Morning standup meeting. Guys and gals reporting in. Sean had a request to get sandbox merchant accounts setup for our demo sites. I told him that would not be a problem. Shari O. has been helping with onsite setup and training. As part of that, she had a few questions for the group. Shari O. asked about buttons and how to display things out in ecommerce. We talked about the need for stacking of buttons or stacking categories. We can do that internally through a tool and feature called my cart favorite buttons, but we don't have the same things exposed to the general public through ecommerce yet.

As we were talking about things, Steve was pitching us ideas about using parent attributes and being able to do some sub selections and choices out in ecommerce. We also talked about flipping the descriptions and adding small choices just to the descriptions. As a side note, if you have a checkbox (normal form control) and it is named the same as the other checkboxes, it can build a list for you without any special code. The key there is the value is different, but the actual form control is named the same. Small techy side note.

Switched over to working with John. He had some questions on how to do photos and media/content on his local machine. We talked about some other look and feel stuff as well. The discussion got into data tables and mobile responsive tables. What we want to do for our graphical homepages. This may be a topic for another time, but circling back around to talking about graphical homepages with charts, aggregates, sums, counts, graphs, and other dashboard type widgets and features. We really want to see what we could do there to help out. It all comes down to time and resources.

Once we started talking about layouts and custom CSS, that lead to a discussion about printable items, reports, and pages. We will need more time and more help to get all of that done in a consistent manner. We want it all to work and look nice. After that, we went over some other pages, branches, and code changes that John is working on. Making plans.

Emails, billing, invoicing a client, adding customer logs, and code changes to add in a custom email address for a client. Pushed up new code files, sent follow-up emails, and back and forth with a client on their invoice.

As a side note, we have age verification as an ecommerce option. This is a global protection to keep underage customers out of the site. We already have two different levels, you have to say yes, I'm over x (some age value that is set by the company) and another that requires the birthday during checkout. The new request from a client was age verification on a per item basis. That's a lot deeper.

Back and forth with a client going over invoice for custom code. Added some customer logs to the client record. We got it all figured out.

Two different work sessions on a custom data export tool for a client. We had already done a customer data export tool. This time they wanted an invoice data export tool. Custom code, working on custom queries, logic, testing, and running it live with real data. Pushed up file and emailed the client.

Custom code for Beaver Mountain and adding custom data tool tips with lesson names, instructor counts, and student counts to the horizontal time view page that they use for their ski school lessons. Working through new logic and doing tons of testing. Ran into a CSS (look and feel) issue right at the end. Pushed up a temporary file to show them some progress.

Morning sales meeting. The guys were going over the new business cards and asking for feedback. We got into a discussion about the user interface and how intuitive or non-intuitive it is. Danny was talking about possible small videos and things to help people get started. We also talked about doing some client feature stories and showcasing real clients and how they use the system. Danny had some fun ideas with small videos and what not.

Michael piped up and said that he has some film and video editing skills. We didn't know that. that is awesome and he and Danny may be working together to get more adilas content up on YouTube and other social media platforms. That's exciting!

All of the guys were giving their updates and what not. Shari O. and Sean were going over buttons and client settings for a small mexican restaurant. They are working on some menu items and how best to display and show things. We talked about a number of ideas and options. Towards the end of the meeting, John and I were looking at some look and feel things. Talking about page layouts and site-wide decisions for style guides.

Cory and John were talking about GUI interfaces and UI/UX client experiences. That seems to be where everything is heading. John had a great idea of adding in a new setting to allow our clients to keep progressing and seeing our more modern changes or virtually flip back to what it is right now (a mix between classic and the snow owl theme). Great idea. We chatted about pros and cons for some time. Good stuff!

We are going to be calling the new setting - default page view for snow owl theme or default page view for short. The choices will be snow owl - modern or snow owl - classic. We talked about getting user feedback, outside opinions, and customer/client critiques. These new settings will be at a user level. The main theme is higher, at the corporation or world level. The new display or default page view settings will be a lower or user level, so that each person or user can set their own preferences.

We switched gears and Cory and I spent some time going over projects and updates. We looked into some code on PO's and how they relate to parent item costs and cost updates. We talked about new corp-wide settings for allowing cost changes or locking things down, on the PO level for tracking cost changes. After the meeting, I spent a little bit of time testing some of the GoToMeeting video settings and flow. They recently changed some things around.

John and I working on new personal settings for a default page view for snow owl theme modern or snow owl them classic. Basically, a new setting for old school/new school on the look and feel for the snow owl theme. Good work session. As a fun side note, John started a to do list up in Google docs and he and I were filling things in and batting things back and forth. Pretty productive flow.

Working with Bryan on a couple of different projects. We pushed up 600+ pages for the date format stuff we are working on (2-digit year to 4-digit year or "m/d/yy" to "m/d/yyyy" format). We then looked at his code for the new payroll settings. We did a code review, fixed some merge conflicts, and pushed up new files. The new payroll settings deal with show/hiding numerous payroll commissions, and custom show/hide and global naming of five custom withholding fields for employees (users). Pretty cool.

Back working with John again on the new personal settings for showing default page views for the main snow owl theme. Looking at code and going over our tick list. After that, we switched over to some server stuff. John and I were looking at CPU's and RAM memory for the data 0 server.

