Meeting with a number of folks. The goal was dealing with the shopping cart. We had Steve, Chuck, Jonathan, Cory, and a client on the meeting. The first part of the meeting was the client going over some of their requests. Here are some highlights from them...

- They would like to be able to send text messages from the customer queue

- They would love to have a hand-held scanner and have it automatically be able to update an unmanned cart. Some talks about using the built-in cameras on certain tablets and such. Other talks about hardware and software problems and solutions. Through the web, sometimes those pieces are hard to get to perfectly talk to one another.

- Lots of questions about barcodes, labels, and auto/bulk actions.

- They would like possible popup/modal type windows to see customer notes, maybe the last invoice, and even a modal popup on the ++ or advanced add to cart (haggle tools)

- The also spoke about major needs for tiered pricing - the same options that work on my cart favorite buttons and smart groups and tiered pricing. As part of this discussion, there were options mentioned about parent attributes, barcodes on buttons, advanced barcodes (QR codes), mini conversions, etc. This becomes a bigger and bigger need. It also needs to be more standardized. Lots of options, but because it could go so many ways, it is hard to find the correct path. Too many options.

- Along the tiered pricing vein, there was also a request to be able to assign items (subs or child packages) to a pricing tier through the build new PO process (bringing in the items and assigning them to a pricing tier as part of the inbound process).

- They really want a fully interactive cart, yet still locked down, yet still super powerful, yet super simple, yet, yet... Lots of requirements.

- Training mode, how to get to the best training and how to connect the dots. We have help files, news and updates, videos, etc. - but we need a way to get to that really quickly. They, the client, were also requesting that each new feature has a full tutorial and/or video. They only wanted the things that were fully done to be added to the news and updates.

- They would love for more onsite or local training options. They love the time and are willing to spend the money. They would love to get the training options to be standardized and regular (scheduled and consistent).

- They love the bulk update cart functionality

- Being able to bulk print labels and skip steps (save as a quote or cart checkout). The also wanted to be able to flag certain items that they only need one label vs multiple new labels per quantity, etc. It sounds like it could be pretty deep. There were also requests to be able to bulk print labels from the PO. Calvin's new adilas label builder does do bulk labels for invoices and PO's. They just might need some training.

- Online orders, ecommerce, and even options for delivery.

- In the cart, being able to see it at all times. Having some sort of split screen where there are items or look-ups on one side and all of the items on the other side. Lots of one pagers with asynchronous connections and easy flow through the sections and/or pages.

- We love ideas and helping to push the ball forward. The needs keep coming. We just try to keep solving those pieces as we can.

- We also allow the clients to chime in and help us prioritize, fund sharing, and have a say in where things are going.

////// more notes after the client left - Just Chuck, Jonathan, Brandon, and Steve

- Steve - a big thank you out to both Chuck and Jonathan - you guys are stepping up the game. He was also talking about collaboration between the different developers and how cool that will be.

- There may end up being 8-10 versions or variations of the shopping cart. At some point, we need to separate the logic from the view/design. Jonathan was also talking about putting the specialty features into settings so that each cart may be more configurable. Good stuff.

- Questions from Jonathan about market analysis and what does that say for us? Sadly, the reality, we haven't done anything there. Lots of options.

- There were some talks about having a system to run your stuff vs trying to marry all of the individual pieces together. There is pain on both sides, but we are heading towards the systematic type approach. Trying to bring all of these things together.

- Time to value - how many clicks to get those needs fulfilled. Not that we can't do it... we just need to figure out how to help speed up the process and make it easier and more easy to get to those pieces and features.

- Smoothing out processes and making it easy to get to the places that they need to. It kinda comes down to navigation and visual flow process. Aka - the full user experience.

- Steve was talking about how making these pieces work together to get all of the POS (point of sale) systems, inventory tracking, CRM (customer relationship management), CMS (content management systems), accounting, reports, and backend storage all in one place. That is the dream.

- Some of our clients are virtually starving for instructor lead training. Jonathan is saying that there is a barrier to entry to this... meaning the learning curve to fully know adilas. We need to help provide it and also help to standardize it. Small talks about competition, reps/consultants, and ways of teaching the processes, pieces, and principles.

- Small mention of the adilas café and how some of that would help us provide training and service type options. You could get training from the adilas university or you could get direct training and/or hire a certain person to help fill a certain need. Think of all of the power users that could offer services and/or training. What if we could show user stats on who has done what and what level they qualify.

- From Chuck - what about a monthly webinar? We could plan it out, record it, charge for it, etc. We could do digital meetings, in-person training, instructor lead trainings, etc. As we keep updating the system, we need to keep updating the videos. Maybe even using YouTube as a primary source of training. Possible Facebook groups, tips of the day, etc.

- From Chuck - doing light idea mining when we are out and about. For example: Hey, what processes do you do to sell things? We then record that and start making some settings, permissions, and selections together to help them with what they are doing. Presets per industry. Sometimes it is so overwhelming... we could really create virtual profiles and help with settings and configuration stuff.

- From Chuck - small talks about web components and being able to customize things on the fly. Separating logic, functions, views, displays, processes, etc.

- Lots of settings and even helping those people get to those settings and help it make sense for each industry. Settings and configuration options. Groups, categories, settings, nested presets, tiered pricing, labels, etc.

- From Chuck - he really doesn't like it if we do a process and then virtually dump him in an unfamiliar page (backend navigation). That comes back to page flow and user interface. We will keep working on this. If we send the users to the correct spot, we don't lose them and we even help them know what the next step should be. This may take some mapping and design stuff.

- Trying to stay small but still looking for talent and help.

- Help file on barcodes - https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/help.cfm?id=413&pwd=cart - barcodes can really speed up shopping carts and there are tons of options. This is an area that could still be developed out further and enhanced. Just an idea.

See attached for a number of other resources. There are a couple of videos and some research on shopping carts and POS interfaces (point of sale interfaces).