A bunch of the guys and gals were on the meeting when I joined. Marisa, Sean, John M., Steve, and I were on there. Sean and Steve were talking about needs for the gun dealership. They need a cross between a stock/unit (serialized inventory) and a part or general inventory item (bulk or widget inventory). As they were talking, I jumped in and mentioned that we had a similar request back when we were working with Barry at GPS Autotrackers. He, Barry, wanted to be able to sell things in bulk, but still track things with specific data (say a serial number for each GPS unit). He wanted the invoice to be something simple like: Sold 400 GPS units for a certain amount. Then, somewhat hidden and/or off to the side, here are the 400 serial numbers that go along with that (extra details or extra information or data).

As we talked, we ended up pitching a couple of different ideas of how we could figure that out. Option one was just use normal stock/units (existing serialized inventory stuff). Option two was parent/child inventory with a single parent and tons of subs (existing). The third option was a parent item, a sub item with a certain number (quantity), and then hold any extra info in a special table that is setup to hold the extra details. In technical terms... a one-to-many-to-many or in basic terms a parent item, one or more sub item(s), with one or more extra detail(s) per sub. We did a number of drawings and ran through some verbal use cases and options. The option three stuff seemed to have the most potential.

We talked about an extra sub table that could hold things like: auto id, corp id, part id (parent), sub id (subs), special tracking number (serial number, vin, batch, rfid tag number, etc.). It would also have columns that we could connect it to things like a PO, an outbound invoice or quote, and maybe even a separate tie-in to a customer if needed. As a small side note, we were thinking somewhat of a mini flex grid type table (similar concept but smaller in scope).

We don't know what to call it, but there is already some prior entries and ideas called a mini unit (see other entries).  This is a cross between a stock/unit and an item or a part number.

Wayne joined the meeting and we switched gears into servers, hackers, and how to help protect ourselves. We've had some hackers circling around us this past weekend. All part of the game. Wayne is doing a great job and showed us what he is seeing using some of his tools, logs, and outside monitoring services. Good stuff and we are so grateful for his skills and help. Wayne was showing us things and Steve and I were asking questions. Some of the other guys were just listening in.