More work on the Beaver Mountain Ski School and custom tool tips for the horizontal time view page to show lessons, availability, and who has things scheduled. They use that page every day, while they are open for the season. Worked on some custom formatting. Merged in the code and pushed it up for some live testing. Let the client know via text message.

Morning sales meeting. Somewhat disconnected and a little bit rough. Nobody was really leading the meeting. Everybody reported in and some small demos of what people were working on were done. I was working on my own little project in the background. I added in a daily notes option for Beaver Mountain while I was listening.

At the end of the meeting, John was explaining some of the new default page view settings that we are working on. It didn't really go over that good. I think that it was because different people were doing their own stuff and projects and only heard part of the report. We got it all figured out in the end, but there was some confusion, contention, and some light friction for a bit.

We started out the server meeting. Those who were on the meeting started out by reviewing the last meeting (morning sales meeting). We then jumped in and started going over server-based topics. The first main server topic was email stuff. We are going to be using or trying to use the adilas content server to send it out vs the adilas university site. The old adilas university site is on a shared environment and is an older server. We are going to see if we can get more up time and new features by using one of our fully dedicated servers.

Next we spent some time talking about data 0 and maybe updating or upping the CPU count and RAM memory. We talked about Hostek and the customer support that we are, were, and hope to get. At times, we really need more support. Currently, it hasn't been as good as it used to be. Sometimes we get slammed and need help. We don't need it all of the time, but when we need it, the support is critical. It all deals with server up time and keeping our clients happy.

Touching base on other projects. Wayne is going to be reaching out to Eric and Dustin to see if they need any help. Cory and Wayne got into some technical compliance stuff like SOC 2 reports and other compliance stuff. Lots of talk about risk mitigation and managing risk. While we were talking about risk management, we got into a conversation about accessibility issues and making content available for persons with disabilities. That got pretty deep but this seems to be a section of the web that is expanding, and requirements are being made more for mainstream sites vs just specialty sites. Lots of special tags and flags for screen readers and such. We also talked about the cost of making a fully accessible site. The costs are huge, especially for little guys. Anyways, it seems like there is some legal cases and such that are pushing this agenda further. We may need to keep an eye on it.

We spent some time looking at some of our other servers and database stuff. We then switched subjects and Cory and John were talking about projects and new CSS look and feel stuff. We would like to get more user feedback. We are doing the best that we can. We are constantly improving our code every day. Talking about new settings and dealing with look and feel and personal preferences. We would like to get good feedback and keep trying to connect the backend code with the frontend user interface (UI).

We looked at the calendar and did some scheduling for some of our new projects and rollouts. Right at the end, Cory was reporting to us on a couple of small bugs. We'll have to circle back around. We ran out of time.

Small bug fix on the department homepage and being able to edit existing departments for payroll usage. John and I then switched over and worked on the new snow owl theme settings for snow owl - modern and snow owl - classic default page views. We prepped a number of files and pushed up the new code. This is new session stuff that needs to be pushed up before the new code that uses it (dependencies based on valid logins). We also ran some database updates to add new database columns and values.

Emails, merging in code from Eric, updating email settings on my local box, and on the phone with tech support talking about email servers and settings. Did an email password reset for Bryan and let him know via text message.

I was late to the morning meeting. When I hopped on, Steve, Sean, and Michael were talking about clients and helping them with ecommerce and system setup stuff. Steve was saying, we are almost offering (right now) a 30-day free trial and we'll help you set everything up. That's pretty awesome.

The topic switched over and they were talking about keeping up with modern trends, technology, and look and feel type stuff. Steve and Michael were chatting, and Steve was giving some great ideas and direction. Kinda a peptalk for Michael. All of the rest of us were just listening in on the conversation. After that, Steve and Shari O. were talking about ecommerce and a new client that they are setting things up for. They are making great progress and the client seems to be pretty happy.

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.

Two different sessions. One with John and the other with Bryan. John and I got some files ready for pushing up his new snow owl page view settings (modern or classic). Even though this setting has the name classic in it, it is still in the main snow owl theme. More of a mix but basically, new or modern views or somewhat legacy files with an older classic look and feel. Merged in the branch after fixing a few page conflicts.

Bryan re-joined and we merged in over 300+ files for date-picker and the 4-digit year stuff that we have been working on. That's thousands of pages in the last few weeks from Bryan to standardize things over the entire backend site. Almost done - good work!

The whole last part of the meeting was spent going over a plan for new flex withholding fields for employers (at the corporation or world level). We have a need for a new one (new withholding field), but it is only needed under certain circumstances. We thought that it might be nice if we could add in some flex fields and allow each employer (corporation or world) to setup their own custom fields and values as needed. That's just how we think.

Anyways, Bryan and I spent almost an hour drawing, talking about flow, ideas, and coming up with a rough plan. Bryan is going to take that info and make it into a better and more tighter type plan before doing any coding or application logic changes. He and I will get back together and look over the payroll plans and proposals. Bryan has a bunch of screenshots and notes on his end as well. In a nutshell, we were thinking about 1-5 new custom withholding settings and fields where the employers (corps or worlds) could set them up, use them, name them, and even provide some other custom settings, names, or values (rules for calculating).

Catching up on notes from the past few days. Spent time recording note from 1/19/23 to 1/25/23.