Monday morning. Lots of action today. Steve and I were the only ones on the meeting to begin. By the time we were done, we had touched base with Dustin, Alan, Eric, and Josh. By around 11 am, most of the guys had moved on and were working on their own projects.

Steve and I were talking about a number of topics. The first one was dealing with a corp-wide setting that was setup way back but never had been fully operational. It was called show_tax_breakdown. After looking for a bit, we determined that it was setup in September of 2012. It has never been used. We did find however that a smaller version of it exists in a corp-wide setting called default_printable_invoice (option # 9 for that setting) on the mini invoice and showing a tax summary as part of the mini invoice (customer receipt). This question and subsequent look-up came from a client email that wanted to turn on the old show tax breakdown setting. It is funny how things keep circling around. Often, we do what we can, and then we know that we will have to circle back around again. We keep building out nubbins where we hope to tie things in later.

While we were looking up some history on the older corp-wide settings, we also talked quite a bit about master corporations, aggregated data, aggregated systems, and being able to move away from transactional data. We still need the transactional data, we just need a way to get to secure summed up and tallied data points. We talked quite a bit about posting, locking, and levels of being able to edit things. The analogy of water freezing into ice was brought up. Some users want us to go directly to ice and make things un-editable. Others require the options to be able to modify and edit data and values. We talked a bit about our data assembly line concept and having different permissions that allow certain levels of access in the flex bubble type model. Very interesting.

We also talked about VPS's (virtual private servers) and some times needing to go back into older environments or models with new features and/or needs. We talked about flagging data, maintaining known and trusted values, scheduled tasks, harnessing user clicks and actions, and even back filling data as needed. There were conversations about single logins, flipping between corporation, showing and maintaining aggregated totals, and validating the integrity of certain data points, sums, totals, counts, and grand totals. We are seeing bigger and bigger needs on first, sales data, and then on inventory tracking. Those seem to be the hot topics for now. Sales data tends to motivate all kinds of other sub functions such as cash flow, inventory levels, tax collection, repayment, etc. The list goes on.

Eric popped in and has a number of question about discount campaigns and how to set them up and track them. We went over ways in corp-wide settings, individual entries, and talked about the discount engine that Josh worked on. There were some talks about deciphering some data and exposing certain fields and values to outside 3rd parties through API socket connections. The users would have to agree to the 3rd party terms and turn thing on, but once completed, all discount information, campaigns, and calculated values and totals would be passed to specific 3rd parties for analysis (only if turned on).

More talks about circling back around and back filling and/or completing certain data values. There are tons of transactions, and certain records hold certain values. We may also need to expose how certain values are calculated, if it is not logical from the data itself. This gets clear into formulas, calculations, order of operations, etc. Discounts play along those lines. You can skip discounts, do standalone or dis-jointed discounts, in-line discounts, percentage discounts, dollars off discounts, mixed discounts, automated discounts, stacked discounts, etc. It gets pretty deep.

While we were talking to Eric about discounts, Josh joined in. We talked with Josh about getting with Cory and working on some concise videos and educational material for showing how to use the automated discount engine. We talked posting videos to help files, updates, and the news and updates page. We are seeing more and more of need to get the correct information out to our users. Basically, a number of things and features exist. However, due to how many there are... some times certain features are not used just because people/users don't know how and/or can't find any training on the subject. Some times they don't even know that certain tools and features exist.

Still talking with Josh, the topic started shifting towards more concise pieces. We have tons of things that are big and somewhat bulky. Those are harder to consume and digest. We need to get into smaller and smaller pieces. Along those lines, Steve chimed in and mentioned almost a marketing type approach. We need to be consistent and have some consistency between the info we are trying to share and how that is presented. We need to help people/users learn, but we also need to be putting our best foot forward. That takes things to a different level and almost adds a marketing level of showing off our stuff. There are pros and cons to that. A pro is it all looks super nice and makes sense. A con is that it requires still, time, resources, and a plan (one or more persons doing the same thing).

As we got deeper into some of the subjects, I kept thinking back to the word "teams" and what teams are we a part of? Certain people or certain teams need to handle certain parts. This really isn't a free for all, it is too complex and requires certain timing, skills, and resources.

After Eric and Josh were done, Steve and I worked with Alan. He helped me on some database query questions and then Steve worked with Alan on a project that both of them are working on for state compliance issues. A couple of other topics for the day were: directing towards teams and who does what. Using news and updates more for training and tech support, GPS tracking and delivery options, and using the right tools for the right job (talking about database and SQL query optimizers - built-in helpers for certain tasks with complex logic and tons of records).

Lots of moving pieces, all over the board. Towards the end of the meeting, I worked on some emails and then recorded a bunch of notes. Things are going so fast... the only way I feel that we can keep up is to record what is happening. We can't solve everything, but hopefully, we circle back around and get a sense and/or flavor of what transpires. Busy times.