Main list of tools is on element of time # 4029 inside the adilas university site. Web link - time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=4029

1. Head and mind
2. Paper and pencil (pen)
3. Computer Based – word processing or a text document
4. Spreadsheets (rows and columns)
5. Databases
6. Software Packages and IT (information technology)
7. Web & Cloud
8. API Sockets or Custom (application programming interface)
9. World Building (digital story telling – ultra custom/hybrid level)

This is the entry for the level 9 or full world building level...

9. World Building (digital story telling – ultra custom/hybrid level)

a. Background: World building is a term that is often used when people create movies, plays, or write books or novels. What these artists or authors do is they try to create a world where you have characters that have relationships, and they make decisions which create consequences, which brings up some sort of a need to overcome something. As these characters interact these consequences become the building blocks of what happens next and it all becomes aimed or focused on fixing some sort of trouble or problem. What we do in a computer system analogy is we allow for those same pieces to be setup and created and for different actions to occur and things are allowed to be reported to other places and so on. It literally becomes digital storytelling.

Some people think that they don't want to hear the whole story but they just want the raw, underlying numbers. However if you capture the story as it unfolds over time it becomes such a rich environment to produce greater information. If you are recording your numbers in this manner over time you can see they are carrying with them the why, the when, the how, the who, the what, and other pieces of information and data that build a rich and desirable picture. Capture and record the story. So in essence, just like an artist or author, you are building your world and creating a story.

b. Features, Advantages, Benefits: What if you could mix and blend all the other tools into one platform or system. The concept of world building is open to all parties and peoples. As a disclaimer some of the pieces that we add going forward might feel like they are pointed toward Adilas. We are doing that on purpose but please know that we don't have a monopoly and we are not the only ones that participate in world building. But hopefully this can help to present the ideas and things that we have seen as we have encountered problems and needs in growing our own system or world.

c. This link is to a document called the Adilas Formula. This is basically a mix of business functions, business players, and concepts that are able to be mixed and blended together to virtually create a world.  https://data0.adilas.biz/adilas_formula.pdf

d. It is very common for computer systems to have lots of fun acronyms. World building starts combining all of these. For example:

Sales, Inventory Tracking
POS (Point Of Sale)

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.

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.

Meeting with Steve. We spent some time talking about the mini private AI agent. We logged into the Nxtlinq backend and were looking at their context window. Josh jumped on for a little bit. Steve and I were making plans and talking about things. Where do we want to go and how are we going to get there?

We talked about some global context pieces and what we are hoping for. We would love the AI agent to help us with some videos, running comparisons, drawing (whiteboards what to do).

Steve has a couple of other projects going on right now. We flipped over to them and went through them for a bit. We talked about three other projects and went over some questions that he has. One of the projects is that Steve had questions about using Grok AI as an AI agent. We talked about getting new session variables on the login, logout, change corp, 3rd party solutions, footers, and sdk's files or pages.

Next, we flipped over to a small project that is dealing with ecommerce and part category settings. Currently, we have a setting that allows for a corporation or entity to select a sales mode. These are inventory level controls like show and sell parent inventory, show parents and sell subs, show sub and sell subs, etc. All of these are dealing with parent/child relationships within the inventory itself. Steve is working on a new setting that will allow that bigger master switch to be controlled on the part category level. Some categories tend more toward child or sub inventory than other ones. Anyways, he is working on changing out that master switch and making it more granular at the part/item category level.

The last project that he is working on is saving a custom report from inside the system. The new report has both normal FORM scope params as well as dynamic, on the fly params. We went over some options and did some comparing of the FORM scope values. It goes something like this... We use a normal web-based form to pull the report. At that point, we have all of the FORM scope values or variables. If the user wants to save the report, we send all of the data over to a save report page that putts all of that information into a JSON object for database storage. We then take the new database id number and use it as a URL scope variable. Basically, run report X based on the settings stored by id number Y. It works pretty slick. We have done this for years and years. This particular one has some other random dynamics that are making it a little bit more difficult. We are not sure, but it seems to be a case sensitive problem with what is being created (dynamic FORM values) and what is being saved in JSON format. We didn't quite finish this, but were getting close.

Jumped on a phone call with Steve. Mostly talking about the AI agent and how to help push that project forward. His laptop isn't working.

- He wants me to jump on the meeting later tonight

- We are going as fast as we can

- He wanted me to check on the progress on ingesting all of the adilas help files

- Work in progress... There really isn't a set or defined end to what we are doing

- Let's see if they can crawl or ingest the developer's notebook pages

- Move into deeper testing and getting some great feedback

- Ted really wants us to give the AI agent to all of our customers vs just having it available through the 3rd party solutions page - Steve and I were talking some pros and cons for that approach

- We need to include the new setting to turn the agent on/off at the user level. The main level is the corp level based on the 3rd party solutions page. The sub or individual level is on the my settings page. This needs to be built before we push the main AI agent live to all clients.

- Looking into building complex prompts or multi process prompts

- Most of our clients are using sub inventory, we need to plan and test for that. Currently, most of the cart activity is based at the parent inventory level.

- Steve was saying that we don't want any of the wallet verification stuff inside of the AI agent setup process - it causes friction and seems to be a hassle

Working on duplicating PO's with the flex attributes. Going through the process to make sure that everything is setup and allows for duplication even with sub inventory. Also worked on the duplication process for PO's to work with flex attributes. Small tweaks to help with flow. Cascading code to other places. Light clean-up around the site for adding and updating flex attributes. Testing and committing changes.

Emails and reviewing a super cool video on Affinity Studio - It has some awesome custom menu options and is a well done promo video. I watched it and then sent it out to a number of our people to show that what they are doing. I would love to be at that level where we can push something like that out and create those kinds of tools, features, and razzle/dazzle. Pretty cool!

Paying bills, phone call with Bryan about transitional invoices and options. We have the functions and functionality, but nobody knows how to use them... We need more training and easy ways to get at what is possible. I was explaining to Bryan how it all works. We also talked about moving away from sub inventory, depending on the scenario. Sometimes parent inventory tracking works better than subs, for certain scenarios. We also need to get to the ICC (internal cost corrections) project up and going. That has been a requested feature for years.

Recording notes from yesterday and today.

Working with cory. Looking at flow for the partial PO project. Talking about what to push live first. We may end up breaking the project into smaller parts and pieces. Bulk edit and bulk flipping PO line items. Auto filling in some sub inventory stuff, where possible.

Getting back into the partial PO project. Re-reading some of the plans and looking into what it will take to get this going. Keep getting pulled off of the main project by the need to fix some stuff on sub inventory. There is a big pull there and has been for years. Anyways, went on a walk and tried to iron thing out and figure out a plan of attack. Recording some new notes and ideas on the project. More reviewing the project notes. Sent a text to Cory asking to meet with her to see the functional side of the partial PO project.

Working on help files sub inventory attributes and parent attributes.

Working on help files for sub inventory attributes and templates. Also started to work on help files for parent attributes and high-level templates.

These were some notes that I was using and working on. It was somewhat of a tick list of things that I wanted to do and/or add. There are a lot of square brackets in the entry. If you see [] (two square brackets - back to back), this is where you would enter the correct variable or dynamic prompt of a name, a value, a numeric id, etc.

------ start - ai options and prompts -----

done - build a function to pull out sub filters - pass in the whole string and what we are looking for. return the trimmed value.

- make a new help file with everything all listed out... help ai know what to do.

- url help... search_action.cfm?aiSearch=[prompt]

- mini api help - web/adilas_mini_api_calls.cfm?useCorpKeyId=[corp key]&mode=[mode]&aiQuickSearch=[value]

- samples - expand as needed

- calls and actions to the url's - double thread, simple response, stupid simple - maybe out in web or public, predictive level, show subs, mini async calls, predictive material to work with, show all categories, show all items under that category, same with customers

- cart stuff...

- items by vendor [name] ai quick search and mini api

- items by category [name] ai quick search and mini api

- my cart favorites - expand when ready

- edit cart line [cart line id], adv edit cart line [cart line id] - when looking up, remember line sorting and lines with 0 qty (skip)

- invoice mini [555], invoice mini last, invoice mini max

- invoice max

- invoice edit main [invoice num]

- invoice edit lines [invoice num]

- customer log [customer id]

- credit card checkout (checkout credit), cc checkout, external cc checkout, maybe spell it out as well

- on account or payment on account

- loyalty points

- gift cards

- cart groupings (sorting things)

- cart stuff - remove line [cart line id], change qty [cart line id], cash with change due, adv checkout, start cart for 5555

- classic cart settings, mini scan cart settings, view classic cart, view kush cart, view mini scan cart, deliver options, split cart, bulk edit line items, save cart, save quote, save as new quote, refresh cart, choose subs, add sub inventory with a quantity, auto open next sub package, cart as a whole discount, show discounts, other special cart functions... look them up and add items

- help all, help [search], help -title:[title filter], help -main:[main filter]

- back, back [number of pages], forward, forward [number of pages]

- bank home, bank running, bank reconcile, bank bulk verify

- developers notebook [search string] - expand when ready

- my home or just home

- gps core

- interactive map

- items by vendor [name] - ai quick search and mini api

- items by category [name] - ai quick search and mini api

- mini calendar

- ecommerce settings

- email settings

- media content [search filter] - - expand when ready

- news and updates

- my settings, my profile, my password, change password

- homepages [homepage name] - expand when ready - this could be a big section

- a/r's, a/p's, payroll, fulfillment, settings, cultivation, production, back orders, special accounts, adv exports, reoccurring invoices, go through permissions and pages - expand

- chooser

- corp admin, corp wide settings, admin corp wide settings, corp look and feel, corp stats

- history home, history [date]

- switch corp, switch corp [corp name]

- my favorites

- p&l, p and l, profit and loss, income statement, adv income statement

- page level actions... submit, select, select option, tab, shift-tab

- public shortcuts (corp id 7 simple prompt) - not sure what this means... it was part of my notes. maybe think on this a bit.

- bulk tools - expand as needed - define as needed

- labels - expand

- existing normal quick search options - see search action or help file

- edit main, edit lines, verify, history, add photos, add media content, add payment, edit payment, printable, etc... normal actions per section

- duplicate time, working with time, add sub, add flex grid, add limited flex grid

- for me - if they are already on an existing main player... maybe remember the type and the id... then the other edit main, edit line items, history, etc. will play through better. help it remember where it is or what it is dealing with...

- for me - change the options and prompts to an accordion style page - printable list - translate or interpret language - also make a new help file that is public facing

- take time to record what is possible... help train users and ai agents - think the value of education

- add links to the ai quick search from the main headers and chooser page

- last [count] - for example: customer last 10 or invoice last 25 or po last 5

- stats - use this to get basic stats for a section - for example: customer stats, invoice stats, po stats, item stats - maybe even some keywords... today, yesterday, this week, last week, two weeks ago, tomorrow, next week, this quarter, this year, last year, etc. maybe allow for day, month, year, range.

- special reports - daily weekly, closeout, knox report, grouped, etc. think of special options and reports that are used all of the time.

- logout

- images and media searches - general, specific main player groups (customer images, item images, expense images, etc.) - maybe some small filters like -from_date:[date], -to_date:[date], -caption:[caption filter], -user:[payee/user id], etc. media could be similar...

- organize all of the ai quick search pieces according to the main business functions. that will help show what we can do. don't get stuck on the number 12. it could be whatever... - link to the presentation gallery - business functions

- show [], show prompts, show homepages, show pos options, show crm options, show payroll options, etc.

- what about creating some more quick search permissions... things like help, ai, images, media/content, navigation (nav), etc. That would be cool and would create some great crossover between the older quick search and the newer quick text options and prompts.

------ end - ai options and prompts -----

Working with Steve and looking over his new projects. He is working on a bulk transfer for subs (parts and items). Looking over his code for the bulk transfer invoices of sub inventory back and forth. We worked on some code for a while and got it to a stable spot. He will keep working on it. We then rolled over to the external adilas API sockets and talked about some flow for a little while. Steve is working with those AI bot guys who are doing some voice interface stuff with API calls to do a voice operated POS system.

Working with Steve on a custom ecommerce shopping cart. He is working on selling sub inventory by choosing a sub package to purchase. He had a bunch of code from Grok (AI stuff), and we had to back most of it out. We did it the old fashion way and got it all working. Not that the code was bad from AI but it didn't fit into our page flow. Anyways, we got it all fixed up and good to go. Steve is going to keep tweaking on his code, but we got the main task done and accomplished. Good work session.

Looking into a slow query for sub inventory and sub inventory attributes. Steve sent me an email with some ideas from Grok AI. Looking into what we need to do to make things faster or more usable. Poking around and reading over code. Did a few global searches to see what pages use what. Mostly just trying to figure out what it does and how it is used. Kinda deep logic (loops, sub queries, grouping, queries of queries, dynamic union output from multiple table sources).

Meeting with Cory. Fixing some inventory issues for a client. They had setup a PO with sub inventory (normal). They then used up all of the sub inventory and months later, removed the PO line items (where it started). We had to go back in and un-remove it (if that is a word). Small data clean-up. This was years ago, that these actions were taken (back in 2023). Sometimes it gets kinda crazy.

Emails and recording notes. Had to go in and do some samples API calls to answer one of the emails. It was dealing with finding quantities for sub inventory. Ran API sockets on both data 20 and data 0 to find the answers. Send an email with my findings and recommendations.

Meeting with Cory. Looking at a possible bug with some sub inventory tracking for a client. This was from way back in 2022 and dealing with auto transfers (custom manufacturing code). We spent some time looking at visibility for sub inventory. Lots of backend searching. Everything was looking pretty good. We ended up doing some light database changes and updates behind the scenes. Cory would look-up possible id numbers or values in question (once again, from back in 2022 - a two-day time period). I would search for them in the background and bring up raw data. If there was a problem, we would fix it and move on. Multi-hour session. We got it all fixed.

Meeting with Cody. Going over UML diagrams that he is working on. Talking about efficiency, reuse, pros and cons of copy and paste, pros and cons of duplicating data, and math on the fly or precalculated math. Lots of good topics. Here are some of my notes:

- The importance of refactoring. Keep refining and paring things down. Make it smoother as we go.

- Talking about mini conversions and other options. Mini conversions is a sub of sub inventory (parent/child inventory). For example: Say you have something that gets sold by the case, by the bottle, and by the fluid ounce. You have to be able to go up and down the conversions to show what is really there. True inventory tracking.

- Talking about lots of suggestions and what makes sense to change out and/or leave.

- On the mini conversions, we might be able to hold the conversion id's and the math all on the same table. Help the users setup the conversion charts and/or relationships. Especially if we don't know the conversion factors or ratios (custom conversions or custom units of measure).

- We have had a lot of wild west style development (anything goes). There is a need for specific roles and company structure (adilas jelly fish model - future plans for where we are heading as a company).

- We mix so many different business verticals. That has been a huge blessing but also a small curse (so diverse).

- Cody was pitching that we need a primary role of a database admin type person (specialists per role). Creating the chain of command, down the different roles. Basically, turning the wild west into a more modern city (modern development environment).

- Talking about someone who knows how to work really hard and how to help them to work smarter and use technology.

- Cody wants us looking into growth, in the long run. Talking about a master plan and then breaking things down into more digestible pieces.

- Talking about internal education and structure. We need our team to know what to do and how it (all of the pieces) fits with the bigger picture or the whole.

- Figuring out what we have, suggestions for what to change, and future plans.

- We then got into time sub inventory and parent/child relationships. It gets deep, pretty quickly.

- Growth is hard to manage sometimes.

- Talking about independent developers, light guidance, and working on our own. Reasons for building out the UML diagram. Not just for Cody but for all other developers who will be working on this project.

- Building out the dream. Getting organized (not really official, but pretending that it was official). It will all help in the long run. Risk vs rewards - push/pull in the organization. Unofficially organize ourselves (at least on the development side).

- Link to the interactive map - small visual for how things are organized.

Phone call with Bryan. He has a customer that is requesting ecommerce functions with a standard item (parent item) and then being able to just pick a size or a color. We do that with sub inventory, but need to make it easier for customer facing ecommerce functionality. Those two things are super common (sizes and colors).

