer long term or longer term investments - 5-50+ years - These could be lower interest rates as we would be paying them back either over longer periods or potentially letting them sit in the long term liabilities (loans and long term payables) for long time periods. They, the lender/investor would still get paid, it would be more of a long term deal where they were making money off of the interest while still having the payable on the books and financials (balance sheet).

- There are at least 4 main entities that I can think of right now. They are the main adilas, llc (main or mother ship), the adilas shop (development, IT, and R&D stuff for adilas and special projects), the adilas university (education and training entity), and the adilas marketplace that could have a number of subs underneath and/or somehow associated with it. See the adilas jelly fish model for rough sketch of the corporate structure and how they all play together. Long story short, adilas creates a number of byproducts and has a constant need for other supporting products and professional services. That's pretty cool! All of these could be their own business or entity.

- On the adilas marketplace concept, maybe treat it like virtual real estate or a mini mall type venue. Tons of different options. See attached for a small graphic of what it could be like (just a concept). I'd love to see business funding, investments, marketing, and planning to join the existing ideas of accountants, CPA's, attorneys, bookkeepers, consultants, custom code, developers, graphic design, hardware, merchant processing, sales, tech support, and other third party solutions. It could be anything, either built under the adilas umbrella and/or a complete independent third party. Tons of options there. Along with this idea... maybe treat it like a railroad. We own the railroad tracks but others can own cars, businesses, etc.

- Back to other financial products for adilas - We could offer options for ship A - current adilas. We could offer packages or options for ship B - future adilas buildout - fracture or adilas lite.

- We could offer options for sponsor for certain features. This could be all internal, approved third parties, or a mix of whatever. Small side note, I was exploring this concept more on 6/14/23 about possible sponsors for modules and features.

- This is more for me, but I'd like to meet with some of my friends to get some ideas from them. Allen Marler, Sheldon Archibald, Matt Funk, etc. Good guys that I know and that I could learn from.

Paying bills, emails, and sending out instructions on how to log time in the adilas shop. Recording notes.

A few quick notes and ideas...

- On a hike yesterday morning, I was thinking about the adilas cafe. Imagine a person sitting down looking at a menu or a person looking at a digital menu board. What do you want? What do you want to do? Our menus may not be food items, but it could be what would you like to see? Do? etc.

- What if we offered our business functions such as CRM (customer relationship management) or POS (point of sale) options vs customers, invoices, PO's, items, etc. Basically, we have 12 business functions that we offer. We also have 12 business application players that help us get the business functions that we want. Maybe just some different ways to pitch or let our users choose what they want to do or see.

- I'd like to setup some rules for participating in the new build out (ship B). This is part of the bigger community effort. I'd like each person to be able to make their own timecards (already available, just need a small instruction doc to line it out). All actual hours will be held in sub dates and times (subs of the main element of time). I'd like to tie it out to an expense/receipt so that it goes into the accounts payable (A/P's). We could then clean out those payables weekly, monthly, etc. as needed. If something sits in the payables for over six months, we ask the person if they want to roll that over to the balance sheet as a form of investment. If yes, it would then start accruing interest and be held similar to a loan or investment. We could pay simple interest of 5% annually (just guessing at that number right now).

- If that model works well for our internal team, when we are ready, and if we want to, we could do something similar to potential approved outside parties. This needs more thought, but I wanted to put it out there. This would be an even deeper community effort of sorts. We would still setup rules, control things, but I have no problem with others who want to help and/or help build it out. Along those same lines, we would make sure that the rules and who they reported to (and any other rules or specs) would be assigned and set forth.

- Flipping over to ship A (existing adilas platform or application). What about an MVP for ship A? Getting that fully done could pay some major dividends. It could also help smooth things out and create harmony and unity. I would really like that. Here is a quick link to a possible MVP plan for the current adilas system.

- Only run as fast as you are able.

- I was thinking about the SBA loan. I would love to get it paid off or at least help pay it down. It's not huge, but it would help with the stress load.

Emails and giving Bryan a small assignment for helping with ship B stuff. Bryan would like to help us out. I also read a bigger email from Alan about teams and some of the pros and cons of running with a specialized team. He would like to help code, lead, do project management, and be part of the team that does the system architecture stuff. I sent Alan a reply and said, great, let's define your role and involvement. Good stuff!

My mind was going nuts all day. Literally a whirlwind. I didn't write down the start and end time on this one. But from about 12 noon until 11 pm ish I was brainstorming, thinking, recording notes, talking to people, phone calls, texts, etc. It was super fun. Once again, these notes don't have any specific order, they were just what I recorded on small little post-it notes. I should have used a bigger notebook... :)

- We need a matrix and the ability to monitor every choice and setting. Full data driven and choice driven billing for our clients. This needs to be baked into the beginning design for fracture and where we are heading.

- What about possible open-source code and/or having our clients pay for their own accounts? That would take some of the hardware and server pressure off of us. Just a thought. Along with this, we could set it up to use any domain name, any site/server or hosting company. Whatever. Keep it super open, if we want it to be.

- As far as hosting and packages, we could have our own options as well. Things like simple home use, shared servers, semi dedicated servers, full dedicated servers, clusters, etc. Make some options and then make them available.

- List out your services that you offer and/or have available.

- Packages and bundles - tiny, small, medium, large, extra large (xl), double X (xxl) or whatever. Maybe set some limits for the different sizes or limits withing a certain range (keep it kinda flexible). Allow for variable billing.

- Stripe seems to have some awesome automated merchant processing features. It may be fun to plug into this. We could also use something like Datacap and then have access to even more merchant processing options. Just thinking along these lines. This could be for our clients as well as for us, as a company. Currently, we are using USAePay for our internal merchant processing stuff. I'd like to expand and really open that avenue up a bit.

- You (meaning me) may need to fully jump off. Earlier today I was giving Steve an analogy of jumping off of a moving train. The best place is either on or off, not somewhere in the middle. If I'm going to jump, do it and get clear. You don't want to be too close to that moving train. Once again, just an analogy.

-  Some of this stuff is for me, but was part of the brainstorming session. Anyways, I'm going to list it anyways.

- I know some bankers. I'd like to meet up with them and just pick their brains. Thinking of Mike Hall, Brent Wallis, Kevin Moser.

- I could use some of my percentage ownership of adilas as collateral, if I needed to get a loan.

- I have a buddy that helped me out, back in the day with my Learn To Freeride (LTF) project. His name is Gene Spaulding. He currently does a lot of stuff with nursing homes, memory care, and retirement homes. Good resource. Maybe even checking with him if he needs a product to help manage all of his beds (rooms for his clients - elderly folks). Regardless, he's an awesome resource.

- I know a guy by the name of Jud Eades who is an entrepreneur, a friend, and a total stud. He does all kinds of fun stuff. I could see if he has ideas and/or is interested in helping me build a reoccurring revenue based product.

- I know lots of other business people who have ideas and different know how. I would love to tap into their minds. Just being silly, but started thinking about too many people and decided to stop (for now).

- Use eye candy to show what we have done

- Talk with my wife Heather

- I have a full business plan that I did for the LTF project (older personal project dealing with teaching snowboard freestyle tricks and moves - early to mid 2000's). Look at the LTF binder, just to get some ideas.

- Recruit help. Think about all kinds of avenues, people, places, things, etc. Be creative!

- Include the Lord

- Sufficient - That goes a long ways

- Apply It! - Whatever you learn, keep applying it. That seems to be one of the secrets.

- We (adilas) hired a business consultant a few years back. Get back with him and review of what you learned from Jonathan Johnson and Epic Enterprises Consulting.

- Check in with Aspen, my daughter and see if she wants to help. She has a great gift for organizing and such. I could use the help.

- Talk with my mom and dad. I would like to ask my father for a father's blessing as well. That would help me out.

- Planning things out and then funding that development.

- Strategic funding based on needs and plans.

- Willing to listen and record notes. I love sharing what I have learned. Writing things down helps my memory. The old saying - The faintest scratch is better than the sharpest mind.

- I'm willing to let others play a role and add to or even take away as needed.

- Freedom from the adilas grind - that's worth a lot.

- I may be able to do more and help more by not being tied down.

- Make a list of pros and cons

- Include some prayers (lots of them) and some fasting - ask hard questions of God and of yourself

- A couple of books came to mind - Who Moved My Cheese, The Go Giver, How To Win Friends And Influence People, Rocket Fuel, etc. Read those books.

- Be willing to help and give. I enjoy that.

- Follow a dream

- There is a level of excitement that I'm feeling. This is kinda fun!

- I have a book called "Differentiate or Die" - I'd like to read that. It was given to me years ago and it has been in my office but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

- Get some training

- Work on some funding

- Be a cheerleader

- Help fix the existing foundation. Make this part of the plan.

- Be open... to... whatever...

- Bridgerland - It's a local technical college here in my town. There are lots of options there. I know a number of people, they have training resources, and they have even asked for a demo (multiple times) of our products. I'd like to explore some options there including offering to help them build something that they could resell and/or pitch to other technical colleges. Almost a white label type option.

- I had a dream the other night about including other businesses in our planning and roll out. Keep exploring those ideas and avenues.

- Leverage your percentage of ownership.

- Ask... What do you need? How can we help? What do you want? Where is your pain?

- Go back and do it again. Trystorming and being willing to circle back again.

- Talking with Heather, my wife, and going over what I was making, what I could make, and how to keep a good balance. I'm not going to lie, there are parts of it that are just plain scary.

- We may need to get back to doing a family budget. We used to do that a long time ago. It's been pretty smooth sailing and we haven't done that in quite some time. We may need to circle back around.

- I'm kinda scared to dip into savings. Super grateful that we have some.

- During the day, we talked (Heather and I) about existing expenses, promises, and upcoming expenses dealing with raising a family (vehicles, wisdom teeth, other doctor bills, etc.). We listed a few things out.

- From Heather - We don't want to relive LTF! - Understood and I agree. Lots of lessons learned. If someone has time, some time in the future, I'd love to tell them about that project and product. Huge building blocks of my career, part of my life, and part of the journey. It wasn't all bad... :)

- Look at the risk/benefit trade offs

- From Heather - She'll let me do this - new venture - if we don't take out a personal loan and don't clear out our savings.

- We have been super blessed.

- We can't see the future. We don't know what is coming.

- Keep adding to savings as part of the plan.

- Light fun with numbers. We started adilas in 2008 from a project that started in 2001. The first adilas deposit was for $100. As of 5/31/23, adilas has made over $7 million and growing. That's kinda fun.

- The current goal is the business plan. That may end up being more than just one document. It may be better to say plans (plural).

- Need to call our accountant and check on taxes (for me personally)

- We have a number of projects planned for around the house that will still need to be completed this summer (paint back porch, cut down the dead tree, etc.). Heather wants to make sure that I don't get too busy and that I can still help out and do the planned projects around the house.

- From my daughter Amber - We were on the back porch talking - Here are some random thoughts that I wrote down from our conversation. From Amber - Do what makes you happy! Question - wouldn't having more be more stressful (meaning another whole adilas product)? I told Amber that I was trying to work myself out of a job. She had a few questions about that. Foreign concept to her. We talked about - if you are enjoying the job, it's not work. Good fun!

- More notes from Amber - You could always find another job. For example, snowboarding or whatever. Something that you enjoy! Maybe something part time or something like that. You could teach an art class, spend more time with your hobbies, actually get a job where you have a window (you work in a cave), get out and get outside, something. She was having fun giving me advice.

- AI (artificial intelligence) - this may replace certain jobs. Creativity and interpersonal skills - you can't replace that (currently).

- I like helping people - do something along those lines.

- Aber was being super kind - She said - You should draw stuff. I love the t-shirts, cards, your life jacket (kayaking PFD), and other things that you have drawn. Go have fun! You could totally use your drawing talents.

- Next I talked to Aspen for a bit - she was very logical and had some great questions. For example: I wrote down - Do you feel comfortable dropping all of your responsibility on other people? Who is going to do what you were doing? What about family timing (meaning with our family and who is doing what - in general)? What about retirement? Who is going to help with marketing? Etc. Very logical questions. It was great.

- I told her that I was playing a small game, similar to the old fable called "stone soup". Bring what you've got, throw it in the pot, we are making stone soup. She thought that "a community effort" was a better way to say it than calling it stone soup. She is probably right.

- A few more questions and comments from Aspen - If you have a passion about something, we'll trust you. Prove yourself! Different question, how will this look for taxes?

- Both grandmas and grandpas (Heather and I's parents) are a great resource. I'd like to let them know what we are doing.

- Talking to my son Tanner about what was going on - He said, it sounds like Legos (little building blocks).

- This is totally random, but also came from Tanner - We were talking about trying to skip things that we didn't like or couldn't do. Just being silly. All of the sudden, Tanner tells this story about one of his friends. His friend is in a wheelchair and has some disabilities. Tanner was really sore from doing something and said, I think that I'll skip leg day today (dealing with weight lifting and going to the gym). His little friend chimed in and said, I skip leg day everyday. Tanner and his friend had a good laugh at that. Anyways, it was super funny and broke the tension around the dinner table. Good stuff!

- Talk with Steve about some ideas

- Aspen recommended that I talk with Kelly (adilas power user)

- Called and spoke with my mom and dad over the phone. I then went over to their house and spent an hour with them talking about things. Great little visit. They recommended that I do some fasting and praying. My dad will be willing to give me a father's blessing this coming Sunday. Pay your tithing, server the Lord, and pray for help.

- My dad gave me a scripture to look up: 1 Nephi 4:6 - Led by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.

- I told my mom and dad about a dream that I had on Monday night about including other business owners in this software re-write and that is exactly what my parents recommended for me to do. I thought that was very interesting and awesome!

Great internal training event. John was running the show today. We had Brandon, John, Danny, Eric, Alan, Dustin, and Bryan on the meeting with us. We were going over the adilas docs (online style guide and code snippets), light review, going over conventions, components, and other style guide stuff. John was encouraging the developers to use the docs and play around with things. As a side note, John has also started some adilas server docs (major backend stuff) as well.

Lots of good discussions. Topics ranged from docker stuff, older code, bootstrap versions, and sign-off guides for development and frontend GUI stuff (GUI is for graphical user interfaces or UI/UX user interfaces and user experiences). We had some good practice sessions and John had prepped some code with some flags where he wanted us to work and change things.

It was great for all of the guys to be on the meeting. I did snap a screenshot of some of the webcams (see attached). We talked about using data 0 as the starting point or standard for a number of things. Especially if we wanted to duplicate and/or use the same things over and over again. The conversation then led over to talking about the future and where we are heading. We spent some time talking about the new framework and being able to swap out dependencies and what not.

One of the last things for the normal training session was a discussion about requests for future training and crossover training. Here is the quick list, not in any specific order.

Future Training Session Ideas
- Cfscript
- Javascript/JQuery
- Back End (Models, Services, DAOs)
- API's - Internal API sockets and external API sockets
- Ajax
- Testing
- Custom CSS & Print CSS

After everybody else left, John and I did a small review of the training session. We were chatting about options and feedback. John and I may start with some CSS and theme stuff (planning for the future). See attached for 3 different videos that we did from the training session. Great event.

After the server meeting, just Wayne, Alan, and I stayed on to go more in-depth on the framework stuff that Wayne is testing, trying, and pitching. Wayne has been spending tons of time looking into the ColdBox framework and experimenting with things. He's really going for it.

We talked about files, folders, and structure of how the application could and would work. The whole thing is setup in a rest type interface with specific paths, pages, and URL's (web addresses) to make it work. REST API or RESTful API architecture stands for representational state transfer. Basically, that deals with logical paths, files, and folders to create organization. You then place special code at each end point to do a specific task. That is part of the way it is organized. Our old site has tons of pages, all bunched into a couple of folders (all mixed together). When I say a ton of files, I'm talking thousands of files. This newer site will have like or similar pieces and pages in specific spots or places. It's all part of how it gets organized and managed. Interesting.

Alan and Wayne were talking about object-oriented coding with options for extending, inheriting, and sub classing functions, variables, and conditions. They both fully get it. I haven't had any formal training on this, but I'm picking up some of the pieces and concepts.

Next, they got into talking about limiting the handlers (receiving pages or virtual doors and windows). We covered a number of other topics such as nesting, sub classes, pre and post level page handlers, and how all deeper business logic needs to be over in the service models. Once again, it was mostly Wayne and Alan talking shop and I was listening. To translate, our existing site and pages have a bunch of things that we do every time to make sure that the page gets valid information. They are talking about doing all of that pre validation and logic as a simple handler and thus making each page smaller and not duplicating code (hundreds of lines per page).

After talking for a while, Wayne was showing us what it takes to rewrite things and pages using the new architecture and structure. We kept jumping off on tangents as Wayne was explaining and we were asking questions and making comments. Fun little interchange. At one point, Wayne had to either jump off and/or deal with something at his home. Alan and I were talking about options for permissions and limiting things even before we show them. Keeping things skinny and lite.

Here are some of my other notes. They don't really flow into nice paragraphs.

- Currently, our main pages, inside of adilas are kinda like handlers. We just don't call them that. Sometimes we call them the wrapper pages and string together some black box and/or special page includes to make it all work.

- All business logic would need to be in the services.

- Lots of talk about separating logic and views (pages).

- Using fracture (potentially more complicated) to show less (looks more simple - based on show/hide settings and configuration stuff).

- Creating rule books and using the database to help drive the pages, logic, rules, and procedures. Basically, the code gets stored in the database, where it could be updated, shared, or tweaked as needed. The pages just process the rules and/or instructions.

- Migrating data, seeding things (pre work and adding things for setup), checking for pending actions, and processing different actions. Small data assembly line stuff, for our own setup and configuration. That could be pretty cool!

- Wayne was saying, not really rewriting our code, more of moving it...

- Alan would love to help with this restructure project.

- We talked about options of how to integrate these things together.

- There are still some core changes that are needed. The key word was "core".

- Lots of talk about scale - how fast, how many, etc.

- Too many includes (code pages pulled into other code pages). This gets hard to trace down dependencies and variations if different pages are mixed together.

- We have some master copy and paste coders and developers. If that is the case, let's help them out so that they can copy and paste what we want them to do and use. If you can't beat them (some of our team may never change), then join them type attitude (give them good stuff to copy and paste).

- Tiny servlets and micro services. Everything is based off of time or events.

- We talked about budgets for both time and money. How quick can we do this? Time, money, resources?

- How long do we have if we don't do this? Not sure... meaning making changes and/or moving things over towards fracture (future plans and making the changes listed). Just part of our discussion.

- Wayne will reach out to Ortus Solutions (maker of the ColdBox framework) and see what options we have. Is there any way to use some of what they have and still keep some of our older existing stuff? We are looking for a middle ground, if possible. Basically, just a quick check to see if an option exists - mixing old code and new code and old structure and new structure. We may have to just choose one or the other, they may not cross or mingle very well (water and oil).

- Small story of how the Utah pioneers had to stop building a temple so that they could finish up the railroad. Once the railroad was done (lines completed) they were able to build their temple faster using the railroad to haul rock from the quarry to the temple site. Fun story.

- We talked about a new possible name for fracture (current code name for our future build out) and/or something that has a nice ring to it. We were thinking about "adilas lite" or something along those lines.

- What about building out a mini version, creating small modules and then charging for those pieces? Everything could be broken down into modules and sub modules.

- Originally, we were going to leave the existing adilas code alone and build something new, using the same database. As we were talking, it became apparent that we needed to build new. Meaning new code, new data, new database, new, new, new. The whole thing. As we were talking, we kept referring to ship A (existing adilas platform) and ship B (new or future adilas platform - aka fracture or adilas lite).

- Our first prototype, that Wayne is already working on, will be for payees. This is for vendors and users and will include a single sign-on option. Once again, just a prototype and proof of concept.

- Lots of great conversation about the adilas cafe and community. This is dealing with a global or master level list and access to the whole platform and/or adilas application. Imagine a single global login and then you could choose if you wanted to work (only show corporations where you have permissions and access), play (demo sites), buy things (marketplace), sell things (marketplace for goods and services - professional services), participate (community and social media stuff), and/or get some training (adilas university). Here is a link to more info and research on the adilas cafe from the developer's notebook.

- After Alan left, I talked with Wayne about percentage ownership stuff in adilas. Wayne would like to get some more ownership. He's doing a great job! We have many on our team that are really pulling the load very well. That is awesome!

- For me - adilas lite - make a simple play or plan. It could be a rough sketch or simple layout plan. Keep it simple.

Eric joined the server meeting and we were talking about the sales tax aggregates and what kind of love is needed there. It's up, working, and just needs a little bit to really be fully functional. We talked about getting that code outside of the database triggers and being able to do manual or force updates. We spent 40 minutes going over pros and cons of automated database triggers, manual switches, scheduled tasks, and how best to tackle the aggregate counts, totals, and sums. We only have a few things aggregated right now, but a ton more options are on the horizon.

We then switched to the backend and frontend frameworks that we are looking into. We got into a conversation about technical debt (older or legacy code) and where we are headed. We really want to move more into an MVC (model, view, controller) type framework and application. We would like to change the main structure and underlying conventions that we are built upon. This brought up conversations about breaking the link between view pages, model pages, and controller pages.

Cory was saying that we beat the odds of how long we have lasted on our older code set, and lifecycle as a software company. We are really good at building new things. We would like to get better at planning and strategically doing maintenance and upgrades to the core and/or foundation. Ideally, we want to take some of our older, bigger, monolith code and break it up into smaller and smaller pieces. Things like helper files, microservices, MVC models, and restful API sockets. We already do a bunch of that, but the whole thing is not yet fully there.

Our guys (developers) keep running into things that are slightly off and/or could be changed. Sometimes, that makes them slowdown and either figure out what was done and/or them wanting to fix it, to make it smoother or better. There is a maintenance cost associated with training and learning. Sometimes you only learn by dinking around and playing with things (experiments and trystorming).