Paying bills and going through emails. Jumped on a GoToMeeting session with Steve to go over some updates and look at a database update question for the inventory snapshot stuff.

Working on the custom sales breakdown stuff for Phillip. Small little tweaks and starting to work on the math stuff (percentages).

Bryan jumped on with Steve and I and had a bunch of questions about recipe/builds and how to convert a bottle (item marked as an each) into ounces in order to use certain products in bulk. We showed him some new stuff and how to do advanced adds on PO line items.

Talking about making some UML diagrams for the adilas database. We spent a bunch of time talking about databases and all of the interconnected relationship (just for parts, PO's, invoices, and sub inventory). For me, send Cody all of my old database docs (take the time to get him the correct info - ended up finding a few back from 2016 and 2017 - they had been uploaded into the adilas shop media/content folder - do a description search by database and set the dates back to 2016 to 2017).

We also spent some time talking about banking hours and how that works (paid time off or future payout options). We then got into working on permissions inside of the label builder. We went through a bunch of stuff and added some light permissions to the label builder home page. Good work session.

Cody is wanting to help me get some of the older projects done that have been on my tick list for years and years. I'm excited about that.

Meeting with Steve to go over ecommerce stuff. Trying to debug some code on sub inventory attributes. Got stuck on some checkboxes that wouldn't work or were having issues. Trying lots of stuff. Multiple attempts. We'll have to come back to that.

Phone call with Dave Forbis. He was asking a number of questions. Lots of questions about social media connections and API's, on demand print stuff, and banks that we have integrated with (for pulling back deposits and expenses to help with bank reconciliation stuff). We also talked about old projects for campaign tracking and GPS tracking. He was looking around and trying to get things lined up. Good call.

Emails and reviewing tons of PDF files from Hamid, for the business functions, on the presentation gallery.

Meeting with Cory over a Zoom session. There are two reports that are giving different information. Looking deeper into the reports and which items are not matching up. Lots of deep diving and looking under the covers. We were running raw queries against servers and databases. Really trying to figure out dates and values. We have to circle back around and re-write some logic on the sub inventory reports.

Meeting with Bryan. First time, we went over flex grid settings to help with a school and behavior tracking app. The second time we jumped on, we were going over special functionality for quotes vs invoices and how to use or not use sub inventory. Checked out some code and pushed it up live on data 0 for some testing.

Conference call with Sean and Bryan, going over scenarios for a client. They have a need to be able to sell items before they get them in. We talked about options for selling parent items. Then, later on, they need to be able to flip it to subs (sub inventory) easily, either just in time or after the fact.

Paying some bills.

Emails and recording notes. Looking into a small sub inventory error. Sent off some versioning information to a client that is getting audited. Fixing a series of small errors and bugs. Cory and Sean were sending me things and I was fixing them. Pushed up new changes and sent out emails to update Sean and Cory.

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.

Zoom meeting with a client. We had Steve, Cory, Sean, and I on the meeting and two of their people. These are some small notes and request:

- On PO's, they want the part reference number added to the PO creation section (multiple pages). Basically, they want another column on a number of pages so that it flows through the PO or inbound inventory section.

- Mins and maxes per item (single quantities as well as case or box size values). They want these values to help with the ordering and re-ordering process. We talked about possible use of parent attributes. I'm not sure about that. They want those (parent attributes) to play into the mix with rules or then enforce those rules. That's the part that I'm not sure about. They want the mins and maxes (along with case sizes) to help build the PO for them.

- When receiving the PO's - they bulk flip the quantities. That works great. They would like some help with the subs or sub inventory counts on that process. Basically, a bulk flip on the subs as well.

- Remove "on account" options for counter sales - invoices where no customer is assigned.

- We did some training and drawing (scenarios) dealing with dual payments or mixed payments using multiple credit cards, cash, and gift cards - small training.

- Small demo on the deli style barcodes and how that will work. Basically, an on-the-fly barcode that has item numbers and prices encoded into the barcode. We have to split things apart and basically interpret the barcode vs just reading it and matching it up to an item in the database. You break it apart and do some reverse look-ups of sorts.

- On PO's, show current activity (per vendor for a given date range) and/or a show all items button - quick links.

- Talking about other stores going live and some possible timeframes (rough).

- Quick internal talks after the client had left the meeting - who is going to do what - tasks and projects?

- Cory and I stayed on the meeting once everyone else had gone. Going over some existing bulk pricing tools and other upcoming projects.

- One upcoming need is for a client that needs help with the adilas API settings. They are requesting new info, a few new columns to be returned, and easy access to backend data and values.

The client demo got rescheduled. Steve and I used the time to go over things. We went over Bryan's new cart line description modifiers, and I showed Steve a demo of those new features (it will go live tomorrow). We also looked at some other code and projects. We talked about building out aggregates (database level counts, sums, quantities, and quick look-ups). We want to do aggregates for quick quantity numbers for parts and sub inventory. Once that is finished, we have tons of other pieces that we want aggregated as well. We then talked about other upcoming projects and who is working on what. Towards the end, we also set aside some time for some work sessions next week.

Meeting with Steve. Going over new settings. We have or there is a small communication gap, even within our own team - who is doing what and what is either live or in progress? Crazy how quick things go and change.

We spent some time going over notes from different client meetings... Liberty Machine Works (stock/unit stuff), Lucky Puppy (time and scheduling and texting), etc. Lots of moving pieces.

Went over the new label builder progress. Talking about next steps for American Made (more sub inventory rules and controls, faster PO ordering process, and speeding up steps). We also looked at their deli barcode labels (standalone complex barcode). The scale was purchased from a different vendor, and they just want to use it and have us interpret it (what the barcode means). Talking about building complex labels.

Emails and pushing up code for Bryan.

Looking into beefing up the logic for the auto open next sub inventory package project (new sub inventory setting). Built a new function to help count unique subs within a cart. Lots of testing and trying things. Sent a message to one of the guys about pushing things live. I just want to make sure we don't interrupt anything (live processes).

Meeting with Shannon. Talking about personalities and styles and some of the variables that go along with that. People can be very interesting and yet also challenging at times. After the meeting with Shannon, we decided to break off and work on our own. I jumped into emails and recording notes. Quick phone call with Sean to explain the new functionality on auto open next sub settings for sub inventory.

Meeting with Steve. We spent some time talking about the current state of things and where things are heading and going. Just for fun, Steve was talking about companies hiring robots and having those robots do a bunch of data entry work to help with the constant flow of data coming in and going out. He was talking about robots being a price or business expense in order get the data that you want and need. People want an intuitive system. They don't want to spend the time or money to get trained. Ideally, they would want to be able to open it up, and it just runs, or you know what to do. Talking about business and divvying up the workload (who plays where and what in the sandbox). If just one person has to do it, the amount of work could virtually crush that person.

We switched over to the new sub inventory settings and had a small work session. We added a new auto clean up subs setting. Built it out and tested it. We then merged it into master.

Once that was finished, we switched over to recipe/builds and added in a whole new search feature to help swap out or replace line items for both ingredients and output items. Basically, a link to another page that helped do the look-up and swapped out the main item for the ingredient or output. You could do this manually before, but you had to know the part id number. We got done what we could and then pushed it up. Steve may alter it and help it out a bit more. Good progress and a good work session.

Meeting with Steve. Some of these are random notes as we were jumping from subject to subject. That's how we roll. It's kinda fun.

- Tracking a lot of stuff (that's what people need). Some will, some won't, next. It may sound harsh, but we kinda need to approach things with that attitude. Some people will play... and some people won't play along. We will help those will let us and keeping looking for those types of clients.

- We are chasing so many things. Lots of opportunity and we have already built tons of stuff. Some of it was/is still flapping in the wind. We are picking up the pieces that we can.

- The sales process just takes time.

- Talking about some new settings on subs (child inventory or sub inventory packages). One of them is automatically taking inventory from or out of the next sub (auto open the next one, if needed).

- Taking about the new settings and the look and feel that we did for the mini scan cart. Horizontal form with accordion type sub sections.

- Every one of these companies have different business practices - so many variables.

- There are already some bulk tools to close sub packages.

- Talking about what the clients want to gain by using our platform.

- We (meaning adilas and our clients) are making decisions about who we are (we keep it pretty tight vs super loosie goosy).

- Light talks about MVP options. Minimal viable product, plan, person, etc.

- Talking about investments and/or investments. There is a need for a plan and being and staying efficient (efficiency) for this money that gets invested. Stick to the plan and make it happen. We are in a paradox - having money or having clients with needs.

- One of our problems (internally is) one-liners... - We give out a project based on a one-liner... It really needs more planning, requirements, timelines, budgets, project management, planning, scheduled reviews, etc. Some of our developers can handle the one-liner project name and run with it and others keep falling off the wagon and we have to pick up the pieces. Sadly, it comes down to processes and documentation. We really need more of this. We are just so busy... we have to find the time and make it priority.

- We have pieces that are obsolete (older or not being used), at the time they were make it or break it situations for our customers or potential clients. At some point we need to do some sweeping of the floor and clean-up spots where we have just replicated code over and over again. There will end up being some projects just to help with moving of functions, pages, and other efficiency stuff.

- Changes in the technology cycles and what is available and required. We were talking about Adobe and other companies.

- This was for me, sometimes I wish that I could live on a virtual island and just build the stuff that we want and need (uninterrupted time). Imagine, what would that be like without all of the crazy hustle and bustle, demands, and requirements. That sounds great, but if you fully bail out, you will miss the boat. You almost have to stay in the trenches.

- We can really help multi-locations stores that need our functionality. This is kinda funny, but we have to dumb down the frontend because we have a super deep backend. Other companies have a slick frontend but don't have a deep backend level.

- We are trying to do real-time problem solving.

- ROI (return on investment)

- We were reviewing some of our older projects... the adilas label builder, changes to sub inventory, discount engine, etc. We cycle through version after version. Eventually, we have to re-do things (with a plan or the right person in place).

- Our clients are just expecting us to do their research and maintenance for them. Ideally, we need to off-load some of that back on to the clients.

- We are almost like a sponge (they just throw things at us) and we take it.

- We are seeing more and more clients that really need enterprise level pieces.

- There also seems to be a trend dealing with crazy levels and needs out in ecommerce land. You need good inventory control in order to sell online and do special functions.

- People don't even know what we have (backorders, etc.).

- Education and maintenance - those two are topics that run deep and really go hand-in-hand. A long time ago, I heard that good education and maintenance are sometimes better than new features. That is so true... however, it is easy to get lost in the whirlwind of new features. Education and maintenance are a huge key to sustained success.

- Going over possible disconnects between hardware/software/middleware/etc. For example: We have a client that bought a new deli scale that prints out barcodes and custom labels. Then, they, our clients, just expect it work. So many variables... we just have to real-time problem solve. Getting everything to work together can be a challenge. In a way, we are consultants for our clients - what do you need to do for your business.

At the end of the meeting, we did a small work session to build out some new settings for sub inventory rules. Steve and I were working together. Half building, half training type session. Good stuff. We modified about 5 pages including a new default page, the setting page, the action page, and a couple of pages that help push the settings into the session scope (stored login and settings per user).

ToDo: On sub inventory... we would like to add part_id, part_category_id, and sub_inventory_attribute_id to be recorded per sub inventory record - that would be super cool and could really help speed things up. Future project to circle back around on... eventually :)

On a client meeting. We had four adilas folks on and they had three or so of their staff. We bounced all over the place. These are some of my notes:

- Too long to check out a customer. They want it faster with less clicks. As a note, if the items are in the system and they have a valid quantity, it goes really fast and smooth. Just scan it and it adds it to the cart.

- Being able to sell items that they don't have. Basically, we have them doing sub inventory for full inventory and cost controls. That's pretty tight and dosen't allow for selling into the negative. They haven't really checked to make sure everything is in the system and have already gone live (using it with their actual customers for full invoice creation and checkout). When something isn't in there, it is taking them a bit of time to enter it and get the customer out the door. They have to call a manager over and get the item into the system. In my mind, that's trying to go too fast without checking to make sure that their items are in there.

- They wanted full enterprise functionality - they have multiple stores and want to be able to change things in one place and then have that data cascade down to the other stores (separate systems or worlds). Some of that functionality already exists but some of that is still in the works.

- They are struggling and need help. They want us to be right there holding their hands. We had one of our guys onsite for over a week. This is now a couple of weeks later. Not everybody got trained.

- One of their needs is to be able to take EBT (electronic benefit transfers) - government payment type like modern food stamps. One of our guys is working on a solution that already has that integrated into the payment process and gateway stuff.

- Talking about expectations and requirements.

- One of our developers is helping them with a new QuickBooks API setup. We have never done this before and it's pretty deep. Basically, they sell items using adilas and then it does a nightly post out to the QuickBooks API web app. Lots of moving parts and customer mappings (matching up categories, items, id numbers, tokens, etc.)

- They are feeling an urgency level. I fully understand but they need to communicate. We jump on things as soon as we can but they want it right now.

- There are some terminology differences (almost barriers). We call things one thing and they call certain things another thing. That is a huge piece of the puzzle. We love to help our clients speak their own language (through settings); we just need to know (communication breakdown).

- We got most of the main employees trained. However, there is a lack of training for managers. That's good to know. We didn't know that there was a gap.

- Looking for speed at every action or transaction

- Wanting min and max quantity buffers. Not just mins and maxes, but also reorder mins and maxes based on case sizes and packaging. Deeper controls.

- Faster checkout options

- Be able to auto open the next subs (child packages), Be able to open and close subs through settings or automation. If they have problems with subs, they are calling over a manager and that takes time. If it's all in there, it goes pretty fast. They had us bulk update (aka fake the quantities) to get them using it quickly. Now that is biting both of us (them and us) as not everything is really ready to go. If it's there and in the system, the system is playing just fine. It's where the items aren't in the system or they don't really have the quantities in correctly. Once again, they asked us to help bulk update things for them to get them going. No one is really managing the input side so it makes it look like it's running out of quantity.

- They have 16,000 SKU's. That's a lot of items and products. Also, not all are the same or treated the same.

- There are so many ways to set things up (settings) - that's good and bad. If you get the settings correct, you are good to go. If not, you are fighting against the system. It comes down to education and setup. Most things are possible or have a flow but you have to know how to set it up in order to take advantage of the functionally that is built in.

- Talking about labels and subs - they want full control but want to run everything from a manufacture's barcode. You can do that, but you need to be on top of it. The other option is to label everything and then you don't have to worry because everything has its sub label and points to the correct sub or child package.

- Possible new settings or sub inventory rules - Maybe selling out of the oldest sub package if the item has multiple packages. Currently, if there are multiple packages, the system prompts for which one to use. They don't want their cashiers doing anything other than taking monies. It comes down to - how tight do you want your inventory levels?, Costs, margins, etc.?

- We talked about inventory items and how to treat them (unlimited, parent only, subs or child packages - parent/child)

- Almost wanting mini conversions (without all of the pain of setting those things up). Mini conversion are dealing with cases, packaging, sub amounts, and how do you buy it, and how do you sell it? What's the lowest common denominator? Drops, cups, quarts, gallons, pieces, singles, cases, bundles, etc.

- Each company has different business processes (how deep, loose, tight, etc.). This topic can get really deep.

- They are really wanting to know what their costs are (with all kinds of items). It gets tricky with deli level costing (unlimited items and COGS on the P&L through expenses), talks about operations and accounting and how we (they) mix those pieces, what are the rules? They want to look at a sales report and see all of the margins (not all the way to the accounting side of things), they want strict control for 95% of their items and super flexible on the other 5% of their items. We have some options for that, but you need to set things up (training, education, and consulting).

- They are missing some steps (clicking to make new sub inventory packages). They are altering things on the fly vs having a normal or standard proceedure.

- For PO's - they would love bulk tools (reverse shopping cart page - including new sub inventory - in bulk). They want the reorder process to be more automated and easier. It's all there, you just have to use the existing tools. They almost want an AI (artificial intelligence) level to help them restock and reorder. That would be cool, but we don't have that yet.