We may need to get some funding in place, even to help make the plan. This has been one of the things that has been missing all along (lack of funding). Sometimes, it also feels like we need some fresh blood (new energy or new talent). We are all getting a little bit older and have been pulling this load for quite some time now. That ends up wearing on you, even if that wasn't the intent. As long as we are talking about some ideals, we would love for our code to be more robust, less fragile, and easier to make global changes. There are a lot of intricate and moving pieces. As an idea, maybe we trim our team down and keep a smaller, highly talented, but nimble developer team. We are not sure where to go. It's always a balance.

Steve was asking Wayne some great questions. We are trying to figure out a plan for making the plan. It gets deep quickly. Steve was also asking about the datasource project and where that stands (looking for a progress report).

Zoom meeting with Cory, Kelly, Steve, and I. Going over plans for sub inventory reporting. I took a number of notes. See below.

- Kelly did some prep work and had a small spreadsheet- Here is the link: Web link

- Some of the report settings need to be at the user level vs the corp or global level- for example: the new advanced part search settings. They are controllable at the corp level but not at an individual user level. We are seeing a need for deeper levels of control, per user.

- She, Kelly, found a good report (that still needs some tweaking)- advanced invoice sub line search for all item categories. The current report shows and does some sub attribute grouping (text based off of the names).

- Kelly thinks that a limit of a 31-day month (whatever the range) would work for now. For both PO line items and invoice line items. If they want to pull info per item category, no date range limit. If they want everything or "all" we limit it to a month or 31 days.

- Ideally, she would like grouped output for PO's, invoices, and items. That's where subs play (currently).

- Steve is working on some sub inventory reports right now.

- We have a currently working model in the advanced invoice sub line search. If the part category of "All" is selected, the actual search page shows all possible sub attributes as filters. We then pass that list of combined attributes over to the results page. The results page then loops over the combined list and fills out what it can. We may be able to use some of these pieces.

- As a side note, we actually looked over some code for the working model to see how it was switching, grouping, and pulling the data. For now, we may take that code and push it over to other sections as a patch and/or band-aid of sorts.

- The sub reports need all of the main line item details plus the sub information. Currently, the sub reports are only showing the sub details. Kelly wants all of the data out of the system. Cory wants to be careful not to get in trouble if we add a bunch of new columns (past history with clients complaining - changing their reports or exports).

- The reports homepage is kinda messy- We may need to rework that page to make it look better.

- We need sub attribute information on its own, parent attribute information on its own, and mixed sub and parent attribute information together. Along with this... We need these same reports for PO's, invoices, and items in inventory. We need all of these pieces. Consistency across those reports.

- Kelly is sort of stuck- helping out the clients. She is pulling tons of reports and piecing them together. She is looking for some time savings and better reporting, out of the system or out of the box vs having to pull things and piece them together.

- Up next, once we have the good reporting that we need, we can build in bulk update tools where you can see it, fix it, repull the report. Export it as needed. We need the visual representation of the data first (good reporting). The other features and tools will come later.

- Steve, Dustin, and Alan are going to be working on some bulk tools for subs.

- Be able to export beginning inventory, ending inventory, and what is in between. That's the goal.

- Kelly likes the super invoice line item search/report. Could we add on a bit there? That might be nice. We talked about creating a super sub invoice line item search (same as above with subs). Maybe a link to that new page from the bottom of the advanced invoice search page (maybe at the top as well).

- At the end of the meeting, Kelly was asking what we needed to get going. She is going to build out a spreadsheet with columns and instructions per column for us to use as a reference. That should really help. We will pass this on to the correct developer to help them know what is wanted and needed.

On a Zoom meeting with Kelly, Cory, Steve and I. We were going over a number of different topics. We started out on expense/receipts and logic on limited expense types per vendor. Kelly was saying that we should only limit things if we know enough information to actually limit things. There was an error where a vendor had been assigned to a single expense type, but then that expense type got made inactive. She couldn't get into the expense/receipt. We had her go to the vendor and remove the limit by expense type value and everything worked fine.

We then switched over to talking about sub inventory and sub inventory attributes (sub attributes). We spent tons of time and I took a bunch of notes. Here are my notes:

- Kelly went through things to find the gaps

- Parents and children are so separate - you have to know what goes where

- She started on the grouped inventory report (just shows counts from the parents).

-- She was hoping that those quantities and costs would be able to show the same values.

-- Investigating and auditing - Going deep

- Cost of sold adjustments - 2 sides on an invoice... one positive and one negative. ICC - internal cost corrections (future project) - cleaning up the dust - bulk tools are needed.

- On big reports, we need to look at the size, and maybe do backend data pulling and then showing data.

- She has to go to the usage on each one to look at what is going on.

- Accurate inventory values - this is a big lift

- She needs an extended cost per - cost * qty = extended. We just show the cost and the quantity, not the extended cost.

- Clients are saying that their reporting is way off.

- Disconnects between PO line items - parents and subs

- She was using Excel pivot tables to get super close details to what we were showing.

- Cost changes, rounding errors, some parents and some subs, negatives, etc.

- In order to find all of the possible problems, you have to get so deep in the usage and details.

- How do you help clients fix items, quantities, costs, and usage, etc.

- When auditing subs... it would really help to show which ones have which costs

- Part status - active and allow sub only - could be both.

- The knowledge level to do an audit.

- Multiple tabs open and pulling data at one time.

- Level of trust... - I could pull more data but is it even what I'm looking for?

- Pagination of the data - say 40 pages - I need it all summed up - with what was what... in/outs, cost changes, etc.

- In Excel, she had to do find and replace, build special comparisons, standardize the data, etc.

- She had to figure out what was off and then go in deeper. Basically, she would love to see the known issues or sub sets of the data. Maybe even comparing things and helping them find the issues.

- Some of the dates... in the past - you can't even fix something - How do you fix it without adjusting things going forward.

- It would be nice if there were alerts, notices, or somehow finding those problem children.

- It becomes so complicated that they skip it. It is very manual on the fully deep audit.

- Locking things down - ice-down dates - being able to lock/hide things. We need this on all of the main players.

- If there is a difference between po line items and subs, we could show the problems... all at once. Similar to the bank balance helper report.

- Read them and weep numbers - too bold

- Our basic user's comprehension is not very deep.

- There is a need for oversight, maintenance, etc.

- Helping all our users to know what the problems are. It seems like it is coming down to known issues and disconnects.

- The cost field is so important... we allow that to be changed. Kelly was saying, the cost runs downhill.

- We talked about the balance sheet homepage and that it should run a number of checks before it does it stuff, and/or we need to let people know that there is a possible problem (or problems).

- Talking about some other check fields (aggregated values) that could be held on the main to show problems, disconnects, or whatever.

- On E/R's and deposits, we allow posting and locking. Most of our PO's and invoices can lock lines, but never get to the posted level.

- We rely so much on PO's. We don't have a ton of control over them.

- People are looking for the easy button - things keep evolving and users are expecting the system to help them along that journey.

- More guardrails

- Huge need for aggregates, counts, sums, averages, maxes, mins, and other values. This is a huge need. Bigger than we can say... We are very good at getting all of the data (transactional level). We need the aggerate levels. We have so much data. We need to get it summed up and other aggerate levels.

- Controls - at all levels

- We have seen users create more issues trying to correct other issues... Tons of cause-and-effect relationships.

- Inventory that goes into the negative. Ideally, this shouldn't happen. If it does, we need to show it.

- Visibility - start here - helping our users see what is going on.

- Parent/child issues - looking for disconnects.

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

Switching over to sub attributes

- Kelly has a client that has sub inventory and existing categories and wants to re-categorize the inventory. Category to category moves, in sub inventory. This totally creates a disconnect.

- People want to consolidate their categories or break things into smaller categories. We didn't know that people would be flipping the categories. That's a higher level of flipping but it has cause and effect drop-down effect.

- Currently, all sub attributes are tracked on (or off of) the column number (not the sort order or name, literally just the column number), not the id number. This can make things go off the rails.

- Is there a quick solution? Personally, I think this is going to take some time.

- One of the biggest problems is - we can't get the reporting out that we are needed. Because of this, they start altering things to solve their need. That can cascade potential problems. They want quick reports, quick exports, etc.

- We need to be able to cross over categories.

- We think that we need a master list for sub templates. In Kelly's words, maybe build above it. Along with that, we may need to build on both sides, build above it (master list) or build below it (custom cross category mapping).

- Build and break - build and break - part of the cycle

- Steve was talking... what about the next version of sub inventory. What would this look like?

- What about bulk tools?

- Kelly's goal was to show the different sides of what we are learning.

- Software has to evolve! What is the next step?

- From Steve - It keeps feeling like our users are wanting the software to go to the AI (artificial intelligence) level.

Fixing small issues with SG&A costs with Sean. They had setup a system and started running things. They were a little bit too deep and we had to back some things out (going from child inventory to parent inventory - going upstream a bit). Sean and I were working on some back dating of invoices. He was trying to get a balance sheet in order and up to date for a demo. We found a small error, if doing some back dating and got it fixed. Lots of backend database work to get things cleaned up.

We found an issue with both loyalty points and gift cards. If the invoice date was the same as today's date, no problem. If the invoice was back dated, it went through the cart ok but the dates that got stamped were the adjusted date/time stamps based on the user's time zone offset. What we really need is the transaction date to be applied to those invoice payments and any auto clean-up processes behind the scenes. We'll get it all figured out. The way was found it was on purpose doing tons of back dating and then immediately checking the financials and backend accounting reports and records. Good stuff.

Working on the SG&A costs settings for the shopping cart. Quick phone call with Alan to go over the logic for auto pulling sub inventory behind the scenes. He had worked on a project for transitional invoices that did some of that sub inventory package manipulation stuff.

Both John and Sean were on the morning meeting. It was pretty quiet for the first little bit. Then Cory joined and had a few tasks that needed to be completed. Alan joined and they were working on some branch stuff and making sure things were merged into the correct branches. We have some server that are tracking different branches. Most of the meeting was Sean and Alan working on some changes. Alan will get all of that merged into the master branch.

Meeting with Hamid. He was showing me the progress on the business zipper website that he is building (small side project). I gave him the URL for our old site and told him to read the bottom portion that talked about the concepts of the business zipper. Here is the link and some of the text (you have to scroll down to the bottom portion of the page to get to this info).

-------

Older website text

-------

Many people over the years have asked us, what do you guys do? Why do you do that? Where are you trying to go? How long does that take? How can you do such and such and others can't? And what makes you so different? Those are some great questions. The answers vary depending on the time someone is willing to listen. :) This is somewhat of an inside joke, but sometimes we feel like saying "Did you pack a lunch?", meaning it can get pretty deep pretty quick.

To answer plain and simply, we are in the business of tracking people's data. We are a virtual data portal. The word "data" means different things to different people. The word "adilas" also means different things to different people. To some it may be CRM functionality (Customer Relationship Management). To others it might be inventory, sales and POS information (Point Of Sale). To others it might be ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or backend office functions. To others; general operations tracking, JIT inventory tracking (Just In Time), manufacturing, online expense tracking, business intelligence (BI), paperless office, document management, a CMS (Content Management System), financial data and reports, paperwork, payroll, timecards, scheduling, etc. Because we say we track "data", we need to be as deep and diverse as the term itself.

Our goal is to help you, as a user or a company, get in, get out, and be happy. Along the way, and depending on what you consider to be data, we try to help show you the whole picture of what is going on. If what we have helps you out, great! If not, that's ok. We enjoy sharing what we have learned. The adilas.biz business platform is a huge integrated tool set that allows you to play in multiple different areas. It is very scaleable and caters to custom settings and different permission levels. Your use of the system, depends on you and your needs.

The words "system" or "platform" denote more than one piece working together in harmony. A full system allows you to do things that others can't do, simply because everything may not be there.

One of our biggest strengths is helping you get your data into the system. Once in, it becomes part of the big picture. Data coming in usually means some form of "operations" or the day-to-day business that happens. We love this and have a strong focus on helping on the operation side of the equation. We try very hard to follow a logical or linear model in helping you to get your data in and out of the system as quickly and easily as possible.

We also offer some great backend office tools and accounting features. If truth be known, the reason we are able to offer you accounting-type features is directly related to how we track your data and help you do your operations. We, at adilas.biz, are actively working on a new and more modern model for accounting as compared to the current, somewhat antiquated, double entry accounting system embraced by most companies. We can run your operations regardless if you use adilas for your accounting needs or not. If you are looking for a traditional credits and debits accounting system, we may not be your product other than for your operational needs. However, if you are willing to try a more modern and nontraditional approach to accounting, you will love what we do and where we are headed. Straight up, it is new and different and we are still pioneering on a daily basis.

Here is a little background on the traditional double entry accounting model that dates back to the fifteenth century (500+ years old). Luca Pacioli, an Italian monk (friar) wrote one of the first math text books called "Summa de Arithmetica". In that book he explained about how the Italian merchants kept track of their sales which we now call "double entry accounting". This guy was a genius and a math wizard for his time. Here is the kicker, this text book came out in 1494. Two years prior to that, Christopher Columbus, in 1492 sailed the ocean blue to show people that the world was round. People were just coming out of the dark ages and entering into the age of the Renaissance. The only way that businesses could track their "data" was in giant notebooks called journals and ledgers. They had large rooms with tons of paper copies and went through different processes of recording, adjusting, and posting their data between the different journals and ledgers. Sound familiar?

Basically, they were trying to track different states and statuses of the data. Some of the processes that they used to track these changes and states of the data were called "debits" (negatives) and "credits" (positives). These debits and credits were added to things called "T Accounts". The different T Accounts made up a bigger thing called the "Chart of Accounts". The Chart of Accounts usually had a numeric value and a name associated with it. This is how they tracked things, on paper and in different notebooks. These Chart of Accounts were then added up and used in financial documents called the "Income Statement" (profit and loss statement or P&L) and the "Balance Sheet". The goal was to make sure that everything got recorded and accounted for. In order to make things balance, they had to do one entry on one side and then a matching entry on the other side of the T Accounts. Thus the term "double entry accounting". This standard has been followed for years and is currently the accepted way to do accounting. As a mater of fact, most computer systems that do some form of accounting, have basically computerized the 500 year old model and added their own little tweaks to the process.

So what makes us so different? Well, we spent the first five years working on operations. The original goal had nothing to do with accounting. The goal was to start tracking inventory and other data. We wanted to be able to quickly view things, pull reports, and even be able to show where that data was or what had happened to it over time. Through a step-by-step approach to solving our own business problems, we stumbled upon a new way of doing accounting. Basically, once we had the operations in place (this is a big key), we just kept asking the question, what happens next? We would then build the system out to that level. As we kept going, the path began to be rolled out and we just kept taking the next logical steps. This process took years and years and was only possible because we kept working at it. Concepts that were only a dream or a wish started to be right in front of us and we simply reached out and grabbed them.

Adilas can virtually track objects and data over time without using the old double entry accounting model. We still simulate some of the pieces of that model, but we do not have any journals, legers, T Accounts, Chart of Accounts, and other standard accounting features that are considered traditional requirements. We don't use the words debit or credit and we try to use as few adjustments as possible. We use technology, good data, flags, dates, checkpoints, approvals, permissions, and business mapping to run things in a linear fashion. Every entry or data object has a life-cycle and we simply track it. We are then able to go back in time and virtually ask the objects or items questions. What's your story? Who created you? Where have you been? Where are you headed? Who are your buddies? Where do you belong? When did you finish? What is your value? And the list goes on. We call it "roll call accounting". At the end of the day, we still produce an Income Statement (profit and loss or P&L) and Balance Sheet. We just arrived there through mapping data and running objects over time.

We are still pioneering and developing steps to the roll call accounting process. We've had a blast creating it and we can't wait to share it with you! Although our accounting system is not completely finished (fully automated to the highest level), we have had many companies happily use it for years. We just keep adding new pieces that make it better and better. Remember, our main goal in providing the adilas.biz system or platform is to help you track your data. Adilas can help you with your operations, accounting, or both. The model is open and flexible.

We invite you to check it out. We would be happy to meet with you in person or give you a live online demo. Give us a call TODAY! Call 719.439.1761 and ask for Steve or email us at sales@adilas.biz.

If you want more information, there is a brief history document of the making of adilas at the bottom of the page. It is a short 6 page read that tells the story of what happened when and who was involved. It has been a wonderful journey thus far and we're still going!

Just for fun, we wanted to list a few of the core concepts if you don't want to read the history document. This is just for fun... :)

When we first started, back in 2001, our original goal was inventory tracking. As things progressed, one of our main goals was to figure out a way to help fill the gap or create a "bridge" between operations and accounting. There seemed to be a very large and visible disconnect between what was happening in the field (operations) and what the final output was (accounting and final numbers). In one of our brainstorming meetings, we came up with the analogy of a "zipper". One side of the zipper was operations and the other side was accounting. Our goal was to start bringing them together one cog at a time, like a zipper being pulled upwards until it came together.

We came up with the theory "track every penny in and track every penny out". With this thought in mind, we started to track each penny from start to finish. What we found was that every transaction had a life-cycle that it went through. We decided to enter the items and data as easily as possible on the operations side and then track it through a number of steps until it found itself finished or completed. Along the way, we started time-stamping each step with a flag and a date. Each flag and date combo became what we called a "checkpoint". As each new flag was added, we would lock the prior steps below that based on permissions.

This process of passing data from checkpoint to checkpoint, based on permissions, is how we track your data. A great analogy of this process is if you imagine what it takes for water to turn into ice. This process doesn't happen all at once, it needs to go through different phases, states, or status levels. As your data passes through these different phases, called checkpoints, we simply help you flag and date the data as it runs over time. Just like the ice analogy, the water droplets are very loose at first "operations" and slowly become crystals, then slush, and finally become completely frozen or ice "final numbers and accounting".

We then use a process called "roll call accounting" to virtually map backwards in time to where the data was at a given date or time. Another synonymous term for roll call accounting is data mapping. The reason we use the term roll call accounting is because that is what we ask the computer to do. Imagine data that is flagged and dated as it goes through certain checkpoints. Pretend that the computer is an army General giving out a roll call or a flag/status report. The computer says, "I need all of the invoices that were not fully paid at such and such a date to step forward". Only these invoices would then be counted - based on flags and dates. You could then use the computer to do the math and give you the totals you need. Each time you want more information, you simply tell the computer what criteria to use for the roll call and eventually it will tell you the story of what is going on.

To sum things up "literally", by keeping track of your normal day-to-day operations, we can get very complex results like aging, histories, usage, reports, final numbers, and accounting. Thus the accounting becomes the date sensitive sum of the details. These values are what make up your "Business Intelligence (BI)" or "Big Data" concepts. It all comes back to managing and tracking your data. Because every piece of the puzzle still exists in the database, you are able to virtually go back in time and see what was where and when it moved out of each checkpoint. If the data is correct, let it flow. If a modification is needed, make the correction, lock it down, and let it keep flowing. The accounting becomes more of a check and stamp of approval rather than entering numbers from different journals or locations. When you put it all together, what do you know... All Data Is Live And Searchable.

On a Zoom meeting with Steve, Mike, Sean, and Jen going over SG&A costs (sales, general and administrative costs). I was taking some notes while listening to the guys talk about things. Steve had me show my screen and we did some drawing and discussing of possible options. We ended up going over some small scenarios and what not. Here are some of my notes:

Load and sell – SG&A

- Hang it – relationship – what is hanging on what?

- Expense over date range – say over 30 days or whatever

- Expense by percentage – say 5% per day or whatever

- Expense on one time event – everything hits right now

- Lifecyle events – everything starts, lives (whatever that is), and then everything dies

- Variable – some items will have SG&A and some will not – this needs to be a switch and/or a manual

- Selling it and grabbing all of the hangers

- Roots and branches – backwards and forwards

- Two channels – normal inventory channel and the SG&A channel

- Making a plan and road map – beat it up on paper/presentation level first before we go to code.

- Some expenses are forward facing or rear facing (we get billed for things that will happen or things that have already happened).

- The inbound hopper will be a moving, flowing, entity – once again think lifecycle

- Allocating the SG&A – there may be some that is attached and some of that may be unattached

- Ever second the balance sheet needs to be in balance.

- What do you want... ??? we need some scenarios – bring inventory in, what are the costs, what happens over time, what are the relationships and hanger values?

- Inventory comes in through PO's. We are thinking of maybe using a special E/R (expense/receipt) to handle the SG&A as the second channel.

- Steve was proposing a possible new inbound tool to help with those costs, capitalization, and flow of the data.

- Based on Steve's idea of using the PO and inventory route – we talked about selling x (real inventory) and virtually hanging z (SG&A or other hidden costs) to the same invoice.

- Mike was talking about a possible problem with PO costs and normal E/R costs and mixing them. Steve was talking about putting multiple lines or line items on each expense. Steve was also talking about a quick tool to split things out. Being able to do PO's with inventory and then adding in other costs. We talked about being able to move the AP between the PO or on the expense side. For example: $75 in real inventory and $25 in freight = 2 lines on the expense. One tied to the $75 PO and the other will be for the freight.

Scenarios:

1. 100 items for $10 per : now we have 1,000 in inventory and we owe 1,000

2. Rent for 100 – in 30 days pull it down = 3.33 per day per item divided by 100 items = .33 per on day 1

3. Hopper = 100

4. We talked about dates, calendars, and being able to hang things on different inventory item

5. We didn't really finish... we started drawing and got pulled off on a tangent...

Hostek went down a couple of days ago. Wayne was reporting on what was going on. We talked about communication and disaster recovery processes. Who does what and what are steps and responsibilities. We need to more tech support from our hosting companies. We have like 40 servers there at Hostek. Most times they do great. However, if things go wrong and/or bad, we don't get any preferential treatment. We kinda need that.

Anyways, Wayne was doing his own trouble shooting processes and found a few problems. We have a growing need for more documentation for our processes and procedures. We also need to keep some of them super secure. That makes for an interesting mix. There is also a ongoing need for more communications and keeping everybody in the loop that needs to be there.