- Talking about processes for their stores

- Going back to maybe a new setting for flexible subs (open and closing subs behind the scenes)

- Quick payment and checkout options

- On credit card settings - making them stick - they have had to change it back and forth a couple of times (which terminal is associated with which register). Along with credit card stuff, they would like more error handling for card processing (swipe, EMV chip, visa gift card, etc.). Basically, if the system sees a credit card, it can handle any type without human interaction. We totally can do these different types, but the user has to help the system know which way to process things. One of the things that has been a little tough has been Visa gift cards (non EMV cards on EMV reader terminal).

- On their PO's - they want the part reference number to show up and be able to toggle on/off certain columns. They also want the new columns to show up on the searches and the printable PO's. We had the idea to maybe add an if/then logic piece looking for the part reference fields. They would like to duplicate PO's with subs (children), bulk upload of new inventory (csv based) - template based, and have more bulk updating tools (all kinds of things). They want it faster and more versatile. They want to be able to update costs, prices, vendors, etc. - all in bulk. We offer some of that, but you have to be careful if everything ties back to the accounting. You can't just change things like that. Costs and vendors are tied to payables, financials, and inventory value levels. You can't just change stuff like that without cause and effect relationships being affected.

- They would like to be able to change a vendor on an item (you can do it, but they want it easier).

- There was a request for a save and upload over and over again (a template and then bulk update the pieces). Basically, instead of using the system, using spreadsheets to control things in bulk. That sounds great but creates major disconnects between inventory values, accounting for costs, and matching up different systems. The best option is in-application bulk tools vs trying to crisscross and use spreadsheets for bulk updates.

- They want us to loop over one of their vendors (Walnut Creek) and update all barcodes to 12 digits. When they gave us the data, the system took off all of the zeros padding the numbers. For example: Say the barcode was 000000055555, it saw it as a number and only put in the 55555 value and took off the seven front 0's.

- This was new, they have a standalone deli scale(s) that prints complex barcodes on the fly. They scan it and then they wonder why the system can't read that complex barcode. It can, it just doesn't know what to do with it. We have to teach it or setup a way to parse or break the barcode apart. For example: which characters are the item, the cost, the quantity, etc. We need to do some complex barcode mapping. Sean will help track that down and work with the client. This was a new requirement that we didn't know about until today at the meeting.

- Reorder mins and maxes (more than just numbers - dealing with cases and even at the ordering level) - not just quantities - also tied to case sizes (for example a case of 12 per order), on the mins and maxes - be able to record that per item and then have that show up on either PO search results or PO bulk tools (almost a suggested order size). Basically, some advanced min/max quantity and reorder buffers.

- What are the timelines to get things done? We need to figure that out.

After the client left, we just had the adilas team on the meeting. Here are a few other notes:

- Making the PO process even faster (almost AI type level) - helping and making suggestions.

- Maybe allowing subs to go into the negative (tied to possible setting - we may want to think about this)

- They are trying to mix locations and sales (sales from the main store with sales from the warehouse without having it show up on the correct store).

- Auto close/open subs

- Everything that they are talking about is based on settings, new settings on subs - go to the next one and just sell it from there (regardless of what the package availability is)

- We can tell, the clock is ticking. What is our first priority and how can we help them? Development, training, education, settings, etc.?

- Being able to parse the deli scale barcode, we already do some complex labels (being able to decode that info), Sean is going to ask them about the complex deli labels.

- On the new sub settings... help setup the rules (ways to help us play), what about negative subs (what could we do there?), negative subs could cause problems with accounting

- ICC's (internal cost controls or internal cost corrections) - older project to update parent costs (backwards - looking up inbound quantities and costs and matching things up to outbound costs and quantities) - this would end up doing an auto leveling of things out.

- We talked about possible deal breakers

- We were talking accounting and costs. Average cost is or has a number of problems. We also talked about LIFO (last in first out) and FIFO (first in first out), and cost over time (stepped actual).

- Talking about bins and actual costs (bulk inventory or specific packages)

- We are planning to stay with the subs (child inventory) and loosen it up a bit.

- Talking about the reverse shopping cart (building a bulk PO or order or re-order), easy ordering process with mins and maxes and reorder quantity (case sizes and such).

- Good inventory requires maintenance. How can we help with some of the maintenance issues on the inventory control side of things?

- Prioritize things and then chip away on things

- We may want a re-order homepage (help them out)

- Speed to do things (automating things) - keep making it faster and faster and easier and easier.

- Enterprise things (updates) up and down (costs and barcodes). Automating processes across corporations or across worlds.

Anyways, kinda a long meeting. There was some good information and great feature and product requests that were made. I know it hurts sometimes, but if we actually listen to our clients, they will tell us what they want and need. We then harvest those ideas (idea farming) and keep building a better and better product, application, and platform. Good stuff!

Emails, tech support, and some quick changes for Cory and Sean on an auto create sub inventory packages page (backend tool). Paying bills and recording expenses.

Small tweaks to the mini scan cart. Tightened up the checkout process. Not allowing checkout for quotes. Not allowing checkout for overage on sub inventory (overselling a sub). Added some new logic to loop over and check subs and quantity on hand. Pushed up new file for testing on data 0.

Small data clean-up project for Cory. She sent me an email with detailed instructions. Gave her a call to confirm and then started working on it. Had to unroll some sub inventory and changed some unlimited items to normal parents vs sub inventory items. Lots of backend database work and clean-up (query and sub query stuff). Sent them an email once everything was finished.

Recording notes from yesterday. Working on a special create sub inventory tool for Cory. Building the logic and doing some testing. Sent an email out to Cory and Sean to let them know that the new tool exists.

Added in some clean-up for the main PO's amount for the new bulk tool for Cory. Did some testing and pushed up new code. Phone call with Cory to go over the new tool. She also had me look at a small bug on quotes and removing line items from a quote (after a restore to cart function).

Spent some time looking into an error message for updating saved quotes. The bug was dealing with the new line sorting and grouping. It was only returning valid line items. If something had been removed, it was not updating that when it went to the database. The cart was showing it correctly, it was just the save to database function that needed some help.

Other small fixes. Added line item level groupings to the review cart page (we had missed that one - back when we were doing the cart line grouping stuff). Also, small fix on the history homepage and the historical reports. Some of the links were blending in with the report header (same color). Small change to make it look better and show the drill-down links.

Building the helper tool for sub inventory for Cory. Ox in the mire (early morning on Sunday). She needs it later today and I didn't get it done. Going through the build logic - PO's, items, PO line items, and sub inventory stuff. I didn't quite get it done so I texted her. Come to find out, the project is going live next week, not later today or tomorrow. My bad.

Looking into a short MVP list for ship A. See element of time # 9934 in the shop for more details and a smaller list. Here is an abbreviated version...

- in-store credits - $10K

- coupons - internal and ecommerce - $15K

- adilas label builder - round 2 - $40K

- standardize merchant processing - $20K (in progress)

- revamp shopping cart - $40K (in progress)

- time and scheduling - vertical time view - internal and ecommerce ready - $40K

- discount engine - $20K (in progress)

- smart cart engine & logic - $30K

- rework sub inventory - $40K

- planning & flex - $30K

Emails and light tech support. We had a request to redo the sub inventory API sockets from a client's developer. They, the end users, want it all in one call vs multiple calls for subs, sub attributes, parent attributes, etc. I sent an email back to the developer that we match his feelings and would love to refactor that part of the API sockets. Basically, a rework on the sub inventory part of the system.

Also did some recording notes inside of adilas and linking up shop and main adilas records.

Emails, checking on some funds that we transferred to help cover costs. Built out two new API's for Cory. They are dealing with getting sub inventory attributes for a single part category or getting all parent attributes per corporation. Created the new files, coded them, tested them, created documentation, and copied the documentation and pushed up new changes to all servers.

Working with Steve and Suzi. They are planning a demo site for a dog care (nails, baths, grooming services) business. Going over processes, routes, settings, processes, etc. It ended up being a small planning and consulting type session. Suzi does a great job and is very organized. Once we figure out the flow, we plan on passing that info over to Chuck (designer) to let him work his magic to help design a custom skin or mock-up.

One of the things that we may end up doing is adding a button to the element of time to allow a pet to be assigned. We are handling all of the one-to-many pet to owner details in flex grid tie ins. That's working pretty slick. We just need to populate that data around a bit more to help it show up correctly.

Another thing that we may need to do is a popup builder to show services that can be added to an invoice and also pushed over to an element of time to help the attendants to know what is scheduled, needed, and what was done per appointment. We went over some options.

After Suzi left, Steve and I jumped back in and went over other stuff. We talked about merchant processing. We went over some database updates that Steve is working on for invoicing time and sub timecards (job costing stuff). As a side note, Steve was mentioning that adilas is starting to sell some bookkeeping services along with the main system or main product. That's awesome. All part of what we want the adilas marketplace to do, speaking towards the future.

Steve also requested that we start working on the known issues report to help Mike out. This is a list of things that we have identified where things could go off the rails. Things like duplicates, certain dates that are out of order, mismatch between main and line items, sub inventory issues, etc. We have a page called known issues where we are listing all of these possible gotchas (data problems). It would be really cool to start working on some small reports to show those pieces that may have issues.

Started out doing some emails and recording some notes. Then meeting with Cory and Shari O. Looking at a small convert to PDF error on data 1. Other systems seemed to be doing fine. Just a problem on data 1. We also looked at a possible error out in statement land and math dealing with tips. Also in statement land, we had a request to apply a data filter to what was going to be on the statements based on amounts owed (paid or pending invoices).

We then spent some time looking at payroll settings and checking code on bit bucket (code differences between old and new code). We couldn't find anything that really stuck out. We then went and tried it on a play site, and it worked great. Cory is going to check the settings for the company in question. Also dealing with payroll, Cory and I jumped into a couple of state websites and pulled new tax and withholding tables and formulas for a couple of states. We need to update those values inside of adilas.

Lastly, we went over some priorities and talked about other projects. I've got the top 3 priorities written down in my notes on my computer. They are checking some older bad data for a report dealing with sub inventory, helping Bryan with the custom project to connect PO's to elements of time, and updating some state withholding formulas. We also know that a custom data import is coming towards the end of the week. Busy times.

Email to Wayne about ways to improve or fix the tables for storing sub inventory attributes and parent attributes. See attached for a copy of the email. It has some light plans on how we could change the columns on the custom_text table (and other custom attribute storage tables - numeric, text, date, and json).

Fixed the error messages and moved the unique id/error code to lower on the error message. Trying to make it look better. Wayne just added the unique id/error code a couple of days ago.

Started to work on an advanced search page that shows parent items, parent attributes, and sub inventory attributes, all on the same report. Bryan originally made the report. Just going over things and lightly cleaning things up. Refining some of the logic.

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).

Meeting with the Cannapages guys over GoToMeeting. We started out by debugging an API call. We tried a few things. I then had to login to the client's site, flip some switches, and then try it again. They are pulling menu info, but we had to turn on some ecommerce settings to let the pages (API sockets) play through.

They also expressed a desire to get two more API endpoints for pulling sub inventory attributes (list of values) and parent attributes (list of values). They then take that data and loop over it to populate their menu forms. I sent an email out to Cory with an update.

We have a client who wants to use the main adilas ecommerce site and do their own SEO (search engine optimization) and web stuff. Super advanced black box and dynamic page building for our clients and their web addresses. Basically, taking what we already have and adding a reverse look-up based on a SEO parent attribute. Then taking that dynamic data and building a special page to help with the SEO for the client. Light database talks and going over options. Drawing and going over sub inventory and parent attributes. Talking about possible bug on our local boxes for https and port numbers (test is different than the live sites).

This never happened. We were going to talk about the advanced sub inventory search and simulating some bad data.

Meeting with Mike from Cannapages (3rd party vendor) to see what they were missing on the API endpoint side of things. We found two main attribute lists (parent attributes and sub inventory attributes) that were missing. They can look-up the data and values, but they were missing the master list of what to loop over. We built a quick couple of pages (web forms) and pushed them up to data 7. We will build out the API sockets that go with these. That takes more time. This was just a quick band-aid. They should be good to go for tonight.

Meeting with Cory and Shari O. to go over projects and questions. Shari O. had a request for being able to sell stock/units and special fees and presets (pack or specific fees or collected values for each sale). We currently allow for 5 preset items to go along with the sale of a stock/unit. She was requesting 10 (increase it by 5). We talked about options, and I gave them a rough quote what I thought it would take. If the client was tech savvy enough, they could recipes. That is unlimited and could be easily configured to add multiple (unlimited) items to a sale (into the shopping cart) from a single button or click. Anyways, just a free option that already exists.

We spent some time talking about payroll and the need for other states, more HR (human resources) options, and deeper payroll/HR functionality. That would be awesome, and we'd love to add that in. It just depends on who is paying for it.

The other main topic was going over some new reports that have been requested. Both for sub inventory and more accounting level stuff.

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.

Going over emails. There were a couple different chains that needed some help and loving. One was a chain dealing with one company's data and sub inventory reporting. The other was an email chain about elements of time and online scheduling functionality. I spent quite a bit of time there. I reviewed a video, took some notes, recorded some notes on element of time # 2249 inside of adilas. I then tied element of time # 2249 (progress on some of the time settings and online scheduling) to the original campground GUI interface document (element of time # 1532). I also uploaded an email with tons of good feedback, ideas, and even a requirements list for what a client/user said that it would take to get adilas up and fully competitive in the campground and hospitality industry. Really good stuff.

Going over plans and research with Bryan. He would like to work on a new horizontal time view page. Instead of having people down the sides and times across the top (what we currently have), he would like to run locations down the side and days or dates across the top. Sounds great. We have some other ideas on elements of time # 8004 for more ideas on horizontal and vertical time or date views.

We also went over some feedback from Kelly and Cory on a report that was showing some data errors for sub inventory. Recording notes.

Jumped on a meeting with Cory and Shari O. Going over yearend payroll stuff and tax forms. We then got into a discussion on average costing and a thing called internal cost corrections (ICC). We have some of our older clients that came on (started using our systems) before we had sub inventory. Some of them are wanting us to add in either average costing options or be able to virtually update the COGS to match-up what has come in/out of the system on a per item basis. The best solution would be to get them to buy into and/or use sub inventory or parent/child inventory. Anyways, we were talking about some options.

Bryan and I spent some time working on a small fix for some of his Authorize.net code. We pushed up some changes. We then flipped over and did some more work on the data disconnect on data 8 for a client and their sub inventory reports. We went in and ran a number of test queries, made some actual code changes and pushed up the new code. Bryan sent some emails out to let some of the power users know and to go in and try it out.

Meeting with Bryan. We spent the whole time looking at sub inventory data on data 8 for a single corporation. We are trying to look under the covers and see if we can see why two reports are giving different numbers. We ran query after query checking the data. We thought that it was dealing with our inner joins and left joins. We discovered some stuff dealing with how the relationships are made. Some of them are just plain one-to-one. Some are one-to-many, and some don't even exist. That makes it a little bit tougher to follow and get consistent info.

The crux of the problem seems to be dealing with the relationship between po/invoice lines items and sub inventory packages or sub ids. Anyways, we documented a bunch of the queries that we were running to keep track of our findings. Brandon has those queries on his local computer in a file.

Meeting with Bryan. Made a few small changes to fix a bug. Spent the rest of the time looking at data and trying to figure out why or what is going on for a data disconnect for a corp on data 8. We ran lots of behind the scenes queries to check po/invoice lines, parts, time sub inventory, and fiddled with different joins and filters.

After our work session, I was on a phone call with Eric talking about tips and a new data flow process that is coming down the pipeline. We went over a few questions and talked about some of the cause and effect trickle down as we change things. We made some plans to reconnect and work on it on Monday.

Spent half an hour combing data and looking at live data for a client. They sent us a CSV file with customer info and loyalty points on it. The data is kinda messy. We'll have to do some major gymnastics to really make it work. Light prep work.

Emails and looking over some code that Eric was working on. His code was dealing with USAePay (merchant gateway) and showing options for switching between EMV/Chip readers and swipe/manual entry on credit cards. We have needs for both of those avenues.