At some point, we would like to reclaim some of the WordPress stuff on our main site. Sometimes WordPress is a high level target, with tons of plug-ins, themes, and required sequential updates. Once again, we need to get documentation for all of these pieces. The next subject was a statement that everybody needs to give us documentation and architecture layouts. Some people don't like that, don't think like that, and it's worse then torture for them. We have to figure things out and figure out who is going to do what. Everybody has talents, virtues, strengths, and weaknesses. It is tough to require the exact same things from everyone. It will end up being a moving balance.

As a side note, we may end up needing to help certain people do some of those things like documentation, training, and certain communication skills or tasks. There may be a need for a new role to help the devs and get the info out of their heads and into a consumable format. Eventually we have to get documentation on all internal and external dependencies. There is a big difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Sometimes we are pushing so hard, it's hard to slow down and virtually clean-up or sweep the floor.

We talked about having a checklist for our developers. We have an old one that Alan and I worked on years ago, but that's all that we have at this point. Some of the developers just can't do the documentation (and sadly, some of them we don't want them to do it). It seems like the next steps are helping to collect and organize the information and documentation. We have some holes that need to be filled. John was commenting that we need to add this into the budgets and project costs. We need to charge more than just the developer's time. Once again, we may be going too fast or running too hard. We are missing a part of the puzzle.

Next, we went into talking about Adobe ColdFusion uptime on hosted platforms. Wayne was reporting to Cory about a survey that he was reading and what it was saying. Cory wanted the guys (Wayne and John) to call and talk with Hostek to see if we could some things changes (service levels and response times). We need to make sure that we have the access and tools that we need. Some of our clients are 24/7 everyday, even holidays.

The new dedicated testing server was the next major topic. We switched over to talking about the data 5 server, capturing documentation, and walking through the project with both Wayne and John. They are working on both training and documentation and so it is taking a bit longer. Making good progress. John has a project that is done that needs to be tested by some outside parties. He and Wayne are setting up and managing the project queue. Cory is helping to coordinate the actual projects and the testing.

Spent some time talking about look and feel and talking about a new version of the internal shopping cart. We know that there is a need there, we are just not sure how deep to jump. We may end up doing things in a couple of rounds. Round one, just look and feel. Round two new settings to toggle on/off certain fields, sections, columns, and features. There may be another round that gets into a smart cart level (deep cart engine logic). In a nutshell, we want to remove things and make it smarter and easier.

We are looking for feedback. Talking about timing on projects, testing, and pushing things all the way until they are live and in production (and fully documented). Shari O. popped in and was asking about insurance and levels of support from Hostek. Sometimes, the lack of support can be a deal breaker. We've seen this even in sales of our system. It's a part of the puzzle that gets overlooked sometimes.

Sean and Cory joined the morning meeting. Sean was asking about parent attributes and how to use them out in ecommerce. After that, Cory needed a bulk update for units of measure (converting each to grams on a bulk scale). Alan joined the meeting and Cory was going to have him help with some of the backend data updates and data clean-up.

Cory and I were looking into some errors and needs on the merchant processing side of things. Shari O. jumped in and we talked more about standardizing our merchant processing efforts. See elements of time # 9934 for ideas on standardizing merchant processing by using Datacap as a 3rd party solution. We need a more trusted solution and we are not very good at hardware integration stuff. An outside party to handle that would be awesome!

Recording notes and working on a list of known issues. See top_secret/secure/known_issues.cfm for more information.

For fun, here is a list of some of the items listed on that page. This list originally was started in 2009. Small list of what are known problems. Some of these things are real problems and some are just warnings. Lots of things have changed since then. It may need to be updated, added to, and some of the items removed, that have been patched, fixed, and/or finished.

1. Invoice pmts on account with something different than 0.00 value.


2. Receipt pmts on account with something different than 0.00 value.


3. Reimbursements (rei's) with a bank assigned on the receipt pmt.


4. Invoices with mismatch between main and line items.


5. Deposits with mismatch between main and line items.


6. Receipts with mismatch between main and line items.


7. PO's with mismatch between main and line items.


8. Non verified payments (outstanding deposits and checks).


9. Duplicates ???


10. Dates prior to the corp start date or prior to the bank start date. See bank_balance_helper.cfm page.


11. Dates in the future. see bank_balance_helper.cfm page.


12. Internal invoices that are not marked as paid.


13. Receipt payments that are verified but the main is not verified.


14. Difference between invoices and stock numbers. Created a number of flags to show disconnect.


15. When paying back splits and rei's - what about both (main and subs) being assigned to income statement expense types? This could double things up on the income statement. Defaulted special multi build (rei and splits) to b.s. items for expense types. Still possible problem on original e/r that may get assigned to the balance sheet.


16. Update PO's not tied to a balance sheet item (say a loss account or something).


17. Lien payoff line items on invoice with a 0 cost. The cost and the price should be the same otherwise it puffs up the profit. Did run a report at one time to fix this. Also added code to the cart to match cost and price for lien payoff stuff.


18. PO payments that have the wrong date and thus the po_paid date is wrong. The system was using the current date as the payment date even if the payment was actually made in the past. Small disconnect between actual payment date (e/r payment date and PO paid date).


19. Check auto dates that are actually used in I.S. reports or B.S. reports. Need a way to manually change the auto dates if really being used. Check the unit payments, PO payments, other system made payments. The system seems to be ok, the problem is with dates and being able to either set the date when using or edit the date if defaulted to today's date.


20. Blank expense/receipts (payee_id = 1).


21. Voided items but part of it is still in play or not fully voided. Need to get to a voided list quickly.


22. Denied check requests on payables page.


23. Sales tax problem with work in progress invoices. They don't show up on sales tax reports until they get flipped back to a customer invoice. The problem is that the date (main invoice date - if not moved forward) will not show up on the next month’s tax reports. If this happens, the invoice will fall through the cracks and not be counted for sales tax. Possible option for sales tax, Steve thought that it might be cool to have a point and click interface that we physically pay taxes on certain invoices. That way, they never fall through the cracks and we only pay taxes once we collect the monies. This would also help with a system-maintained b.s. item for accrued sales tax. As an update, Eric was working on a sales tax aggregate project to automate this.


24. Along with sales tax problems, how do we show this on the balance sheet? We need to show collected, paid, and owed values. Once again, Eric has been working on this in his sales tax aggerate project.


25. Payroll has similar problems with regards to what has been paid on, what is still needed, and how do we show this info on the financials.


26. See idea in note book about showing all daily transactions. This is different than a history transaction record. This is what really hit in and out on this day in time according to the system. This is not a known issue but may help with finding issues. Daily monitoring of each account per location, per day, per account or category. This would be awesome.


27. Check for master/slave relationships between date changes. For instance main invoice date compared with invoice line items dates. PO main date with PO line items date.


28. Known issue with PO dates. Do we run off the main PO date or the PO received date? Need to standardize. Leaning towards PO received date.


29. Known issue with location based payables. Both expense/receipts and deposits have the location on the line items not the main. This means that monies could potentially get split between stores which would alter bank balances if only part of the money went in/out of the bank. Known problem here. Solution might be that banks are what they are (full monies in/out) and all sub lines and types are location specific. This could give a false indication as to how much money was available for each location.


30. What about transition invoices that have the main invoice date overlapping the transition (wip/qti) invoice date range. They don't show up anywhere other than on the main invoice homepage which doesn't tie to anything. Added a small fix on view_transition_dates.cfm page. Still need to check for possible mismatches.


31. Disconnect between sold date on units and invoice date. This is a disconnect that is unmonitored and will only show up if pulling a sold report (units) and an invoice report for the same time frame.


32. When backing up the main bank start date, there is a problem with expense payments and deposits that have a date before the main start date and a verified date after the main date. The payment or deposit date is not counted but the verified date is. I had the same problem with Leanna in Poncha and with Drew Middlemiss doing his first bank statement. What a pain. See the bank_balance_helper.cfm report (5/16/09) for small fix. Still a known problem with a starting bank balance not being 0.00.


33. Advanced pmt on invoices (pre-paid). They hit the bank because they were deposited but they also need to show up as a liability to offset the deposit or cash going up. This should be a system maintained item.


34. What about deposit types of other income that are assigned to invoices (double counted)? The default is an invoice hits the p&l and only deposit line items that are under other income and revenue adjustments hit or the p&l.


35. What about bad debt? Do we want to create a system maintained items for this?


36. What about deposits that are made before pmts are posted to invoices. This is not backward compatible.


37. Know disconnect between PO dates. The main PO date is currently used as the main search date. The PO received date is the main b.s. date. We are thinking that the main date may become somewhat of a request date or a age player only. The main date will become the received date with the received flag.


38. If a check request gets approved and assigned to a bank but never written out (bank never sees it), there seems to be a problem. There is also a problem with older check requests and the dates that are set in the background. They are uneditable once the request changes into a normal e/r.


39. Known issue with i.s. (income statement) deposit types. If used, without an invoice, they don't show up on the income statement. They may also be double booked if on an invoice and also recorded as other income or revenue adjustment.


40. What about payments made on a PO before it was received. This could happen with a request PO or a basic PO that has not yet been received.


41. What about inactive (status) on parts and subs. If we have details (activity) but something is inactive, that could cause problems.


42. Levels of inventory - this could deal with parents, subs, and usage details. We may need to check costs, quantities, dates, etc. Sub inventory was added way after 2009 (original date of this report). We may want to spend a whole session just going over sub inventory levels and possible pit falls.


43. Steve, Kelly, Molly, and others have lists of balance sheet challenges and other known issues. Check with them and get their lists.


44. Ecommerce and what plays into the real mix from there - invoices, taxes, costs, prices, discounts, payments, quantities, elements of time, etc. Good questions? Some of this is already figured out, it just needs a little bit of loving.


45. What about aggregates (somewhat new for us and just barely getting rolled out) and making sure things match up. Category (could be whatever), by day, by location - are there update processes that may be ran to keep things up to date. Manual updates, API sockets, watchers and feeders.


46. What about backorders? Steve did a whole section on backorders but I'm not sure if we tied in everything to the balance sheet and P&L. Anyways, may need to circle back around.


47. What about banks that get turned on/off (active/inactive). If we go back in time, we need to know if they were playing.


48. Same is turn with location. If they get turned on/off (active/inactive), we need to know when they were playing. We may need a start and end date and then be able to pull things accordingly, even if the current state or status is inactive.


49. What about cost of goods sold on unlimited or special line items? They should be a $0.00 cost because they are unlimited (like a labor or a service). If a cost is needed, it needs to be allocated through an expense to the COGS section or distributed in a thing called SG&A costs. SG&A (selling, general and administrative expenses - aka accounting for general costs by attributing them to a single unit and thus incorporating the true costs into an item). Basically, you take a normal expense like the electric bill or rent and build it into the individual cost of each unit by unitizing the expenses and virtually spreading a bigger general cost to smaller pieces. Sometimes that type of process (SG&A) is required for certain manufacturing and/or production type products. Basically, they (the IRS) don't allow you to expense off the whole expense (rent, insurance, waste, electric, etc.) as a bulk item. It has to be distributed to each smaller piece. If you do real SG&A, it helps assimilate those costs in smaller percentages and thus passing on a truer look at real costs of goods sold.


50. Anything that is currently marked inactive but may have played a role at some point. This could be locations, banks, part categories, items, vendors, customers, etc. Often, if we make them inactive, they don't get pulled (but maybe we need them at some time in the past).


51. Other special account options such as in-store credits, vendor credits, punch cards, etc. We already have loyalty points and gift cards that use special accounts. Maybe expand on this and allow for custom options or other digital payment accounts or payment solutions.


52. I'd love to map out all of the existing balance sheet and P&L values. Make it more widely known and really put it out there. Right now, it all happens behind the scenes and is kinda like a magic box. I'd love to get it all mapped out and presented to the public. We'll get feedback, refinement, and maybe even some other really good ideas. That's my vote, let's get it all out there in the public eye and public realm.

We started out the server meeting and Cory wanted to check on the data 34 server. It was reported that it was running slow. Wayne logged in and looked around. They ordered some more RAM for the database server. Pretty cool to see how quickly they can jump on things.

Next, we started talking about a client and their balance sheet. I mentioned to Cory that we have on our wish list a report that would show known issues (bad dates, things done out of order, or other possible problems that we could detect and/or figure out). That would be so cool. As a side note, the page already exists, it just hasn't been built out yet. Definitely on our wish list for fracture. This could help all of us out and make things more transparent and visible.

Both Wayne and John are working on documenting things on the server level. It's far from done, but they showed up a 3 page document (just the start) of the outline or outline of the server layered architecture design document. Pretty cool. Starting to see that being worked on. I'm excited to see what they come up with.

The next major conversation was dealing with adilas phones, phone trees, and other forms of digital communication. We had some open discussion about do we want to keep it, who is going to support it, who is going to maintain it, and so forth. This piece is kinda flapping in the wind. We also talked about, if we want to, allocating both time and money and getting that code and/or process fully inhouse. Right now, it is a virtual 3rd party entity, even though we technically own it. The prior owner/developer is the only one who really knows what is going on inside there. We talked about different technologies that we could and would use if we brought it fully under our control or under our roof.

The reason that the adilas phones stuff got brought up was because of this document that they are building out for the system architecture and layered plans. Hopefully, we'll uncover other issues and/or dependencies that we need to look at and evaluate (spend/don't spend, maintain/don't maintain, market, pitch, let it die, etc.). We kept getting off on tangents. Cory did a great job keeping the discussion going in a good direction. Once setup, we will provide an open VPN (virtual private network) for our developers to be able to remote into the testing box to push code and make changes.

After that, we got into talking about the testing server and what our plans are for that. We have a client's data that we want to move off of a production server and put in the Amazon cold storage or Amazon Glacier. As we were talking about the testing server, Shari O. was sending questions and comments through the chat feature on the GoToMeeting account. We are making progress there and making headway.

We got into talking about insurance, coverage, errors and omissions, and general cyber security, and data breaches. We have a 3rd party integration that is pushing on us and wanting all kinds of certifications and proof of insurance coverage. Everybody but John and I had to leave to jump on other meetings or calls.

After that, John and I spent some time doing a code review on his recipe/build rework stuff. We talked about a new possible user-level setting for using the time-pickers vs an open entry time field. John likes the time-pickers. I had to take them out the other day due to a few clients complaining. That sounds like a perfect option for a user-level setting. We also went over new options for showing progress bars and helping the users know which step they are on and what is still needed to complete a certain task and/or process.

As a final comment for the meeting, John said - "The ROI (return on investment) for the testing server will be internal peace of mind." I liked that.

Emails and a phone call with Shari O. about corp specific tables and Metrc compliance settings. Light tech support and looking things up with Shari O., while on the phone. Sent out an email to Alan about filters, settings, and corp specific tables.

Various different things. Small data fix for a client and their costs of goods sold. Flipped a bunch of costs to $0.00 for unlimited items. They had a cost associated with those items and it was throwing off the balance sheet. Part way through, I noticed that some of the items on my list were actually real inventory items tied to sub inventory. I stopped and made some notes. I called and left a message for Cory.

Did some emails, light tech support, text messages, and finally heard back from Cory. I jumped back on the data clean-up project and only modified the unlimited items. Light backend database updates and changes for a client. Little clean-up project. Sent an email out to Cory and Shari O. with notes on what I ended up doing.

Cory and John were going over a review of a dashboard mock-up and layout that John was working on. After that, we talked about getting documentation for the main adilas servers. We have like 40 of them. Currently, a lot of the real nuts and bolts are in Wayne's head. We need to get that information out of his head and into a more tangible state (both paper and digital). If we ever needed to get a new server admin guy/gal, we would need this information. John has a bunch of it, but not all of it. Wayne has told us that he is getting close to retiring (at some point).

Along those same lines, there is so much to know and coordinate to really make everything work smoothly. John was talking about doing a software architecture drawing and doing some systems design work. We have been building this thing for over 20 years, it sure would be nice to build out something to show the visual architecture, flowcharts, and database model. We have it all, we just don't have the visuals or 10,000 foot level models. Think of all of the natural and possible connections and relationships. That could be a pretty hefty project, to document all of that. Anyways, we talked about some projects to get that information out of the minds of a few and into our hands to distribute as needed (paper, visual, and digital models).

I won't go into all of it, but we went over ideas for setting up those visual models and then keeping those things updated. There will be some ongoing maintenance that will be required. Who is going to do what? Who does do what (right now)? etc. Figuring out ways to transferer knowledge and be able to store and search that knowledge. John has some server docs where we could record things. Wayne joined the meeting and we briefly covered some of these same topics over again with him.

The next major topic was dealing with how we build and deploy custom code. Basically, we went over the progression of the black box  and black box code from the ecommerce site and side of the fence into the secured environment. Wayne had some questions and was trying to follow some of the logic for different black box code sections. He would love to help us standardize things and make it more uniform. We have lots of comments in our code, but we are really lacking in real documentation on almost all levels. In a way, that's a form of technical debt. We will keep circling back around and pick up the pieces as we are able. Ideally, we will figure out and document the best practices. We will then really try to stick by those practices. Another big part of this is making sure that all of our guys/gals follow those best practices.

The conversation progressed and we started talking about moving our older code out of linear processes and more into services and functions. Once this happens (on all levels) we would not be as bound to our linear flow and would be able to jump around more, as needed. We have already been making this move and Alan has been refactoring and building out all kinds of services. This is just a pitch to make it more global and system-wide.

Next, we got into some bug tracking and error logs. We have seen a number of errors in the logs but no one has reported those errors, especially out in ecommerce. We have a feeling that it is automated traffic, outside hackers, and/or bot traffic. It seems like instead of following existing patterns and page flow, the automated traffic is skipping steps and thus introducing certain flow errors that we can't duplicate by doing normal processes. Anyways, we spent some time looking at the error logs.

Cory was asking about why we care about those other errors. Wayne was explaining that certain errors, especially if we get a bunch of them, then to crowd out other more important errors (they get buried in the midst of all of the non-important errors). Currently, our goal is to fix what we can along the way. This lead to more discussion on documentation and being able to show people what our way is and why we do it that way.

Some of our projects are being delayed due to waiting patterns and/or approvals. We have things ready and planned but are either lacking approval, budgeted funds, or something else if waiting in the wings that needs to come first and/or before some other step (virtual fires and priorities). Cory really wants us to try to focus on getting the system architecture stuff documented and creating those visual models. Internally, we will book some of this time as server training time.

Eventually, we will need to do documentation and training on backend stuff as well as frontend stuff. Wayne and John are going to start doing some of the backend architecture stuff here in the next few weeks and months. We will keep chipping away at things.

Both a pro and a con - there are so many custom integrations that we have done, nobody knows all of them. Sean and spent 45 minutes going over credit card gateway problems, issues, and options. This could be how credit cards get entered into the system (manual keyed, swiped, or chip reader and other hardware options) or how each gateway acts or reacts (different variables, paths, and requirements).

I'm going to request some documentation from Eric, Alan, and Bryan. They have all worked on different merchant processing integrations within adilas. We need to help and gather some of that documentation up for tech support and our sales team. That is much needed information. Otherwise, we are somewhat blind as each integration is so different.

Dustin jumped on the meeting, and I helped him get pointed in the right direction on a required file for doing QR codes. Cory had an icon app email issue and we looked into it for a bit. There seems to be a duplicate number in the email settings. We also chatted with John about the chooser and choose more interfaces. John and Cory were going over changes to the chooser. Lots of different opinions - some like numbered, others like alphabetical, and some want to be able to search.

Once again, nobody knows all of the pieces. That creates a mystery of sorts. Also, it is hard to pick things up (projects) after the fact. Without the knowledge of what was going on and what was requested, some of the pieces, by themselves, don't make much sense. It's all part of a bigger puzzle.

Cory was checking in on projects, bugs, and what not. She had a list, and we went through things. We talked about some quotes and numbers for a client dashboard. We need to get to the duplicate recipe project for Kelly. We set a date for the 15th of this month to be finished with that project. We scheduled some time and now we just need to do it.

We spent some time looking at a client's data. Small little fix and trying to help a client with their financials. They had some bad costs of goods sold that didn't have a real backing (they plugged the numbers) and thus it was throwing off the balance sheet.

At the end, Cory was saying that she is trying to help support me and the other developers on our projects and time lines. That is awesome. Sometimes (often) we need the help.

Back to the main index for the master adilas plan

Master Adilas Plan - Jellyfish Model

Brainstorming Ideas and Topics:

- How big do you want to be? – See also the internal questionnaire responses and survey - tons of good info there - almost a mini plan by itself. Also, question 7 on the survey has a whole write up on the adilas jellyfish or jelly fish model and explains it further.

- The adilas jellyfish model - see attached - covers almost all of the departments and sub sections of what we are trying to be as a company. It is not the main product, but more of our internal and external departments, areas, and general areas that we will keep refining and working on.

- Possible numbers for the jellyfish model. Going from top to bottom and from left to right.
1. adilas.biz
2. Admin
3. Monthly Reoccurring Service
4. Sales & Marketing
5. Setup & Training
6. Tech Support
7. Design
8. Custom Code
9. Consulting
10. R&D
11. Project Management
12. Internal Development & Maintenance
13. Adilas University
14. Adilas Marketplace
15. Adilas Cafe & Community - Adilas World
16. Databases, Networks, Servers, & IT

Areas, sections, and departments in more detail:

** for me - go deeper into each section **

1. adilas.biz

• Are we going to stay the same entity? Are we the same or are we different entities? Are we rebranding? Are we piggybacking?
• What version are we on?
• Adilas.biz or adilas lite? Branding? Marketing? etc.
• The thing that keeps us all together is the reoccurring monthly services subscription for the main adilas.biz system. It has been the glue that keeps us together.
• Offering upgrades from ship A (current adilas) to ship B (fracture or adilas lite)
• What are our goals for ship A? What are our goals for ship B? Are we building it up to sell it? Are we going to be replacing ship A? How do you transition between the two.
• We want to make our current product better. It then grew into a full or bigger rewrite. It seems to be changing more and more. Originally, it was pretty small changes.
• Timelines to get things done? What will it take?
• Ship A will be great salespeople for ship B, once ready.
• If people change from ship A to ship B, there needs to be an increase or at least a re-evaluation of monthly fees and services.
• Ship B, we are planning for tiered pricing and dynamic billing based on functions, sizes, usage, storage, and preset packages.
• Ship B, they can toggle on/off different settings, include other features, and change what they want. All of this will reflect on dynamic billing options.
• Talking about future plans - selling it, royalties, secession, retirement, etc.