Got a text from Cory asking me to jump on a Zoom meeting. We ended up adding in some special history logging on part category and sub inventory settings. We looked around for any bulk or global tools that may have affected our clients sub inventory template settings. We added the new code, tested, and pushed up code.

Working with Bryan on saving large files as CSV files. We were talking about session variables inside of the CFC's (ColdFusion components) and best practices. Bryan is going to rework some stuff and get back with me.

On the phone with Eric. We were going over 2 main topics. One was his new code for both EMV/Chip reader credit card transactions and normal swipe or manual entry credit card transactions. He has a branch that he wants me to look over. The other major topic was dealing with an import for a client that had customer info and customer loyalty points from a different system.

After working with Eric, I tried to track down a possible bug with scanning a sub inventory package or sub inventory number. It ended up being a setting that prompts for a specific sub weight. I turned it off and the sub barcode scanning worked great. We wanted it to skip that extra step. Just had to flip the right setting. No code changes took place. I reported back to Steve, Cory, and Dustin.

Recording notes from yesterday. Merged in some new code for the mini scan cart settings. The new link builder is done on the settings page. I also spent some time working on the popovers (bigger tool tips) for the cart. I converted all of the sub inventory attributes into a small popover that is hidden by default. It you mouse over it (hover), the icon, it will show all of the correct data. I'm hoping that will help make it look even more simple (layout wise). Pushed up new code.

Finished up the link builder mini app on the mini scan cart settings page. Started working on some larger tool tips for the sub inventory attributes on the mini scan cart.

Meeting with Bryan. We did some code review on some advanced sub inventory searches. Merged and pushed up code to data 8 for testing. We had to force a cap on the number of records that we would allow to be returned. It was timing out, if we left it too open.

Working with Bryan on sub inventory reports. We took an existing report and worked backwards to figure out a better join and better query. We needed some grouped data, but it had to come from a specific table with specific criteria. We ended up changing out the SQL and the left join options. Deep database query stuff. By the time we were done, I think it looked pretty good.

After meeting with Bryan, I got an email from the Bear 100 data team. They would like to meet before the race this weekend. I sent them off an invite to an after-hours meeting on Wednesday. They have a request for me to help build a test page for their CSV files. They have some new CSV formats and they want a place to try them out before they go live or do any real database interactions. Sounds fun.

Zoom meeting with Cory. My main two projects this week are the new shopping cart and the Bear 100. We also talked about the public API and 3rd party solutions using either the public API or a special 3rd party API socket channel. We spent some time talking about the discount engine and figuring out a plan to launch the new code while still leaving the old code somewhat in place. We may have to go backwards and retrofit the old code to handle the new custom date ranges. We'll get it all figured out.

We looked at some sub inventory reports and sub reports based off of sub id numbers and other sub reports based off of the RFID tag number. Shari O. had a few questions at the end of the meeting. She was mostly just listening in to say on top of what is going on and happening. Cory got to show her a little bit of the new shopping cart. It seems like we are mostly on top of things right now. No huge out of control fires. I left the meeting and Cory and Shari O. were still talking about emails and clients. Good stuff.

Meeting with Bryan. Looking over some new merchant processing code and logic. We made a few changes to the add cart payment page and merged and pushed up code on data 0 for some testing, after we had tested locally. After that, we spent some time going over data, steps, and processes for looking at quantities on sub inventory pages and reports. Small work session.

Meeting with Bryan. He had some questions dealing with sub inventory and doing queries to pull back records. We ended up getting pretty detailed and looking at debugging info and then refining queries from there. Lots of sub inventory type stuff. That is a deep, deep, puzzle that needs some loving.

Working with Bryan on layout and style guide stuff. Code sign-off, merged, and pushed up some code. As we were working, I noticed a few things that we could do better on...

- We need to make sure that we don't have polluted data, especially on the testing and demo sites. We use them for so many different things and don't finish all of the processes. We end up with polluted data or incorrect data.

- We need more histories on things like sub inventory, parent attributes, corp-wide settings, and other high-level places. We have tons of histories on invoices, customers, deposits, parts/items, etc. We just need to add those other histories to the list. This would be a good thing for the fracture project.

- If we have a big mess, say in a demo site, and it needs to be changed - it sure would be nice if we had some bulk clean-up tools or system admin tools that were super high level but could help clean-up or change data in bulk. We may not want these tools available for normal users (could be a problem).

- Full visibility and full searchability - everything needs search options, exports, reports, and histories.

After Bryan and I finished up on some of the code sign-off and reports that we were working on, we switched gears and started talking about some location-based grouping of data. We ran out of time, but I gave him some small things that will help, and he was going to go in and play with those suggestions.

Working with Bryan. We looked at some code and made a few tweaks to some of his reports and pages. We then switched gears over to sub inventory with location filters. Once you add locations into the mix, it complicates things. It goes from a one-to-one relation to a one-to-many relation. That then requires grouping, dynamic filters, and dealing with scale. Lots of talk about dynamics, deeper groupings, and how to sub filter grouped results. We also talked about getting good data and small control set to make sure we are getting what we want (known data in order to get known output).

Meeting with Cory. She had a question about using the find and replace functionality for a client. We actually did the find and replace and it worked slick. It did a deep flip flop and full find and replace including histories, line items, sub inventory, etc.

Next, we spent some time looking at some data questions. Looking into a payment search question and then into employee timecards and timeclocks. We used some existing tools and also did some queries behind the scenes to look at raw data.

On the phone with Bryan to go over tables, joins, and options for pulling in sub inventory. It can get pretty deep, if you are starting from an existing query or even a brand new query.

Meeting with Bryan to push up 3 different code branches. Light refinements on some of the reports and pages. We worked on PO's, sub inventory, alternate logos for invoices, quotes, and statements. We also did some PDF export stuff and more sub inventory availability options on some of the reports. Pushed up code to specific servers for testing.

Merging and pushing up code with Eric. After the initial work, we spent some time talking about data modeling. Here are some of my notes.

- Eric would love to do some more data modeling and taking things into consideration and making a plan. He used to do this for other companies that he has worked with and for. Great resource. We could really use his help with adilas lite or fracture. This was like a mini database and data modeling lesson of sorts. I was loving it and scribbling down notes as quickly as I could. Fun stuff.

- We talked about flex grid tie-ins, flex attributes, and parent attributes. Basically, things that he sees that we do that might be built out into more efficient tools and features. Maybe rework some of this and/or combine some of the features.

- What really connects to other things (natural relationships) or what things are forced together (forced or special relationships)? We may want to look at use cases and try to pull out the natural relationships. Then build your application according to those natural relationships. You may still need to allow the forced or special relationships, but those become the edge cases vs the norm.

- If something happens over and over again, this should be part of the core system. Currently, we do use a lot of flex grid tie-ins to help with some of these special cases. As a side note, some of these one-off features are becoming more normal and should have their own logic and tables vs putting everything into the flex grid tie-ins. Great tool for getting things started but eventually, you may need to build out specific tables, logic, and pages. Make it more normalized and more efficient.

- As a note, what does the flex grid do? It allows for one-to-one connections, one-to-many connections, add log notes to anything, tying things together (main id's to sub id's or main id's to other main id's), and it also allows for up to 30 custom fields. Once again, it can be on a one-to-one basis or used and setup as a one-to-many relationship. Here is a help file that has more info on the flex grid tie-ins.

- As a note, the flex grid tie-ins have been the big brother to the things we are trying to build called flex attributes or real in-line database extensions or real in-line extensions for short. Here is a small, older graphic link, of what we are trying to do.

- We talked about the bus to motorcycle project (datasource project or world building project). We are headed to a new model where the corportion id numbers (corp_id) will be left out per database. Each company will have its own database and thus may not need the corp id number. This deals with table names, joins, and data that gets stored in the database.

- Back to the flex attributes and a possible option to build them right into the main entities or high level tables (for the 12 main players or wherever we see fit to put them). This option has some pros and cons. We'll have to work this out. Currently, I'm really leaning towards something similar to what we did for the current flex attributes or parent attributes. Let them build and setup any custom fields that they need. Dynamic relational model. Just for fun, here is the progression - flex grid tie-ins (2009), sub inventory attributes (2015), parent attributes (2016/2017), flex attributes (2020).

- Lots of talk about data modeling and being able to take off the corp_id. Including on the end of corp-specific tables - for example: invoices_53, invoice_payments_53, time_sub_inventory_53, and a slew of others.

- Maybe break the pili or po invoice line items into two different pieces. It was joined together to help with inventory counts over time and across multiple locations. Anyways, we may look at separating those tables into multiple pieces. Super important, make sure to remember and include locations. If just a single location, we could do the architecture differently. However, with multiple locations, it gets a little bit more complicated or tricky. There are tons of other possible options.

- The payee table should be broken up as well. Currently, if a person or entitiy is tied to an expense/receipt, a PO, an inventory item, it lives in the payee table. Payees consist of users, employees, vendors, and special customers that had to get paid out of the system (a copy and convert process). Anyways, we may want to break that table up into users, vendors, and special customers (something like that).

- We talked about a concept called "attribution" and data normalization levels. There are two main types of data models. You have the logical data model and the physical data model. Entities and entities have attributes. Eventually, those entities and attributes get translated into tables, columns, and fields in a database. Often, most attributes become their own database column or field.

- Attributes are different than types.

- We talked about fields like "flag_for_1099", "password", etc. Those are attributes for certain entities. However, does a vendor need a password field, most likely not. Each field or attribute needs to go with the entity that it belongs with. We, at adilas, tend to mix and blend some of the attributes between different entities. In some ways that is fine, but it requires explanations, instructions, and training. It's not as easy to follow without someone to guide you along. Anyways, some good conversations about data normalization stuff. What goes with what and why does it fit like that?

- Make the names readable and logical where possible. We do a pretty good job on that, but there is some randomness in there as well. Along with that, we jumped into talking about a section called special accounts. We are planning on using that for gift cards, loyalty points, in-store credit, vendor credits, punch cards, and other special account transactions where we almost need a bank account style with a rolling number and being able to add/subtract using individual transactions or actions. Anyways, we have a few fields in there called dev_flag_1, dev_flag_2, and dev_flag_3. We use those flexible fields to help with certain parts of the process. In a way, we didn't know what we were going to need, so we added in some flex fields. Well, now, those flex fields have rules and hold certain data that could be its own column or field. However, because we didn't know what would be needed, the fields are somewhat mixed, depending on what is stored there and what kind or type of transaction record is being stored (loyalty points vs gift cards or whatever).

- The conversion trickled over into human reference fields vs computer identifiers, ids, or computer reference fields. They are different and play different roles.

- As you think things out, eventually you have to transform or go through a transformation from logical models to physical models. Eric kept saying that we should be shooting for the third normal form (data modeling and database modeling). Figure out the whole business world (plan it out as best you can) and then build out what you need, based on what you see and/or know.

- We talked about aggregates and data warehousing. I mentioned that I would like to build out tables for yearly per location, quarterly per location, monthly per location, weekly per location, and daily per location. We would also have the underlying transactions or transactional database tables (raw data that holds all of the data). The other tables would be what we transform the transactions into (a form of aggregates or business intelligence).

- Along with aggregates, Eric was saying that sometimes you can watch the database and see what tables, queries, and reports cost the most (data, traffic, or processing time/energy/frequency). You then build out aggregates based on those findings and/or known needs. For us, we've been doing this for long enough, we know a few places that could really help with speed, server load, and provide great BI or business intelligence levels.

- Our system has to go clear out to the full accounting level. That changes how we do certain things. That is awesome! Our sort of end goal is perfect accounting, aggregates, per day, per location, and per category. Some of those (category levels) vary but they have mostly been defined in the current system. That is huge. We have a plan, we have a path. We just want to refine it. Eventually year over year reporting, monthly by month comparisons, real-time data - all data is live and searchable (adilas).

- Snapshots, aggregates, different preset and controlled data levels. We may need current data (tables without any dates - assumption of current counts, values, sums, totals, averages, maxes, mins, etc.) as well as dated or historical data (tables with dates to allow previous or prior lookups and date driven lookbacks).

- What about enterprise mappings and cross-corp stuff? We need to plan that out as well.

- We also need to consider servers, speed, reliability, backups, redundancies, and how deep we going?

- Lastly, Eric could help with a ground up data model. We could pick a topic, break it down, and do a number of smaller sessions vs a big push. That would be too much. Anyways, great meeting and Eric could be a great resource for planning, checking out our decisions, and planning out the best course of action. Good stuff!

Going over lots of requests for new and enhanced reports. Small errors and fixing a few things. Cory had a small list. Lots of talk about flex attributes and the need to build them out on all 12 main application player groups. Currently, we have them on customers and elements of time. It seems like the next one that is warming up is PO's. We have clients that are wanting to be able to add new and flexible data points to PO's (purchase orders). Of course, once they get added, they for sure want to be able to search by those new flex attributes. They also want them to show up on all the correct spots, forms, searches, reports, and exports. Not a problem, it just takes a goal and some time.

It seems that across the board, our users, on a global level, are wanting more and more control of their reports and exports. This inclues settings, preset and saved favorites, show/hide certain fields or columns, able to rename fields, set and remember the search criteria or filters, and be able to pull down any and all data (reports or exports).

Cory and I were talking about "visibility vs searchability". Our users want "visibility" first, then they want the "searchability". Basically, our users want to see the data and then be able to limit it and/or filter it down from the results that they got. From a coding side, it is easier to filter (control what will show) vs showing everything and then filtering after all of the data is shown and/or pushed out to the user (way more traffic, memory, and bandwidth). On the coding side, we would much rather have you know what you want, then we only have to serve up those records. Sort of a flip flop on who wants what and which way they approach their data and report results.

We have a report that the users want to control multiple parts of an object (say PO's or purchase orders) all from one export and/or report. Granted, the PO has multiple one-to-many relationships, table joins, and records that need to be matched up and presented. Imagine a report search page that has show/hide checkboxes for all of the main PO data (location, vendor, total amounts, PO types, dates, notes, ties to external invoices, etc. - 20 some fields). They then want all of the show/hide checkboxes to show/hide columns for all of the line item details (quantities, costs, prices, items, descriptions, etc. - tons of new fields - 60+ fields). Next, they want any sub inventory information (sub reference id numbers, barcodes, units of measure, special sub attributes, RFID tags, etc. - tons of other fields - another 15-20+ fields). Without going too crazy, they also want any new flex attributes (extra data points or in-line database extensions), parent attributes (inventory level controls for parent items), and other data. I didn't count, but it could be well over 100+ fields that they want to be able to pull, show/hide, filter, and organize. It gets into some advanced settings and big reports with lots of dynamic logic. Not that it is hard to do any of that, it just gets more difficult when you are mixing so many things or parts of the object together.

Cory wants us to start with the "visibility" of the data. As a side note, we may have to off load some of the processing for these bigger reports. I want to be careful about building on possible already tippy code or projects. We have to make sure that everything is stable. After this conversation, Cory and I lightly talked about budgets. We also looked over some code and did some quotes for clients. There are many challenges when trying to mix and bled and mix viewing with searching huge datasets.

Lastly, we talked about fair compensation. We are heavily underpaid and not showing our true value. That gets complicated as well. It's an interesting mix and an interesting game.

On with Cory and Kelly going over new requests for sub inventory reports. Kelly had created some spreadsheets and we were going over those pieces. Great review and we are ready to hand this project over to the developer. We switched topics and started talking about sales tax aggregates and creating manual switches to help force an update.

Cory and I were doing some planning for a server meeting and some decision making. We talked about doing some R&D on the new frameworks that Wayne is working on and almost doing a mini scratch app to get all of the kinks worked out. After that, Cory and I went over a number of other small projects and plans.

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.

Research on sub inventory attributes and changes to sub inventory - over time. Started working on a document to chronicle the timeline and what we have learned over the years. Here is a link to show some of the entries that I was looking at.

Recording notes. Tons of ideas on sub inventory. See entries from 5/10/23.

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.

Zoom meeting with Cory, Steve, and Kelly. We were talking about sub inventory. Subs are great but do require more work and effort. Getting info in, out, reporting, and bulk updates and bulk tools. When we started, we didn't even know what was needed. As things unroll and unfold, we are beginning to see a bigger picture. That is awesome!

We have mountains and mountains of data. Now what?

As the meeting progresses, we spent some time talking about the challenges to sub inventory. Here are some of my notes:

- Sub inventory attributes and being category specific

- Settings all over the place - configuration

- What about changes, updates, and flipping categories (after the fact)?

- Possible mapping of categories, sub attributes, etc. Talking about mapping by id numbers and not names or column numbers.

- We need a sub inventory history section. Tables are already built, but they have not been tied in.

- Some of our clients want so much control

- Sub attributes, parent attributes, flex attributes, flex grid tie-ins, and other different levels or layers

- Master list of sub attributes and then repurpose those per category. This could be tied in with the mapping options listed up higher. Either start from the top (master list) and go down (what sub attributes are needed per category) or list out each attribute per category (current model) and then tie and/or map them back to a master type list. We may have to go in both directions. Just some thoughts.

- Kelly likes how parent attributes can be bridged over categories. Having said that, we need to be able to search by sub attributes, parent attributes, and flex attributes.

- Certain clients want to pull data without the category specific reliance. Basically, once we catch the data, we have to be able to let it be searched, pulled, filtered, shown, and exported. It's all part of the puzzle. Being able to get at and use the data. That's a huge key. Just being silly - ADILAS - all data is live and searchable

- Maybe upping the permission level to add/edit sub inventory or sub inventory templates or sub attributes. Once again, we need some histories of who is doing what in the system.

- Steve was talking about - 1. Capturing the data. 2. Then being able to get it back out (in any form - CSV, Excel, PDF, printable, web). and 3. Being able to play in bulk and deal with automation options. Those are some of the goals (small summary).

- We have people who are wanting to add certain sub attributes on the fly, as part of a sub process or sub phase. This gets into sub locations, sub phases, and sub processes and/or steps. Currently, we only show the subs at certain steps and make them go back to certain places to add/edit or update that data. There is a lot of manual work involved. How cool would it be if we could help them and let them setup their own processes, phases, and sub processes. Mini concepts of the data assembly line.

- There is a need for bulk update tools, easy flow processes, and being able to setup their own data flow based off of the subs or steps within a process.

- The use of templates to help control other actions, defaults, rules, and assignments. Having that example and/or template really helps answer a number of questions.

- We went back to the main need of being able to pull data out of the system (quickly and easily) - all data is live and searchable - We really need this and keep going with what we already have.

- Kelly and Steve working on advanced reporting and moving beyond a band-aid. What about going back and correcting the plumbing from the get go. Planning for the future.

- Need for more controls, handrails, and ability to scale.

- Build and break, build and break. Well, it's time to fix it again! it's breaking!

- What if we re-imagined it??? What would it look like? What things do we need to consider if we were to rebuild this out?

- Kelly was recommending that we get into a real life system to see the challenges. We made some plans to meet with Kelly again see the tools that she uses, how she uses them, and what is still lacking and/or needed.

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This is more for me, but what are the next steps in the planning process for new phases, data assembly line stuff, and where do we want this to go? Help lead and guide it! Keep pushing for more bulk tools, bulk options, and bulk tools to add, edit, update, change, pull data in, pull data out, etc. We can do a bunch of things on a one-by-one basis, let's keep pushing that to the next level. Yee haw!

Cory and I going over projects and assignments. Sub inventory reporting and getting into system wide aggregates. We also spent some time talking about supporting our team members.

Great morning meeting. Eric and Sean started out and were touching base and coordinating on a big demo and a big feature release. They were planning release times, testing times, and fall back plans if needed. I thought that it was really good. They were also talking about different servers and plans per server, based on the demo and the extra functionality. For the demo, they may script it and use an outline (direct links) and/or screenshots of the two different pieces, in case we don't get everything all merged together before the demo.

Sean and I switched gears and were talking about SG&A costs and using expense/receipts (E/R's) vs PO's and capitalized inventory. Sean kept waking up last night and wrote down a number of ideas on a Word document (see attached). We went over the Word doc and drew pictures, made notes, and talked about options. It was just Sean and I, but we beat it up pretty good. See attached for some of the notes.

Here are a few of the notes, beyond what Sean had pitched (once again, see attached).

- E/R's is where it all starts. Maybe just keep it there vs going clear out to PO and capitalized inventory levels.

- E/R's already have a normal date and a due date. The difference between the two is already a built in date range - how long to track the life cycle of each E/R.

- In Sean's notes, he was talking about to the exact minute, second, etc. We will be sticking with a daily value to keep it more simple. Most likely, it will be scheduled at a certain time so that we get consistent results, it can handle weekends, holidays, and becomes a built-in procedure.

- I liked his idea of flagging each SG&A vendor with a special flag. That will help us treat expenses from that vendor in a different way.

- If we run it through the E/R side of things, it will be very minimal effort and input from the user. Most of it will be done and distributed behind the scenes.

- Inventory still in place, keeps get hanger costs. Once it sales, that hanger cost stops and it gets recorded. Otherwise, it is sort of in a state of flux.

- If we get to the tightest level that we are thinking, it will add value for owners and managers to see what it costs over time to keep bigger on hand inventories. Being able to see past what is on the shelf and what that costs. Pros and cons to different inventory stocking models.

- If we hang (add hanger costs) to an E/R, we could reference (key word reference) the PO, invoice, item, sub item (sub inventory), etc. It doesn't add any weight to the current flow, it would just be a reference to those other pieces and/or items.

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After Sean left, John and I were talking about some server stuff. I mentioned to John about getting him a higher percentage of adilas (as a co-owner) than what he currently has. He's playing an important role and doing server stuff, backend code, as well as frontend design stuff. I think that he is doing a good job. We will just keep refining things and playing well with others.

We ended up talking about servers, moving hardware to a new section within the Hostek environment. We also talked about internal developer training that is coming up, subjects, topics, and ideas. We really want the developers to virtually own or have ownership of and for their projects.

Zoom meeting with Cory and Kelly. The whole thing was dealing with inventory reporting and an advanced report builder concepts. Kelly wants to throw-out a wider net and see what we can catch. Instead of going super deep to financials, she wants us just to focus on the invoices and PO's. Basically, an inventory and CRM (customer relationship management) mix. Leave the accounting alone right now (for these reports). Just help our clients get their data in and out quickly. Basically, it's operations stuff.

One of the goals is to show, teach, and allow our clients to use a mix of vendors, customers, invoices, PO's, inventory items, sub inventory, parent attributes, and location information as needed. All of these things interact on both the sales and customer relationship (CRM) levels.

Here are some my notes from the meeting:

- Talking about building a report building engine. This deals with groupings, filters, show/hide columns, sort orders, etc.

- Kelly was talking about getting to the meta data of the database data (going deeper). What is related, how does it work, what can I get out of it - including mixing things that a company and/or individual is looking for? Even things that we can't think of and/or thing about. Extracting those data analytics and details out of the system. Lots of value there.

- Be able to export to CSV, PDF, and web formats (normal HTML or data tables).

- Ideas about display options - Nested groupings, even pulling and storing data in temp tables, data dumps, and then querying that data. ETL - extract, transform, and load - manipulate the data however we need to. Leave the raw data alone, just tweak out other pieces or tables.

- Show all of the tables and their fields. Preset a few things so that the defaults are showing (not everything is checked by default).

- Use the data tables, be able to save the reports, see new reports from the saved favorites, all kinds of advanced report building options.

- Put this new advanced report builder engine under its own new permission.

- Thinking about vertical tabs (for a layout view). The tables or basic system players would be the left most side (left vertical tabs), the right side would show other settings per table. For example: Say the tabs down the left were things like vendors, customers, invoices, PO's, parts/items, etc. Then when you click on the different tabs, it would show which fields belong to what table (on the top of the page) and then the filters and grouping options would be below that. When you are done, you click to view the report. You could also save a new report name, set the sorting or sort order, and who can see it (assigned to who or just a assigned to all option).

- Help educate the users on the database structure. This could be a great side agenda item for this advanced report builder engine.

- Kelly was asking - Is this new advanced report builder a value add-on? How do we monetize it? We decided that for now, we'll just roll it in and try to sell it as a feature of the whole or bigger picture.

- We talked about sub inventory attribute mappings and creating groups (things or attributes that can cross over categories). This is a form of layering for the sub attributes. Basically, each item category can have any number of sub attributes. We then go in and allow a user to setup groups or which sub attributes are buddies or tied to other sub attributes in different item categories. Making small or mini family groups for the sub attributes. Just an idea to help with reporting and consistency.

- We won't build this in yet, but we have to think about things on an enterprise level. If we build this advanced report builder engine on the corporation or basic world level (where we need to start), it won't be long and some of our bigger multiple world level clients will want an enterprise level solution for the advanced report builder engine. We know that is coming!

- Along with the enterprise level, we know that some of our clients really want the business intelligence (BI) level of reporting and aggregation. It's a known need. That's a whole other plan and topic.

- There may be versions and phases of this report builder engine.

- I was asking about big reports and possible timeout issues. We may need to show sample data and then build out the bigger (in needed) reports and then let our clients know that they are done or finished. Some of these reports could potentially be millions and millions of records. As a note, I know that Wayne was working on something similar to this a few months back. I'll check with him on ideas for timing, flow, and notifications.

- We may want to build in options for details (default level) and/or aggregates groups, sums, counts, etc.

- If you are wanting to get more money from people, it really helps if the people that you are dealing with want the same things (that you want). It creates a common want and need.

- In a nutshell, this project would be mixing and blending all (maybe not all) of our existing advanced search features into one bigger master report builder. Because this project could get so big, we may end up playing around and building a mini version and/or a prototype of sorts.

- We talked about timelines and even ways of distracting our clients to buy some time. All of this takes time and resources to plan, build, and deploy.

- As an addition - it would be really cool if we had some presets (pre-maid selections and choices) to help people get started. That would make the building process simpler. We could show some defaults and then let them modify that vs building from scratch every time. This idea came from Aspen (my daughter) who was listening to the meeting while working on other 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.

Cory and I going over different projects. One of the new things that needs to be done is some new code to help with emailing invoices as PDF's. Currently, we send emails with links to web based invoices out in ecommerce. We have a client that has to get their emails as a PDF invoice. Anyways, we talked about needs for that project and being able to automatically email clients who owe us money with the PDF invoice, be able to save it, attach it, and also do a clean-up routine for keeping things tight on the server. We talked about some new settings to make all of that happen.

Along with our conversation, we were talking about being able to do these things asynchronously so that the user doesn't have to wait. Also, as a side note, if we did this, our client would be happy and Shari O. would have an easier time. She does all of our billing stuff.

We flipped over to recipe/builds and a custom report that mixes elements of time, recipe/builds, flex attributes, and inventory planning. We made a small bug fix for the USAePay EMV chip transaction stuff. After that, we spent the rest of our meeting going over custom report requests. It's amazing what people want to search by, group by, and what things they want to mix and blend onto a single report.

As we were talking, Cory had the idea of building a big robust report builder that allowed for all kinds of stuff. Basically, a smorgasbord with options, filters, and such. We then put that power in the hands of our users and let them go at it. In rough terms, it will be let them pick and choose, save it, run it. That would be really cool. We also talked about linking and mapping things internally for sub inventory, kinda like family groups for sub inventory attributes. What are they paired with, how are they related, etc.?

The last subject was dealing with mapping, relationships, groupings, and aggregates. Everybody wants all of the data (details) but they don't want to have to wade through it (sums, counts, maxes, mins, averages, etc.). Those are the aggregates. Everybody wants sales data, inventory, and sub inventory data.

Spent the morning with Steve brainstorming on SG&A costs (sales, general and administrative costs - ways of accounting for expenses as inventory). We decided to start with hidden line items on the invoice level. Playing with the law of deferring to other pieces that have more information. We do that all the time.

Here are some of our notes:

Meeting with Steve

- Mike said that we need to break things down into the smallest pieces (units of 1)

- Steve and I were talking about 5 decimals of accuracy.

- We will need some rounding error buckets.

- Like an item on a shelf, it will collect dust. We just track that dust.

- Vendors, Part Categories, Parent Line Items, Sub Inventory Items, and SG&A costs over time

- Deferring and going back up the chain

- If we go with hidden line items on an invoice. That could get heavy over time.

- We could also just use a whole other table that just references the invoice number. It’s tied to the invoice but not physically hanging on that invoice. Just a sub table that could be traced back to the invoice but doesn’t hurt any other pieces of the existing invoice.

- Folding it in (meaning the costs), and to what level

- Steve and I were talking about some of the math… sales, costs, expenses, etc.

- Steve already has an SG&A homepage. He/we could add some other settings.

- Here is Mike’s formula – monthly sales? Total SG&A? What is still in inventory?

- Steve is thinking about adding in some new settings – maybe total monthly sales, estimated SG&A per month, how many days are you open per month, what is the parent item that we will be adding as a hidden line item? On/off switch for SG&A costs with hidden lines.

- Figure out the fraction or percentage of the total. Use that number.

- There are a number of variables. Eventually, we could pull in that data, but for now, we may want to set some simple fields and fake it a bit.

- We need to build it out and automate it. Add the hidden line item to all invoices behind the scenes. We can’t add SG&A to transfer invoices.

- On adding in subs… we may need some logic to help us roll over between packages.

Small data fix for Kelly on data 34. Had to fix some sub inventory attributes for a PO that had been voided but had sub inventory on it. We did some back and forth via text message and we got it all figured out.

After that Cory had me look at a custom PO label that needed to be fixed/tweaked for a client. The barcode was missing a small piece and thus not scanning the number that we wanted for the sub inventory package. The number was right, it was just missing the "~" for the sub package or sub id number. For example: Say it was sub id ~34, the barcode was only scanning as 34. On the phone with Cory, made the small fix, and pushed up new code. Also sent the update to John and Steve to push into master. My local box is still kinda broken.

More sub inventory stuff for Kelly. Worked on the advanced sub item searches for PO line items. Lots of work and changes to exports to Excel. Pushed up new code and did some testing. Let both Cory and Kelly know about the changes.

Working on the sub inventory availability filters for advanced item searches and data exports.

Back on the data clean-up project. Actually writing the update code. Finished up all but the subs. Came back later and got all of the sub inventory updates done as well. Two different sessions. One from 5:15 pm to 7:00 pm and the other from 8:30 pm to 9:15 pm. Total of 2.5 hours for these two sessions.

Steve and I were going over sub inventory attributes. We got into all kinds of attributes. We talked about sub inventory attributes, parent attributes, and flex attributes. Currently, each section or attribute does a specific thing. There is a growing need for more or better sub attributes and parent attributes. Easier to get things into the database for storage and easier to pull the data back out. I mentioned to Steve that we would really like to add a few fields and values to the current sub inventory attributes. They are things like: part category id, app type id, main id (tied to the part_id), and sub inventory attribute id numbers. We have some of those columns but there has not been a project to standardize things yet. It's still on the wish list.

Quite a bit of talk about new corp-specific tables and data storage. Evolution... everything is evolutionary... look and feel, logic, business flow, and even sales (how we sell our products and services). We will keep working on making it easier and easier to use. SG&A costs (selling general and administrative costs) and going clear out to the financials. To the client, it is just data storage. To us, we have to make it all flow and work together as a system. Sometimes that's a challenge.

As recap - for sub inventory attributes or sub attributes:

1. Add the part category id as a look-up value (this would be a new column)
2. Add the main part id as a look-up value (we could use the column called main_id to hold the part_id - it would work perfect)
3. Add in the correct app type id as a look-up value (we already have this column but don't use it for sub inventory attributes - we just need to use it and tie it in better)
4. Add in the associated sub inventory attribute id number as a look-up value (this would either be a new column and/or repurpose an existing column that is not being used in the custom_text, custom_dates, and custom_numerics tables).
5. If we do change things here, we may want to go through these tables and rename fields and values. It was originally created for a specific project and then used over and over again for other semi related projects. Now that we know what it will be used for... we should take the time to future proof it a bit.