2. Admin

• The admin's role is to manage the budget, make decisions as to the direction that we need to go, do HR type functions, payroll, manage the different groups and departments, communication channels, general running of the day to day business.
• This could be one person, multiple people, a board, a council, etc. Somebody or some entity needs to be in control.
• Co-owners, Co-Founders, CEO's, presidents, vice-presidents, board members, etc. We can figure that out.
• If we do one person, we need to have VP's or managers in the other departments.
• One of our problems is that none of us (on the current team) want to be that person or take on this whole responsibility.

3. Monthly Reoccurring Service - aka Billing (new name)

• This is billing, invoicing, receiving, dealing with monies coming in and reaching out to our clients.
• Accounts receivables
• This could be tied in with admin roles
• Debt collection, bad debt, accounting, financials, etc.
• Setting up new corps (currently) and sending welcome emails and collecting business contact info.
• Bank reconciliation, paying bills, prep the budget info, etc.
• We could automate some of this, in the future.

4. Sales & Marketing

• We like that they are together. This is anything to generate and keep new clients to keep coming in and paying for our services. This could be publicity, knowledge about the system, get new demos, entice our clients to buy and keep buying from us. Serving their needs.
• Currently, the main method of marketing is word of mouth and referrals.
• We have used sales reps, consultants, and light networking. Steve and Kelly have been some of our biggest sales type people.
• We want to listen to what feedback they are bringing back. Currently, the sales people and the developers almost live in two different places.
• Sales should have a good pulse on what is working, what is not working, and what people and our clients are asking for. We tend to get lots of good ideas from clients. Sometimes, what that takes or the priority, that can get tricky.
• How big do we want to be? Get everybody or get enough (sufficient)? Keep pushing into other markets or be content with good ROI?
• Helping with market research, looking around and checking out markets, and what do we need to do to penetrate those markets?
• We almost feel like being in no man's land - too big for just a few people to push on it, not quite big enough to really have the team that we need to push it. Do we push and go bigger? Or do we trim down and keep it like it is (not really coasting but strategically developing as we can)? There are associated questions about speed, reliability, and uptime.
• Along with sales and marketing, there are expectations that are set and keep changing (trends and expectations).
• We need to know who we are servicing. Currently, we are kind of all over the place. We have little accounts, medium accounts, and some big accounts. We could go any direction. We just need to decide. Where is the sweet spot?
• If we want to be big and grand, we will need some major funding and thus major sales and marketing. Or do we figure out the sweet spot and really refine and focus in on things.
• Making things more stable and more reliable. Keep improving.
• We have a lot to offer - no one has even heard of us.
• The new and upcoming business owners are going to be fully connected and have certain expectations. If you want to get those guys/gals, you're going to have to revamp things.
• Our current mix is very developer heavy. We really need to switch that focus and get things that people want. Easy, Powerful, and Pretty!
• We need this department to really keep us in the know on what is going on. Currently, we don't have anyone fully dedicated or assigned to this department. We've been missing this piece.

5. Setup & Training

• Originally, we didn't charge for any of this. We just wanted people to get on our system. We are now charging for this and even trying to presale some of the training, deployment, and setup stuff. We are finding and have found, that people who get setup correctly and have the correct amount of training stay longer on our system. It has a learning curve, and that proper setup and training goes a long way.
• Currently, one of our system admin persons has to go in and create the corp, do a bunch of the settings, assign the master users, setup the logos and colors, and get them going. Most of that requires someone from our team to hold their hand along that process.
• Futuristically, we really want to help automate a bunch of that. Have them setup their own corp, let them pick what industries they want to play into, help them with their settings (wizard style), and then even help them pull in their data (without any other involvement). Let them create a test account or a free version, play around, and then either upgrade or get some help.
• Offer services to help our clients. Also have a number of self-help tools and features to let them do it themselves.
• We would love to develop a number of preset packages and industry specific skins.
• We would like the setup and training to be coupled with education and the adilas university side of things. They are very related.
• Getting products, customers, vendors, and other info into the system easily. Currently, we have to do a bunch of that (data imports) on a one-by-one basis. We need to make that more global and self-help level.
• Provide a good starting point to help them succeed. Show them the benefits and advantages of doing it our way or how we help them succeed.
• This department or division could include the adilas university, training, tech support, setup, and training.
• Easy access to get help and direction if needed.
• We see a lot of user error type problems. Figure out ways of helping them stay in their lane better or put up guardrails or bumpers to keep them on track.
• It has only been recently that we have added more focus on the setup, deployment, and training.
• This department could also include on-going training and retention. That is huge. Things constantly keep changing and we keep adding on new features.

6. Tech Support

• Currently, we allow people to email or call for tech support. It's free but often bleeds over into full on training, not tech support.
• We could build out a report a bug or open up a ticket or an issue. Make it easier to get support.
• We could provide better help files, tips, how-to's, videos, tutorials, and in-person training events.
• Everybody uses the system so differently, that makes it kind of tough. It would be nice if we have tech support stuff that was industry specific or catered to a specific industry.
• Tech support really should be part of the training, setup, and deployment stuff.
• Tech support could be a small carrot for deeper training and/or offering other paid services.
• Helping to show the value of deeper training and education.
• Having a standard way of getting to training and even industry specific training.
• Offer some adilas university training courses - covering various subjects on scheduled dates/times.
• Really helping to push the training and education stuff. Tech support should be quick, temporary, and non reoccurring. Show them the benefits of getting properly trained.
• As we move forward, we are planning on simplifying things. That should help with the training needs and the tech support stuff. Helping them figure it out on their own.
• If people (our clients) really want more tech support, we could offer more robust or advanced support packages.

7. Design

• This could be websites, forms, reports, interfaces, dashboards, UI/UX (user interfaces and user experience). This is the pretty and easy part of it. The powerful may be from a feature or backend process.
• Most of our current guys are developers, not designers.
• We don't charge enough, as such, we tend to skimp on the design phases and processes. This tends to get skipped or minimalized.
• We tend to do function over form - however, most clients say that they want function over form, but really, they want form over function - they want it to work and look pretty.
• Our project management tends to be a simple one liner. Do such and such. No other plans, requirements, mock-ups, or fixed specs exist.
• Mock-ups, prototypes, samples, wireframes, flow charts, graphics, videos, etc. We want to show the plan, air it out, and then build to the specs.
• Modern look and feel and user experience keeps changing. We need someone to keep watching and keeping up with trends, expectations, and options. This needs to be monitored and maintained regularly.
• Figuring out and sticking to a style guide. We do have a section called the "adilas docs". We have been working on it, but it has not been fully adopted yet. We need to set those standards and then stick to it. This is our style guide, and we are sticking to it.
• Doing some test cases and getting user/client feedback. How did their experience work out and what did we learn from that?
• Planning in maintenance and upkeep.
• Our clients squawk at things not being consistent. I don't mind change but I don't like some change and other things not being consistent. We could also introduce settings.
• We could allow the users, or corporations, to choose their default layouts. Horizontal forms, vertical forms, stacked forms, or auto formatted. We also want to store those settings and allow them to change it on the fly on per user basis.
• We need some consistency - this deals with who the designer is, what we are designing and outputting, people's preferences and opinions, and where we are heading. We can all be different, but we need to be consistent.
• Allow people to try things out and/or fully switch over.
• There is a point when we need to keep moving forward so we don't have to keep supporting all of the older styles and themes. Help make that as smooth as possible.
• We have some needs for design work out in ecommerce, customer facing sites, portals, and even business websites or web presence stuff.
• We need designers to help with marketing and social media stuff. Once again, consistency, specific plans, strategic campaigns, etc.

8. Custom Code

• This is one of the things that really sets us apart from other systems. We love it and even encourage it.
• We currently have tons of black box options. That was a solution at the time. There are some great concepts there (black box stuff) but we did run into problems.
• The code base keeps changing. We have had people ask for things, we build it custom for them and then wrap back and make it standard. The ones who got the custom version are now off on their own vs being fully integrated into the main codebase.
• We offer a lot of this. Having said that, we don't charge enough.
• We would like to move as much as possible to data driven settings and permissions.
• One of our current issues in maintainability. If it was on the side (like a black box page) it got left behind. The main pages always got updated but anything custom was harder to test, and harder to main it.
• If we do custom code, we need to build in some maintenance costs to help maintain that.
• We could do a community type approach - who ever helps build it out, gets a commission or a usage fee for others using it. Kinda like a sponsorship or something. We just need to get enough to plan it out, build it out, test it, market it, and then do some sort of kickback or reoccurring usage fee. There may be different levels  - one-time, reoccurring, built in, full one-off custom code, settings, combined projects (we pay, they pay, we then get to use it).
• Custom code should be by our internal developers and internal development team. We need to make sure that it works and doesn't affect something else.
• We have had some maintenance issues. Who made it, what does it do, how does it work, what does it touch, what else does it touch up/down stream, where does it live, how can you get to it, and was there any planning or testing done to the custom code? Tons of potential far reaching questions.
• If we build something... we really need to get an ROI and market those pieces.
• We could do some pay as you go build outs. Monthly fees that get added to their bill. They could pay upfront and then get a payment plan, or set it up on a reoccurring basis, or whatever.
• We need to charge enough. We often shoot ourselves in the foot. We charge pennies to build on top of multi-million dollar platforms and applications.
• We need good planning, good project management, good estimates, and then good developing.
• Estimates - take what you think it will take and double it. Then double that. It's almost a 4x ratio. By the time you add the work to get the work, the work before the work, the work, the work in between the work, the work after the work. It all plays in.
• Paying for both quality and speed.
• On the estimates, we also need to think about opportunity costs and what are we not working on, while doing custom code work.
• Approving custom code. Just because someone wants it... doesn't mean we should build it out. How does it fit with our mission statement, goals, and overarching plans and rollouts?

9. Consulting

• Byproduct of the main reoccurring business services. Once we are in, the system starts generating byproducts and people need to know what is next, how to do certain things, where they could go, options, next steps, phases, etc.
• We haven't really tapped into this yet. We do it, but we could do it so much more.
• This could be tied into the training, setup, and education stuff. Teaching our clients the best way to use the system to get the most out of the system or platform.
• You start getting into paying for knowledge and experience and expertise.
• We have seen many of our power-users become consultants. They know the system, they know how to make it run, sing, dance, and play. That provides a value to others. Those people then offer their expertise and know how to help others.
• Currently, some of this is done on the side. Adilas has no part in it, and no kickback exits. We would love to bring this more inside but that takes money to keep those people on call or on staff.
• This could be a great thing to add to the adilas marketplace.
• We may allow some outside stuff to go on, but we need some rules. We could configure this any way we want, we just need some rules.
• This could be part of the adilas cafe scenario - our clients seeking out a professional to help them out.
• Do we want to manage this internally? What would that look like? Once again, we may need some rules here.