If we could add these fields and/or data points into the sub inventory attributes, it would be so much better for getting the data back out of the system. Currently, things are tied to the sub inventory id or sub reference id. We then look that up to figure out the part id and then use the part id to look-up the part category id. It would duplicate a little bit of data but it would make it so much easier to find things and quickly reference things. Currently, we have to join multiple tables and go virtually up and down the chain to find everything that we need. I would recommend that we do a special project, add the above, do some clean-up and then move forward. That would really help. Just my two cents.

WordPress was down and this caused our main website to be down. I contacted Chuck via text, then a phone call. Sent emails to Wayne with some instructions and suggestions from Chuck. Trying to get things figured out. Luckily, you could bypass the main website and do a direct login by changing the URL (web path) to the login page.

Jumped on the GoToMeeting session and was having audio problems. Cory had some questions about the adilas label builder and getting images pulled in. Kelly needs some sub inventory reports. Some of that gets pretty dynamic and pretty deep. After that, John and I talked about our WordPress site and getting our stuff off of an outside content management software package, WordPress. We couldn't get ahold of either Wayne or Chuck to get help. We need to get some documentation from both or have John help with that documentation. Our eventual goal is working towards standardizing and using best practices for all of our developers. Constant processing of pivoting, updating, and changing to fit and fill our needs.

Chuck was able to meet with me and I jumped back on the GoToMeeting session. John jumped back on as well. We were trying to fix the WordPress stuff for our site. Chuck was helping John try to navigate to a certain file folder and make some changes. We kept running into issues. Cory jumped on and we made a quick fix for her on a cross corp invoice to PO transaction (special cross corp page). Once we finished that up, back on with John going over plans and what not.

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.

Cory had a list of project that she wanted to go over. We both reviewed a small video from Kelly dealing with needs to be able to search sub inventory status and sub inventory availability. Basically, some new filters may need to be added to some of the advanced reports.

Cory and Steve were going over labels and sub inventory stuff. Mike Roundtree joined in and was asking about Herbo payment solutions and options for demos. I mentioned to him, if needed, we could help him out by using special accounts, inside of adilas. We will check to see what is already built out and then go from there. Anyways, he has some needs and ideas. We'll see where it goes.

Next, Mike was talking with Sean and Steve about ecommerce, multiple locations, using a single system for multiple different tasks, and making plans for a new demo site for somebody in Hawaii. Shari O. will spin up the new site, Sean will help fill things in, Cory will help Sean where needed. Fun to see them all making plans and coordinating. We also pulled in Bryan briefly to talk about the Herbo (eXPO) payment solutions and what has been automated and integrated. The demo is out a few weeks.

Shari O. had some questions on a bulk inventory update that needed to be done for a client. She and I made a plan and she will be kicking me over an email to get it in writing.

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.

Prep work and checking out a reported bug/issue on the time-picker. It actually wasn't a bug, it was just forcing the users to play clear out to the minutes and seconds, based on some settings.

Cory joined and we spent some time catching up and talking about projects and issues. We talked about it and we will take off the time-picker for most of the pages that allow for user time inputs (files like add new timecard, clock in/out for users, edit timecards, customer logs, follow-ups, and both main and sub entries for elements of time). We did a search and it only looked like a few (20+) pages that need to be edited.

As we were talking, Cory gave me a few other small projects that need to be done and finished. She will send me some emails with more details, but it sounds like a data clean-up for a client that had the wrong cost of goods based on manual changes. There is also a request to add a few new search filters to a sub inventory PO based advanced search. We went over a few other projects and requests as well. Cory and I finished up around 11:30 am.

I then started working on the project to remove the time-picker from certain files. I uploaded new code to all servers and let Cory and Shari O. know about the update. Small work session.

More work on adding in the sub special status filter to the advanced time sub flags and tags search. I had to alter the search page, the results page, the backend logic, and the export to excel pages. After that, I switched over to adding in a fix to help prompt users to setup sub inventory templates when attempting to add/edit sub inventory. If everything is setup, it just flows through. If it's not all setup, it lightly prompts, with a message and a link, on how to set it up correctly. Light little bit of loving for that sub inventory functionality. Merged and pushed up files.

John, Shari O., Cory and I were on the meeting, at least at first. The three of them were chatting about mobile responsive webpages and options and costs. We know what we want, and our clients know what they want, but there is a huge cost barrier to really do it correctly. We have an internal website/system with thousands of pages, and each one is different. That's a challenge and would cost multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if you had the best team in the world, it would still cost up in that neighborhood. Big project.

Cory and I jumped in and did a small quote session and were going over requests and new projects. One of the new projects really wants to have us speed up access and reporting for sub inventory stuff. We would love to do that and are willing to share a cost with the client. Cory and I chatted about options and things that would help us get the data quicker and more standardly for certain reports. We also went over a number of other projects and upcoming feature enhancements.

Steve and Sean were on going over new custom label settings that Steve was working on. He is doing tons on the labels and tying in everything to dynamic page settings. He had a few questions about version control (Git stuff). We got him all squared away and headed in a good direction. Next, we chatted about upcoming online scheduling settings and where to go next with those pieces. Bryan and I are making some good progress. I was doing some drawings and showing the guys where we are headed and what some of Bryan's new setting will do for unique calendar events and being able to book those from online or ecommerce.

Steve was talking with a lady and virtually gave her a small demo just by talking to her over the dinner table (concepts and principles). The lady loved the concepts of what we are trying to do and how it could help make things better and smoother. Basically, I think that people do like what we are doing, they just expect it to be done and ready to pull off the shelf (walmart style) where it looks nice, has a set price, and you can just pick it up. We will keep heading in that direction, but the reality is, it takes time and money, tons of settings, permissions, and even custom pieces. We are really going in a great direction. Keep going!

Shari O. and Danny joined the meeting. We did some light sub inventory training with them. Sean was chiming in as well. We've got some great team members. That is awesome. Hopefully we can all keep learning together along the way.

Two different sessions. One from 4:45 pm to 5:45 pm and the other from 7:45 pm to 8:45 pm. Both were dealing with the same thing.

More work on the 3rd party error logs. Working on the add/edit sub inventory template section. The add new sub inventory template was pretty easy. The update method got a little bit harder as we needed to monitor what changes. This particular thing (piece of data) gets submitted in bulk and we only wanted to record changes if something really changed. We had to do some comparing between old and new and then flagging what had changed. Finished up this round and pushed up files into the master branch.

Hours of emails, tech support, and other stuff. Emails to Wayne, Cory, Kelly, etc. Going over validation stuff, routines, logic, fixing small bugs, and looking into sub inventory data and attribute mappings. On a Zoom session with Kelly, Wayne, Dustin, and I. Looking over code and testing things. Kelly even pulled a client onto the meeting to get some approvals and have her do some live testing. Pretty deep session.

As a side note, if all is going well, the value of the systems admin person doesn't seem that important but when all things go crazy and he/she helps to get it back in check, the value of that person is huge. They are often overlooked when seas are calm and the wind is not blowing (which means that they are doing a good job). Lots of unseen efforts. Thanks Wayne!

Today's server meeting started out pretty normal and ended up in a small work session and trying to figure out how to modify some code for sub inventory. We started out and John reported on his yearend tax forms (W-2's and 1099's). We got a small report on the changes to the email server that Wayne is working on. We are excited to see if we can gain some more control and/or options there. We then switched over to the bug in the sub inventory stuff. This doesn't happen all of the time, but when it does, it throws an error.

Anyways, we spent the next hour or so going over different levels of pre-validation, in-line validation, and post-validation. Sometimes the problems can be stopped before they ever get going, some can be stopped once an error or 0 record count is hit, and some need to be soft or conditional errors that don't do something but allow for other things to still take place. For example, the soft errors may need to happen in a complex loop or nested loop. You may not want to just stop on a dime. You may want the loop to finish and then show problems or gracefully roll past any problems or issues.

Anyways, it got pretty deep. We will end up going in and looking at each page and decide what the best option will be. There is no quick solution for this issue. We may have to check and change code in hundreds of pages. Each one has a different task or function or flow. The quick answer is to just change it at the method level, but this same method is used in tons of places and in different ways. We will just have to chip away at it and/or watch the logs and only fix the pages that show up on the error logs. Once again, it only happens every once in a while and not all pages that use this method have problems. We have to track this one down using manual processes and time reading over the code before the method calls, during the call, and after the call.

To sum it up, it all deals with general error handling and making it more consistent. We are in a state of constant refinement. We will just keep working to make it better and better and smoother and smoother. I will note that we never would have found this error if it weren't for Wayne's monitoring and error logs. Basically, it allows us to look under the covers and catch things that a normal user would never report to us.

After everybody else left, Cory was talking about testing and making sure that we are only pushing up good code. Wayne told her that we push up code everyday, multiple times a day. That is totally true. She only knows about it if it goes bad or has an error or bug in it. Anyways, we'll have to keep pushing on things and we'll find some good balance points between testing, pushing, and progression. Making headway... yee haw!

Multi-hour session with Wayne on the GoToMeeting session. We were debugging things out in the adilas API sockets and dealing with sub inventory queries. We went through a number of emails that had been going back and forth. We also got into some database and query analytics and doing analysis of our queries. Trying to get things faster and smoother. Small work session.

There are pros and cons to this, but this was a direct quote from Wayne during our conversation. "Our flexibility is one of our biggest assets." We have a number of clients that use the system completely different, even within the same industry. That is awesome, but it can also bite us. Just part of the game.

Small bug fixes. Added some dumps on the developer's update tables page. Trying to find the error. Small tweak to the sub inventory template error on the production recipe/build page. Pushed up files.

Danny was on the morning meeting this morning. The topic was videos and marketing. Danny is working on some quick tips and then some deep dives, dealing with different videos. We spent quite a bit of time talking about how best to get the word out. We also talked about themes - do we want to be more serious business or mix and bled and get a more playful theme. We kinda like the more playful theme.

Once the videos are done, we need a way to spread that information and link to those videos from various places within the system or within the site. One of the hardest things with adilas is how quickly things change. It is super hard to keep up and keep our users up to date on what is changing and happening. Often we will build something new and no one knows about it. That same topic "spreading the knowledge or know how" has been and is becoming more of an issue.

Sean and Steve were talking about recipes and production stuff. Sean was trying to figure things out and we finally figured out that one of the categories was missing some sub inventory attributes. We talked about making the error message a better error to help direct the users to what was needed.

We also spent some time talking about look and feel and being consistent. We kinda have a half-painted house right now - switching from classic to snow owl themes (all look and feel stuff). The last topic of the meeting was talking about setting up time with the developers and getting a full rundown on new functionality and doing some of the deep dives or developer level demos.

Looking at some small bug fixes with Bryan. These are small things from our post-it note project (stuff that I haven't been able to get to and it just existed on post-it notes on my desk). Anyways, we merged and pushed up some small changes for sub inventory templates and limiting which merchant accounts to show out in ecommerce. Merged in files and pushed up code (4 pages with changes). Smallish stuff.

Zoom session with Bryan to go over a few post-it notes that have been sitting on my desk for a little while and just need to get finished. We recorded part of the session. See attached. The three main things that we tried to cover were merchant processing and valid options for ecommerce. Some of the merchant integrations that we have are very hardware specific, and thus not a good fit for ecommerce transactions. While we were in there looking around, we spent some time talking about our old PayPal integration. It needs some updating and some loving. The last one was dealing with some settings on sub inventory templates.

There is a 20 minute video attached to this element of time, if you want to see what we went over.

During the server meeting, Cory and Wayne were reporting on different issues, problem, questions, and talking about changes to sub inventory. Wayne is working on some new changes to help speed things up there. Wayne was also volunteering to help Alan with some elements of time (flow) stuff for production processes.

One of the big topics was the email server. It's kinda old and has been acting up lately. It's turning into one of our top priorities.

We spent some time talking about servers and specs. We have certain pages, like the balance sheet, that cause heavy loads. We really want to get into some preset sums, counts, maxes, mins, and averages - basically, we need aggregated data. We have great transactional data, we just need to keep moving up the chain and create the aggregated data that is date specific. That will allow us to go both forwards and backwards. That is very important, to be able to easily go backwards as well. Making this change to aggregated data will be huge for us in the future. We really need this as part of our fracture project.

We have a project called the inventory snapshot - mini aggregate project that Eric was working on. Once he finishes with his gift card project, we are going to have him jump back on the inventory snapshot project to help with quick inventory quantities.

The last thing that we went over was between John and I. We are working on a smooth hand-off of the discount engine project. Coordinating times and making plans. That is coming along well.

Meeting with Bryan and Cory to go over the updates on the sub inventory counts and popup modal in the cart if trying to oversell an item. We were really close. We pushed up some code and did some testing and then had to tweak it just a little bit. Cory ended up bailing out and just Bryan and I finished up the detail stuff. We got it fixed, pushed, merged, and live in the master branch. Small work session.

Code review with Bryan. Working on an additional popup modal for a shopping cart message for overselling sub inventory items. Working through the cart logic with complex data objects dealing with structs and arrays of structures.

Did some prep work for a later client meeting for 710 Labs and Hoodie Analytics (15 minutes). Created a new page that pulls data by invoice number vs a date range.

As part of the server meeting, Wayne was reporting on progress and status of his wife - health issues. We spent quite a bit of time looking over a number of requests that Cory had. I sent Wayne a zip file for all of the existing email stuff (code and assets). The email server is being more of a topic lately. We will need to do something there soon.

We also spent some time talking about the content server and the disk size of what we are storing for clients. It is getting quite large. We talked about the accumulative sized and storage costs over time. Looking into other options, costs, prices, and other servers to help handle the current and future content loads.

We got into database stuff and talking about sub inventory stuff. Tons of bulk tools are wanted and needed. Another topic that we got into was dealing with training and lack of training. This was dealing with existing features inside of adilas and/or different 3rd party plugins and libraries. This topic led us into talking about maintenance and doing the right thing. That's a constant battle. Another huge vote for maintenance and education. Two huge concepts that may end up being better than new features. Something to remember as we keep heading towards the fracture model and project (maintenance and training/education).

Cory had a list of questions and things that she wanted to go over. She asked about how the top 15 customers were figured out on the some of the dispensary homepages. We went into the code and looked around. We went over invoice due dates, how to allow customer/client terms to show up on invoices, and other projects.

The next major topic was parent attributes and parent attribute sorts. We talked a lot about reworking all of the sub inventory pages and our virtual wish list with regards to sub inventory and parent attributes. It is super flexible and very needed. It currently works but could use some enhancements, polishing, and refinement. Never ending process.

Along those line, there has been requests for better bulk tools for both parent attributes and sub attributes, better reports and advanced searches, and ways to speed things up and make it even smoother.

Cory and I went over some quotes and talking about the need for better project management for our internal projects. We are really good at doing just in time project management but some of our project really need some more base level requirement and expectations out of the gates. Sometimes we hand our developers a simple one liner and then they take off. They just need a little bit more instruction and direction in writing vs just talking and verbal. If good notes weren't taken, things fall through the cracks.

Steve and Cory were talking about looking up projects in bit bucket (code repository stuff). Being able to check on commits and branches. They were then talking about different industries and how they are financing some of their developments. Lots of games that people play and how do we fit into that mix. While Steve was still on with us, Cory was reporting in on some meetings that she had had with Kelly dealing with the adilas label builder and sub inventory attributes. Both of those subjects seem to be heating up a bit.

Our current goal is to focus and try to get some small victories (projects being done and across the finish line). Cory and I spent some time going over projects. We talked about the need to test everything. Even small stuff. We have had it bite us before. Next, Cory and I looked into a possible bug in some settings. We looked and looked and couldn't see anything quickly. We may have to jump in deeper, when we get a chance.

Shari O. popped in and had some questions about getting a new internal email server. Our current solution has been giving us some problems lately. We don't change any code on our side and it works great, all of the sudden it will be down, and without any changes on our side, it all of the sudden starts working again. Kinda crazy. Shari O. calls it the gremlins or email gremlins. As a side note, later in the meeting she popped back in to let us know that it was working again. Random.

Wayne joined the meeting and got Cory and I up to speed on a few things that he is trying to work on. Performance tweaks.

Cory and I then started going over her list of possible projects, quotes, and estimates.

- Need quotes for inputting sub attribute data all at one time upon PO creation (start with build page)
- Bulk update sub attributes interface
- Mapping of EOT (elements of time) data to sub attributes (settings for cultivation and manufacturing)

Along the way, we were talking about options and settings that relate to the concepts of the data assembly line, recipe/builds, showing subs in the packaging and production pages, and managing recipe/build output better. Lot of talk about bulk edit tools for sub inventory attributes, batches, phasing, sub locations, and moving subs along a known path or virtual assembly line.

Dealing with the data assembly line concepts, I was telling Cory how we setup both rules and assignments for smart group buttons (tiered pricing buttons). I was mentioning that we could use something similar to help setup and do the mapping between elements of time, sub phases, sub locations, sub groups, and monitoring the progress of certain things. We need the rules (what or how to do things) and the assignments (who or what to connect or monitor). Using the two pieces in combo (rules and assignments) we could then have the computer and/or system help us monitor progression and progress. They are good at that, they just need instructions and the who, what, when, how, and why and they can do those jobs over and over again.

As we keep rolling more and more towards the concept of fracture (future adilas project) I would really like to keep working on the data assembly line concepts and using rules and assignments to get the correct flow and mapping in place. I see that as important as we keep going forward.

More work on the code for 710 Labs and the custom data extract that they are wanting with all sub inventory attributes and invoice line item data.

Working on the 710 Labs custom data extract and data export. They wanted all of the sub inventory attributes to be passed back with every sale and line item. Working on the new code and writing new logic.

Meeting with Cory to go over the quote line items for the adilas label builder. We made a small Word document and added in all kinds of notes, verbage, and estimates on hours for each section. That document was sent to Cory via email and also uploaded inside of adilas for that label builder project. We also did some training on adding media/content to sub inventory items. Lastly, we went through some older notes and tried to make sure that we have/had all of the MVP requirements. Productive meeting and making good progress.

Steve and Cory were talking about pages, packages, and sub inventory. Shari O. popped in and we ended up having some light budget talks. The four of us talked briefly about the state of adilas and where we are going. Lots of good things going but we do need to be careful. On a different note, many things are changing all around us - including code changes, settings, clients, needs, expectations, etc. It's a moving target.

Light talk about what is an MVP (minimal viable product) for what we are doing? Even though we have so much functionality, do we have all of the required pieces? There are still some things that we need, even for an MVP - although it be a large MVP.

Cory was asking questions about projects and what not.

One of our clients wanted to see all of the sub inventory attributes on a custom data export. Doing some testing and prep work.

Talking about sales and follow-up calls and emails. Steve, Sean, and I were going over some emails that we got over the weekend. We decided that we would reach out to one of our clients, as another potential client wanted to ask some questions to some of our existing clients. Making plans and getting ideas from each other.

Cory joined the meeting and we broke into a small project overview and question session. She was out of the office most of last week and just had a pile of emails and questions for Steve and I. There were 3rd party solution needs, emails, small bugs, and new requests. It doesn't seem to slow down... and if it does, it isn't for very long.

Cory and Steve were going over the compare Metrc inventory page and talking about ideas to help shorten up that page. We have a client that is getting so many sub packages that it is causing problems (too much data). We talked about other possible bulk tools and ways to help them clean-up there data and/or be able to easily filter their records and results sets. Kinda funny and kinda not, but we build and break, build and break. Our clients keep pushing things to huge extreme levels. All you can do is build and break, build and break, try to respond and look forward as far as you can. It becomes an interesting game.

After that, Cory was bringing forward some new requests to be able to duplicate PO's with sub inventory packages. We have been able to duplicate PO's for years now, but not with sub inventory packages because those are all fully independent and have varying sub attributes and usually it's not a straightforward duplication process. It requires too many other questions, variables, and switches. Anyways, that is heating up and we may have to figure out a way to get that going.

Emails and research. Then working with Bryan on some table column spans and alignment issues. He showed me a number of scenarios and how things were looking and lining up. This was all dealing with invoice sub totals, taxes, and grand totals. The main switch was whether or not a line item and/or invoice had sub inventory and sub attributes being displayed. The code was looking good, so we merge it into the master code branch. Pushed it up to all servers.

Two different projects. One was expanding the max character length for customer and vendor searches. Took off the old max of 4 characters for the searches and opened up the fields to allow for unlimited characters, in the search field. Pushed up code and let Michael Webber from McCorvey's Pro Shop (bowling supplies) know about the new change. He had requested an increase there on those pages.

Fixing some data for Cory. 710 Labs had one sub inventory item that got double booked. Made a backend data change for the client. This took about 45 minutes to find it, change it, and make sure everything was good to go.

Long meeting between Steve, Cory, and I. Cory was reporting on tons of different projects and getting our input and suggestions. We covered tons of different topics. Here are some of my notes (from 10 pages of post-it notes - didn't know it/we would cover so much). The original meeting was only setup for an hour. It went a wee bit over... :)

- Talking about tons of custom label options. More talks about what to do with Calvin's custom label builder. We've spent a lot of money there and want to really get a return on that investment.

- We talked about bringing projects more internally with our guys and breaking things into smaller and smaller pieces.

- On labels, we had a request to be able to do serialized labels (up or modify counts and counters based on batches or packages).

- Using tons of our existing tools and refining those pieces. We have a ton of tools in the shed (virtually).

- Lots and lots of talks about breaking up the bigger projects into multiple smaller pieces. Along with that, we need to be able to charge money for bigger estimates. Everything takes time and effort. Either that or be able to recoup the amount within the bid or estimate.

- If we are doing real custom work, we need to charge for that. Often, we end up taking a hit.

- The trend seems to be (globally) transactions and details going into aggregates and summaries. We have had so many 3rd party analytical companies wanting to use our API sockets to harvest and use our great data sets. We would like to do a bunch of that analytical work inhouse vs farming it out to a 3rd party. All of these 3rd parties are just working for individual companies, but you can see the trend happening. Our clients are really wanting to get to the business intelligence level (BI) for viewing their data, snapshots, counts, summaries, and other aggregated data or stats.

- We went over some pros and cons of using the adilas API sockets. Back and forth on monetizing those channels and also making sure that they don't get abused or flooded.

- Lots of talks about the item catalog and the image catalog. As we use more and more API sockets, we could really use bigger and bigger bulk tools to help with data standardization and speed of deployment. Lots of positives. We, as a company, could also sell more systems if we brought in the enterprise level (way up - cascading info down to lower systems). Good stuff.

- More bulk standard tools. This just adds to the votes for building out the value add-on core model with different levels. Just as a recap - the value add-on core model deals with 5 known levels. They are: 1. Transaction core (current adilas system), 2. Industry specific skin, tools, and features. 3. Any custom code on top of the main system. 4. BI - Business Intelligence levels (stats, sums, counts, averages, mins, maxes, aggregates), and 5. Enterprise levels - connecting multiple worlds in a hierarchical type system (roll ups, roll downs, transaction corps/worlds, aggregates and sum corps/worlds - also dealing with permissions and access). We really want this type of a system for our future fracture project. We already have a number of pieces to this project (all kinds of prototypes spread all around the system), it just isn't all put together. That would be so awesome, clean, powerful, and hopefully pretty!

- We spent some time talking about our clients. Sometimes they get pretty creative. That is both good and bad. If they get creative, and find errors or break things, we just fix them and keep going. Other times, they totally use certain tools in ways we never would have imagined and/or foreseen. That can get interesting.

- There have been some requests for bulk tools for updating sub attributes and bulk sub inventory tools.

- Cory kept asking - Who are we? We tend to build generally but then we have all of these industry specific demands that keep coming at us. It makes it really hard to know where to focus. We really need to decide who we are and then hopefully that or those choices will help guide us.

- Dealing with Metrc (state compliance systems), we've had the request to build out more individual user type functions. This is dealing with more employee/user type permissions and settings. Currently, most of our Metrc transactions are done on a corporation or world level. The new requests are to do the exact same things but break it down on a per person basis. That sounds awesome, but that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in development. We would have to create the one-to-many relationship, make sure that they were valid, then sync up users and permissions between systems in order to play. Then, to further make it kinda crazy, you would have to check user permissions (remotely) then attempt the connection, then if it failed, figure out if there was a global (higher up) option that you could do so that it wouldn't break all of our code and processes. It could be a huge project. Lots of unknowns. As part of this project, we would also have to add more history tables, who did what, who changed what, who has permission to do what, and making sure that each individual keeps their keys and tokens updated. It sounds like a small nightmare.

- We seem to build in general and then use it specifically as needed. Custom code on top of our own standard package, tool, or feature.

- Going over the cost of building and building. One you have to build it, then you have to maintain it, and upgrade and support it. The costs keep increasing. This topic lead us back to questions about who are we and where should we be focusing?

- There is a growing need to use asynchronous type loading like AJAX or some way of breaking huge datasets into smaller pieces. It is totally common for us to need to show or export 10,000+ or even 100,000+ records at a time. The current process tries to take that whole thing as a single bite or single attempt. It's just too large and slows things down.

- Some time was spent talking about loyalty points and keeping track of the total liability. More talk about other reports that show sums, grouped values, look-back capable reports, and using ACV (actual cash value) for recording loyalty points. We do a bunch of that, just refining the process and making it even smoother.

- Need for messaging or using the message marketing features that we have already built. There is a growing need for push notification and two-way communications outside of the main app or website. The client portal is growing in needs and options. More mobile ready or full mobile pieces are going to be coming down the pipeline. Everything seems to be trending in that direction.

- Question - do we fill in the gaps on functionality or try to update the look and feel? It sure would be awesome if we could virtually turn things on/off based on the UI (user interface) and settings. We would love to set things up super simply and then let the users add on or take away from our smaller base level. A new mini version of the shopping cart is in great need of these fracture type level settings. Start small and simple and then let the users build on or configure things as needed. Hide anything that we can unless asked for. Then when it is done (using the tool or feature), it can be hidden again. Every page needs show/hide options on a per page or per section level. Totally customized.

- Along with the show/hide options talked about above, it would be so cool to show all of the options and then say - what do you want? You tell us. More fracture stuff (where we are headed). Mountains and iceberg analogy stuff (it still needs to be there, but what is shown and/or exposed).

- We talked about extra costs and prices for some of the other add-on tools and functions. Some of our stuff (tools and features) takes a major amount of work and effort. We would love to sell more training, consulting, automation, and other professional services.

- News and updates and the importance of keeping our users up to date and informed. This seems to be a constant need and keeps evolving. Content and making and creating new content (creation and maintenance).

- Lots of talks about prioritizing efforts for different persons (parties). Diving out responsibilities and sharing info across departments and across people (users).

- Using videos - the value of education and training. Selling our other services. Scheduling and setting up ongoing training efforts. We would love to make lots of polished smaller videos. Laying it all out for our clients (on demand education or just in time education). We could really use our website to toot our stuff for different business verticals. For example: Revamping our manufacturing site and pages. We can handle... (fill in the blank) for manufacturing or whatever. That is a deep pool (manufacturing and production type businesses). The trend seems to be leading us more in that direction.

New upload with some code changes for 710 Labs and Hoodie Analytics. Small re-work and changed the logic on 4 fields for sub inventory. Pushed up new files and sent emails to both Wayne and the client.

Meeting with Bryan over GoToMeeting. We started into some questions on automating discounts and then into sub inventory. Bryan had been working on a project to show sub attributes on save as PDF invoices. The sub attributes already existed in the other invoice views, it just wasn't on the save as PDF version. We merged in the code and pushed the files to all servers.

Sean and I were talking more about recipes and recipe/build processes. It would be so cool if we could add in a quick way to work with sub inventory (currently missing but on our wish list). Imagine if the cart could pick from the oldest open package by default (maybe a setting), then allow the person who is building the actual output (some sort of fulfillment) to make the final decision (which sub package something really came from). Sean also had the idea that we could run it like we do with quotes or sales from ecommerce. We allow the parent items to be set and then the subs added in real-time as the invoice gets fulfilled or generated. There may be other possible settings options as well. Great ideas. This would really help in certain industries and being able sell bulk subs or preset kits or invoice groups (specials, packages, etc.).

Going over emails. That seems to be a big part of my day. Cory joined the meeting and we touched base on some projects, servers, and clients. One of the underlying topics was "timing" and how important timing of certain things is/was. Good stuff.

Working over the new GoToMeeting interface with Steve. They are in the process of changing their interface. We were working on setting up a new dynamic look-up function for a single sub inventory attribute and its value. Small work session. Steve was building the new function and I was helping and directing him.

Cory was asking for reports on different projects. Wayne joined and we jumped into the server stuff. He was requesting more specific errors to be reported via email. If the error reports are too generic (server 6 is down), that doesn't give him much to go off of. It would be better to say something like, server 6 is denying login access or something like that so he knows where to start. Anyways, he was requesting more details when reporting problems and server errors.

We talked about the database clean-up for data 0. Next, we got into looking over errors and slow pages and slow queries. The main problem child queries are all dealing with corporations with tons and tons of inventory, invoices, and sub inventory. There is just a lot of data there.

At the end, John gave a small report to us. He has been working with Dustin to help get Dustin up to speed with server stuff and pieces.

On the morning meeting, Marisa was showing us some sub inventory issues that need to be smoothed out dealing with sub inventory attributes and template settings. I was doing some emails. A question was brought up about New Mexico state payroll and state withholding. We used to have that state, we just need to circle back around and make sure that everything is updated and good to go.

Shari O. and I spent some time going over progress with USAePay and getting information from them. We have both made multiple calls to our contacts at Newtek and haven't really gotten the information that we need yet. Kinda frustrating, we just want info on account types and how to help our clients sign-up for what they need. If we can't the info that we need, we talked about going in a different direction. Both of us will keep trying, for the time being.

Switching subjects, Shari O. and I spent quite a bit of time talking about our transition from full 1099's for all of our guys and gals to the multi member LLC (partners and ownership) options. Eventually, we may need a hybrid type solution that allows for owners, 1099 folks, and even employees and W-2 folks. Still trying to figure things out there. As a note, Shari O. is recommending that we slowdown a bit and make sure that we have watched budgets, gotten documentation, and standard procedures in place before we jump too quickly. I showed her the adilas docs section, inside the adilas site, and she had never been there. If we do build out more internal flow and owner type handbooks, that is where it will go. It will be called our standard operating agreement or something to that nature.

Shari O. and I talked about budgets, watching and tweaking those budgets, and then making some decisions. Lots of talk about timelines and timeframes for some of the upcoming changes. Good stuff. I'm super glad that she cares and is willing to ask hard questions.

The morning meeting started out normally and then sort of morphed into a multi hour long meeting with no real stop or start between the different topics and sections. We started out and Sean was checking in and lightly going over some of the BioTrack API socket questions. We got into a discussion on promises made and client and user expectations and how deep we want to go into those areas. Some of our clients expect an easy button for every possible wish or desire. It just doesn't work like that. Yet those expectations are real and valid based on user requirements and user demands. That puts tons of pressure on us as a software system. There just is no physical way to make it do everything, for every person.

Wayne joined the meeting and the conversation moved over to slow queries, database indexes, record counts, volume of data, and all kinds of other topics. We spent some major time going over potential problems with our flexible "LIKE" searches on the parts homepage (flexible wildcard searches across multiple database fields and columns). We need the flexibility, and we have trained our people to rely on that, but because it is so open, it is causing issues when put under a huge data load (not thousands but millions or multiple millions of records). We can handle quite a bit with no problem. When you really overload it, it starts groaning and squeaking under intense pressure. Technically, that is called scale.

The amount of data that some of our clients are generating and recording is causing a volume or scale issue. We got into deep logic and how we could speed things up if we were able to use indexes, exact searches, and get rid of huge list look-ups (using the SQL IN clause) or super flexible text searches using like commands (SQL LIKE clauses with wildcards). Basically, when doing some of these functions, the databases skip the indexes and end up looping over millions and millions of records. We spent some time talking about a number of possible solutions.