10. R&D

• Research and Development - You have to spend time here to move the ball forward. If you aren't going to move forward, nothing will happen, you will live and die. You have to keep up, especially with tech stuff.
• Exploring different avenues - there are costs for exploring.
• Cutting edge, bleeding edge, sweet spot, new ish, or older/classic?
• How much does it cost to be on that cutting edge?
• Vision, plans, and looking to the future. Where are we/you heading? Plans, how are you going to get there?
• It really comes down to where do you want to play (on the spectrum)?
• Training what is new.
• Maintenance for what was or has been developed. Technical debt.
• Stable and known or less stable and new - How quick will the older pieces change and/or be deprecated? If it's so new, it may not even stick.
• We make things and then it sits on a shelf. That hurts. There could be difference between development that didn't get fully funded vs totally new prototyping and experimenting.
• Is this something we should do? On not? Figuring out what it takes to make something happen.
• Looking into speed, efficiency, demand, cost analysis, needs analysis, scope, scale, and reality of doing certain things.
• Beta testing, prototypes, experiments, testing, pushing boundaries.
• Currently some of our R&D is mixed in with our code. We try things to see if it works. Without being consistent with other pages and code. We often have good intentions (prepping for the future - mini stubs or prepping for stuff) but then get pulled on to other projects. We do a lot of experimenting within our projects. Almost a revolving door or revolving code set. Basically, a fully working, living prototype.
• We are seeing a mix between custom code, R&D, and project management.
• Back tracing or reverse engineering things. Sometimes if you know what you want, you can then figure out a way to get there, that might be easier or better.
• Being aware of what's out there? How could I use some of that in my projects?

11. Project Management

• We have really been missing this piece. We do a ton of just in time project management. We are not very good at doing a more full design, plan, or architecture type layout.
• We do a lot of this one-on-one right now. One project and one developer.
• The project manager can and does act as the shield between the client and the developer. Buying some time or deflecting decisions.
• They help with quotes, estimates, and project specs, scope, costs, timelines, and details. Lots of potential back and forth communication is needed.
• We have spent a ton of time and money going back and fixing things that should have been planned out originally. We have also spent money where a developer makes a decision and just does something and doesn't ask or doesn't get any clarification.
• Teams - authority, accountability, and responsibilities - setting up clear expectations. We have played around here a bit. We need to refine things here a bit, based on our needs. We had some people who were so worried about how to do scrum that it didn't actually happen. We also had some problems with free riders. We want to use some small teams, but still need to get it refined a bit better.
• Dealing with teams, we were trying to do some training... and we didn't really have it all defined. Wasted time in meetings, talking about code, and what is needed. We then fall down based on assumptions or just verbal communication. It needs to be just a little bit deeper and more consistent.
• Team sizes and dynamics.
• As a project manager, not assigning yourself to a required task. Actually, make an assignment to do the project management.
• Someone needs to be available and be the virtual babysitter. Getting rid of hurdles and what is expected of them. Helping them stay on task/track. The project manager's job to help other people succeed.
• Slowdown
• We build and build and build... we need to slow down and test it, train on it, market it, and push it.
• Being able to plan it out so that we can reuse as much code as possible. Giving the developers guidelines, handrails, samples, and good instructions. If it's too tight, they don't want to do it (it takes out the fun of figuring it out). Figure out what developer needs what (how detailed) and then play accordingly. Developers need to accomplish something. Not just follow A-Z and you're done. It is a mix and a spectrum.

12. Internal Development & Maintenance

• This internally funded by adilas to work on adilas. This comes from revenue and budgets to keep the system up and running.
• Bug fixes, maintenance, changes, next steps, phases, testing, documentation, code review, etc.
• This needs to be tied into project management and custom code.
• This is the most defined area that we have inside of adilas.
• We get a plan from project management, we then build it out, test it, deploy it, and make sure that it works.
• We have had problems with guys following style guides. Everybody has their own ideas on what a good style guide is. This could be whitespace in code, tabs, naming conventions, etc. It also happens on the look and feel part of page or report.
• Alan had the idea of having a way of helping to force or standardize the output. Almost a forced style guide or validator of sorts. It all has to comply to a certain standard. Whitespace, naming conventions, comments, indents, variable names, components, etc.
• Keeping things separated - backend, database, objects, services, views, logic, functions, classes, etc.
• In object-oriented programming, you need good encapsulation (only contains what is needed) and low coupling (lower number of steps as possible).
• There is some great value in teams and getting different points of view. A better solution because we worked on it as a team. More well-rounded.

13. Adilas University

• This goes hand in hand with the training and deployment section. This is the training arm of the system. It may also tie in with tech support or consulting. We could combine some of this as needed. Similar type people and knowledge resources.
• General topics for training - One, how do you use the system? Two, how do you run your business? Consulting is a part of this as well - what are the best business practices and how to get the most out of the system.
• There could be standard stuff, custom stuff, and internal stuff.
• Each page would have how to videos, quick videos, and options for more or deeper training.
• We also need to offer some custom or live training events.
• For fracture, we experimented with a thing called the education mode. You could turn it on/off and the system would hide or show more options and information. You could turn it on from any page and all of sudden it would react differently. We have some great screenshots on this from Jonathan Wells. Along with this, the help files could be shown, side-by-side with the page that they are referencing. There were also options to toggle into the actual adilas university site as a tab withing the side-by-side help window.
• There is a known missing gap here on the education and training side of things.
• There could be free levels, basic stuff, and deeper more paid type levels of training and consulting.
• There could also be certification levels, requirements, status, and other testing and certification stuff.
• We are hoping that the adilas lite and fracture project will make it even easier to help train the users and because they can tweak everything, there will actually be less of a need for certain pieces of the education and training. They will still be there, just hidden as needed.
• This could be a whole other business entity, if needed.
• A new user really wants to be guided through - holding their hand. An advanced user may not want any of that stuff in their way, just let them do it quickly.
• Link to this from the adilas cafe.
• If we do certifications, maybe show or allow some of that basic info to show to other users, if they are seeking trained professionals to help them out.
• If we have trained users, those become a value to others who are looking for help or pros on those topics.
• Adilas University could be a stand-alone product, or it could be interwoven with the entire site. Both have the same content, they just either have a standalone navigation system or we help navigate for them based on what page the users are on (context stuff).
• There could be levels to the training... Think of a triangle - simple, basic, intermediate, advanced, and deep or backend logic or design level stuff.
• There may be both external and internal training pieces. Along with that, we may have to have permissions or something that open/closes those training modules for certain people or parties.

14. Adilas Marketplace

• Part of the adilas cafe. People could sell their products and services, buy products and services. Including adilas skills and other professional skills.
• Adilas creates lots of byproducts. This is a way to help harness and gather up those byproducts. 
• Options for 3rd party solutions, white labeling, advertising, marketing, etc.
• Online mini marketplace for adilas products and/or our users could sell their products and services on a mini Amazon or eBay type level (mini consignment type shop built for our users and companies that use our products).
• Possible payment solutions with interest, fees, commissions, and other small kickbacks for using the marketplace.
• Limitless potential for other byproducts and additional services that could be added on to this piece of the puzzle.
• This may need a separate team to help run, manage, and administer this piece of the puzzle. Automate as much as possible.
• Here is a rough draft - Russell did - way back - don't get stuck here... It could be so much more. Adilas Market

15. Adilas Cafe & Community - Adilas World

• A landing spot outside of any corporation or entity.
• A corp selector - where can I go (have permissions or access)?
• Get to the marketplace type stuff.
• Get to the adilas university stuff.
• Forum type stuff - ask Q&A type stuff. This could be answered by staff and/or other users. This would need a moderator or forum manager.
• Let people show that they have the skills that others (businesses and/or individuals) could be looking for. This may include direct messaging or some other way of communicating.
• White labeling options.
• Standardized portal - single sign in be able to jump between servers and corporations.
• Dynamic billing and making payments.
• Mini marketplace for adilas products.
• Sales and creation of new accounts - tiered pricing and auto setup options
• News and updates - configure news feed as needed.
• Interface with other companies and corporations. Get assigned, hub type model.
• Work, play (demo sites), buy, sell, training, social stuff, and participate.

16. Databases, Networks, Servers, & IT

• This is the whole backend of the application or hardware side of things.
• Load management, reliability, up time, speed, redundancy, backups, storage, orchestration, etc.
• Lots of security needs and requirements. They will also be majorly involved in implementation of security.
• Code interacts with these things, but they are separate entities or divisions.
• We will need our own documentation, permissions, training, etc.
• Maintenance and upkeep, prototyping, standardizing, testing, databases, servers, hardware, clusters, network, security, IT stuff.
• Patches, updates, protection, hacker prevention stuff.
• Email servers, text or communication servers, web servers, database servers, backend logic servers (ColdFusion or whatever).
• Monitoring services, requests, traffic, load balancing, stats, specs, remote access, database indexing, automation scripts, tons of IT type stuff.
• Migration stuff, off-hour updates and maintenance, backups, restores, and other tasks.
• Move data around, put things into and out of cold storage, special bulk data manipulation stuff, zip and archiving things, etc.
• Future proofing things.
• Offloading bigger or longer processes.
• API sockets, API endpoints, and being able to load balance traffic, requests, deal with sessions, server config, clustering, and managing small microservices.
• We need a way to get rid or purge some of the pieces. The current system builds and builds. It never really releases or virtually poops (dumps).
• We would love to get a full data dictionary to allow our new frontend to be more data driven.
• This could be multiple people - DBA, IT/Server guys, etc. They could cross over, but these are high level skills and high level people or teams.
• Everything on the hosting side of things. This gets deep but just think - what do we need for hosting? - SSL's, domain names, hard drive space, spinning up servers just in time, pointer records, DNS, DSN, puppet, orchestration, bit bucket, code repositories, ColdFusion Administrator, Fusion Reactor, Papertrail, Nagios, tons of outside services and tools.
• Servers - hard drive sizes, backups, RAM, CPU's, configs, and the list goes on.
• This could go deep and deeper... Etc.

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

- Alan and I were playing with a mini version or what that might look like (see attached for a mini mock-up of the smaller mini model):

Adilas.biz - admin, monthly billing, and day to day running the company. They could do their own R&D (progress, speed, what the clients are wanting).

Sales & marketing - They could do their own R&D (advertising, pricing, features, marketing materials, etc.).

Consulting, tech support, setup & training, and retention. This could also be part of the adilas university (similar folk). They could do their own R&D (tied into sales, marketing, training, etc.).

Development stuff - project management, custom code, internal development, maintenance, & design. They could do their own R&D (code, frameworks, layouts, look and feel, etc.).

IT stuff - Databases, servers, hardware, hosting, etc. They could do their own R&D (speed, load balancing, redundancy, monitoring, etc.).

Marketplace and adilas cafe - This could be their own little piece or small team. They could do their own R&D (product research, options, pricing, hardware options, services, etc.).

We would love to see each of these sections or divisions (departments) be able to meet and interact with each other on a consistent basis (at least monthly or semi-monthly). Nobody is left on an island by themselves. Communication is huge.