We had a break where Wayne had to go pick up his kid from school. In the meantime, John and I were talking about some of his projects. He was showing me a bunch of stuff that he has on a Jira board for the discount engine. I was kinda getting overwhelmed and depressed. So much stuff to do and manage. Sometimes it feels like it is all over the place and it never ends.

Wayne got back and we flipped back over to database queries possible options to help speed things up and handle a huge scale or a huge load of data. We talked about a combo type approach where we have to include tweaks to the database, code changes, UI and UX (user interface and user experience) changes, and other backend management changes. It may end up being a combo type package or approach to fix some of these problems.

That topic and discussion lead us to talk about prior or earlier decisions that were made years ago. We talked about why certain things were decided upon and implemented. It is very interesting and the story keeps rolling out in front of us. What we have now is a combination of history, situations, decisions, and even future wants and needs. It all mixes together and makes a complex solution. Some of the why and what we did is super important.

Having said that, things keep changing and morphing. We talked about building things for a non-static environment. Dealing with scale (up or down). That lead us to possible daily or real time mini aggregates on quantities and other key points and factors. Basically, ways of summarizing data and getting to more of a business intelligence type level - quick counts, sums, totals, averages, mins, maxes, etc.

Talking about the aggregation processes lead to talks about database triggers, update routines, scheduling, clean-ups, automation, manual checks and overrides, and the list goes on. Along the way, we kept talking about how important the inventory pipeline and tracking the ins and outs is so critical to these values, stats, and numbers. Steve joined us and we got into update functions, methods, table row locking, more manual updates, and reconciliation options to make sure all is well. You basically need the transactions (what happens and when - this is the details or the historical record). You also need the sums or totals (these are the running or current aggregates). These two pieces, transactions and aggregates play different roles.

As part of our discussion, we were looking at one-to-many database table and column relationships and how things are handled currently. It gets deep quickly. We then started talking about breaking shared tables into corp-specific tables and building smaller corp-specific aggregation type tables. This lead us to a small discussion on sizes of tables and when ones are already broken down into corp-specific tables and which ones may be up for review.

On the mini aggregate tables (quick sums, counts, and totals) we could go different ways. Do we want a historical record of the aggregates or do we just want to keep current (now) sums, counts, and totals? If you add historical, you start adding dates and get new records every day (assuming things are changing) or if you skip the dates, then there are less records, things may be quicker for the current but could take longer if going back in time. Maybe both... one to hold the historical aggregates over time and one to hold the quick and dirty (real-time current look or roll call report).

The deeper we got, the more that settings and database options came into play. We have a future project called fracture in the planning. We need to be able to have and use settings on what our users and corporations (worlds) want to see and use. We have tons of data and tons of records. Okay, great, what do you, as a user or end user, want to see, show, display, sort, etc.? How does that need to be organized? It goes deep and gets into advanced settings, display options, and being able to save layout and configuration options per person, per page, per corporation. That all needs to be included in the fracture stuff, along with the other transactional and mini aggregate database options listed on this page.

Once you know where you want to go... You can get there (hopefully). If you plan on being the only one to get there, the trail doesn't have to be very good. If you plan on repeating the journey, the trail needs to be even better. If you want a bunch of people and/or companies to complete the journey, you will need a road, not a trail. All part of the process.

Going back to tables, we talked about two big corp-specific tables in the system that will need a buddy mini aggregate table (or more). The big transactional tables are the po/invoice line items and the time sub inventory tables. Those two tables (that are already corp-specific) will need helper tables to keep track of both transactional aggregates per date (semi historical summaries) and also current non-historical mini aggregates for the quick and current view (no dates). Another way of putting this is making location specific pre math calculations vs having to go and re-sum things up or count things based on complex look-ups. You virtually do the known math per item, per package, and per location before it is needed. Then those numbers and values are quickly ready and available as mini aggregates. If you need more details or the blow by blow, you just go back to the transactional tables or records (different tables).

Some of our current pain is in the sales and POS (point of sale) systems such as carts and inventory tracking. We can do it, but if it gets into hundreds of thousands or millions upon millions of records, you run into the scale factor and issues.

Just for our notes, a couple key pieces are corporations and locations. If everybody just had a single location, some of this would be really easy. If you have more than one location, the solution needs to scale and keep track of mini aggregates based off of corporation and locations. That is a huge key that often gets overlooked. Plan for multiple (unlimited) locations. Here are some possible columns that may be needed for some of these mini aggregate tables for mini aggregate quantities - auto id, corp id, store id, part id, sub reference id (sub id), part count, and maybe a date if doing historical.

Switching subjects again, we need to charge more to clients for harder tasks and functions. I had a friend that was talking about software. He said, you tend to get two different types. You get cheap software or custom software. Hardly ever do you get cheap custom software. Custom does cost time and money. That is the way it is.

After Wayne left, Steve and I stayed on for a bit to go over some other things. We talked about gift cards, coupons, and other upcoming projects. I showed him a PO rounding demo and what I have done so far. The next question was... how deep are we going to dive per subject? Lots of options.

3/22/22 3:06:16 pmStart Work 3/22/22 3:43:31 pmLunchtime id 2169: meeting with Cory to discuss the perimeters of the project

3/22/22 4:59:39 pmStart Work 3/22/22 6:38:14 pmGoing Hometime id 2169: beginning the process of updating the table to reflect the new regulations on the canada retail report 

3/23/22 9:38:10 amStart Work 3/23/22 10:50:22 amOthertime id 2169: replaced the columns quantity sold - units and quantity sold - value with quantity sold instore - units and - value and added online versions as well 

3/23/22 10:50:33 amStart Work 3/23/22 12:44:36 pmOthertime id 2169: troubleshooting some internal server errors when trying to add sub inventory to the cart so that I could test the code changes. (and testing the code changes) 

Small fixes on a custom report for a client. Merging in some code for Chuck on the view parts page. Small fixes for RFID tags and sub attributes on the view parts page and the sub inventory tab. Started working on a fix for Marisa on ecommerce images and setting up default logic based on actual images, item defaults, and category default images.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going through emails and such. Checking in with Danny on the structure for promissory notes and small business loans and investments. Small stand-up with Alan, Cory, and I on a side project. I got pulled into looking into a possible sub inventory export error dealing with multiple decimals. From everything that I was able to find, our code looked to be doing the correct thing. However, Microsoft Excel was reformatting some of the data and only showing 2 decimals by default. We had to do some manual formatting in Excel to get it right and show all five decimals. All of the data was there (our part of the export), it was just formatted incorrectly on the Excel side. Reported back to Cory about what I had found out.

Wayne was showing me some new query code changes. He is playing with some full text indexes and new searches that play with match and against vs our older like SQL queries. Wayne has pushed up some code to the developer's testing server so that we can play around with the changes. If all works out ok, we will add the full text indexes and new dynamic searches to customers, parts, and sub inventory. Those sections get hit really hard, every day, multiple times a day, per corporation. We'll start there.

Wayne is also working on some other deeper database admin scripts for the sales tax aggregate project that Eric was working on. We are trying to get things pushed up, while maintaining high security credentials. Before the standup meeting, I asked Wayne to show Alan what was going on and a small demo of the new changes. Making progress.

The guys joined and did a sprint review and a small show and tell for their current sprint. It is super close to being all the way done. You could tell that someone still needs to go through and do the last-minute tweaks and what not to basically sweep the floor and fully deploy it. On the positive side, you can tell that the sprints are going much smoother and faster. Other than the semi buggy demo, it really was looking good. Like I said, just a little bit for polish and finesse and it would be perfect. You could tell that the main pieces were there.

During the sprint review, some of the guys were showing some of their creativity and on the fly code building and custom functionality. That was fun and cool to see. The main look and feel was looking good. They are using tons of object oriented code with models, services, DAO's, classes, sub classes, etc.

Alan was showing and talking about some new integration tests and how he was using real database tests on a dummy database, but it was able to use real services, real DAO's, and real flow without hurting live or production databases. As part of that or those tests, he was also doing some clean-up functions during the testing, if he was making extra records for testing. Basically, things are getting better and better, smoother and smoother, and more real life like testing. This helps us look for real bugs and find them quicker and make things tighter and smoother.

We also talked about some of the next steps along the sprint path. Some of this was dealing with planning, testing, bug fixes, and all the way to full deployment. One of the current missing pieces is going through different scenarios and doing some deeper user level testing. We'll get that figured out and push things forward from there.

Wayne, John, Steve, Cory, and I talking about servers and such. Wayne was showing us some potential time and CPU processor savings if we change the way we query for text-based values. In SQL (database language - structured query language), we use a lot of what are called "Like" statements. This allows us to search for partial matches and includes a number of wildcards to help the search results be more open. Anyways, Wayne was showing us that if we change some of our code and do full text indexing on certain fields, it may be much, much faster to get the same search results. We chatted about that and made a plan to experiment with it.

Some of our biggest tables that have flexible searching are customers, parts (general inventory items), and sub inventory tables. This includes customer look-ups, basic part searches, barcode searches, RFID tag searches, and tons of other flex search options. The goal is to speed up some of those flexible searches by 10 times and make things more snappy. As a note, the new searches would use SQL syntax that did the full text index (settings on the tables themselves) and then use SQL commands of match and against commands to line things up.

As a fun side note, Wayne is using Fusion Reactor to find slow pages and pages that get ran a lot. That data will help us find queries that we can tweak and speed up. Good stuff.

We are trying to get Eric's sales tax aggregate project merged and pushed up to master and then deployed on all servers. We will need Wayne's help for that. Some of Eric's code will require some deep backend database scripts. We'll work with Wayne and Eric to get those pieces pushed up.

After Wayne left, Cory and John were talking about the discount engine and trying to get Eric to help with part of the cart logic and wire-up stuff. The subject then switched to John asking and chatting with Steve, Cory, and I about the Jira boards. We plan on using that product for the time being but would really like to keep pushing on elements of time so that we could do even better project management inside of adilas. We have a bunch of the pieces. It just still needs some loving and may require some tweaks and changes. We want to head in that direction. Steve was mentioning a hybrid solution and working to get the adilas project management stuff, even more up to speed, to help us internally. We really want this functionality, but it just takes time and resources.

We talked about some of our developers being pulled in so many different directions. Almost like being pulled in half (just overloaded). Some good conversation here. As we were switching gears, John was asking and lightly pitching options for a small contribution type project, where his time would end up being translated into a form of investment, into the adilas company. We talked about a few options.

Steve really wants to find something that will help us all out and really provide a good positive ROI (return on investment). We want to keep pushing on more and more of the scheduling and project management (planning) type pieces. We see some great potential for good ROI there, in scheduling, appointments, rentals, reservations, and project management and tracking.

John and I did a quick check-in. Normally, Cory joins us but she was travelling today. John reported on the discount engine remake project. He is gaining traction and realizes that we have to tone it back a little bit compared to his dream of where he wanted to take it. The current project is just too big of a lift right now. We'll get back to it later on. The other thing that he reported on was some server stuff and John is taking more of a role in the code management and merging area. Especially for the new development environment and testing server. He has been put in charge of that.

Lots of emails. Marisa was chiming in on some marketing ideas. I also got some emails from Audrey and Marisa dealing with other marketing things, questions, budgets, and goals. Good stuff. I sent off a text to Steve to get a confirmation on some of the things that are going on. I want him to be involved with the decisions.

In between times, I was doing more research on the recipe/build process and getting deeper into the differences between build and sell (invoice based recipes) and build and hold (production or internal manufacturing PO's and inventory manipulation stuff). I'm seeing that I may need to add more options to help with sub inventory, multiple decimals, and yield multipliers. When we originally built this section, it was pretty simple. In the meantime, some of the needs are much more diverse and deeper. This whole thing is coming form a project to go back in and check some of the rounding errors for PO line items.

Without being too detailed, no rounding is needed if you have whole numbers times other simple whole numbers or simple decimals. It really gets funky if you have high quantities and costs that are clear out into the 5 decimal land. If you combine the two, the rounding error really starts to be more visible and important. Anyways, looking into what is needed to take those tools to the next level.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cory and I touched base on a couple of projects. Alan and John then joined and gave us some reports. Alan reported on his sub inventory model and his unit testing. It was going good but it is currently breaking. He will check this out and push the ball forward. His sub inventory model is being worked on outside in the ecommerce area. Once we get it working good and smooth out there, we will bring it inside and replace some older code with the newer object model based code.

Alan then did some reporting on some Adobe ColdFusion training that he participated in. He had lots of notes. These are a few of the notes that I took from his notes (secondhand notes).

- On the Application.cfc's - using the request scope - great place to put actions that need to be done or checked on every page.

- Lots of info on the cfc's and how the onRequest methods and code works. Also notes on onApplicationStart, onApplicationEnd, onSessionStart, onSessionEnd, onRequestStart, etc. Places to put code that gets called and used over and over again.

- ORM - Object relational mapping

- Lots of new ways to auto create getters and setters.

- Being able to handle mapping in both directions - one-to-many and many-to-one - this was a way of using a cfc (component) as a super simple database type structure without really having the actual database. We may need to look into this one a little bit deeper (need some clarification and more info).

-  Error handling and using try/catch better - Currently, we mostly use a catch "any" to do our error handling. They were recommending that we use special try/catches with type database, type syntax, and then the general "any" catch.

- Security stuff and watching for spoofs and things coming from other or outside sites. There were ways of passing tokens, generated on our site, and then looking for those tokens on the action pages. There were also ways to flip flop and rotate session values. Basically, let them login, set session scope values, and then auto switch certain values just to make sure it was a valid request from our site. Lots of little security ideas and hack prevention stuff.

- They are recommending that we use a new pdf tag called cfhtmltopdf (cf html to pdf) vs the older tag cfpdf - faster rendering and more options to offload the work to another server.

- Setting properties and then getting those properties to create auto getters and setters.

We encouraged Alan to keep checking for new code, keep learning, and keep pioneering some of these new concepts and new code options. Good stuff.

After that, Cory and Alan were talking about ecommerce and subs and parent line items, rules for picking and fulfilling packages assignments, tiered pricing, etc. They got into some order of operations. Cory and Alan were also talking about other ecommerce needs and options.

John reported in. He has been busy moving and getting settled in. He has made a small proposal for the year end payroll and tax forms (W-2's and 1099's) that he would like to get approval on. We haven't had too many developers create their own proposal that want to get approval. Interesting. I think he is asking for more documentation for his projects vs what we normal give him. I think he is lightly asking for more guidance vs flying by the seat of his pants. Lastly, Cory went over some other projects with John that we need his help on. They are the discount engine and the adilas quick search stuff. Good meeting.

Working on getting projects finished up and off my plate. Working on the custom data extract project for sub inventory for Emerald Fields. This sub inventory extract required some data flip flopping. We pulled a query, pulled a number of other supporting queries, built an array of structures (objects), looped over the data, manipulated and filtered the data, and then pushed the results back into a query object to show and display. Kinda like data gymnastics.

Danny, Sean, and John were on the morning meeting. We checked in and chatted for a bit. Danny and Sean were talking about email templates and using some of the new things that Danny has setup and created. After that, we all went on mute and just started working on our own projects. I went back to finishing up the custom data extraction project for Emerald Fields (a client). The project involves going and flip flopping between different data types to get a complex sub inventory report to pull and be formatted correctly.

Cory and Alan were chatting and touching base on some projects. Alan is working on the transitional invoices project and how to recalculate prices based on tiered pricing. Alan is also working on breaking things into different objects and different levels. Those may be objects that are specific to a subject or objects that exist within a certain playing field (like out in ecommerce land). He also reported on some changes to sub inventory and sub inventory objects and logic (new objects) out in ecommerce land. Lots of refactoring and experimenting. Once we figure things out, at different places, we roll back around and try to implement those pieces in other areas (like the internal shopping cart or within the secure environment).

Alan and Cory then went over some Metrc and delivery bases questions. Some of the discussion was dealing with options for auto processing certain pieces and/or values within the delivery API sockets and functions.

After Alan was done, we switched over to meeting with John and getting a report from him on his projects. Cory and John were chatting about updates and small tweaks that are still needed. We are getting closer on the payroll project for the holiday chooser and timecard flags and total time project for payroll. We still have a few details to work out and refine but getting much closer.