Talking with Steve and Dustin about options on black box...

- They were talking about using settings saying use custom, use core, use x, y, or z... we may have to wrap pure black box code with dynamic populating options (which option to use).

- We could really use a way to help show if the corps have black box options. Maybe even a flag (under the covers or in the hidden HTML) that says whether or not it using black box and/or core functionality.

- It may also be helpful if we could allow users to pick and choose if they want the black box option (full custom), the core adilas option (non custom defaults), or an industry specific option (build these options specific per industry).

Wayne popped in and was reporting on some AWS stuff.

- As we start moving over to AWS, a lot of the switching between test and live (URL stuff), is kinda going away and things are becoming more dynamic. Mostly dealing with URL, web addresses, domains, and path stuff.

- We talked about files and media/content storage and what to make publically available and what not to. We also talked about settings and adding in public and/or private boxes per corps (places to store things). We also talked about allowing users to put timelines (expiration dates) on sharing files and such. Say something like, I'll share this file with you for two days or I'll share this file for a couple of hours, etc. Once the expiration date of the URL or file happened, they would be denied unless they opened it back up. Kinda like opening and closing windows and doors for specific time periods.

- Wayne was talking about non language specific functions that we could run at any time. He was calling them Lambda functions. Very similar to an API socket connection or API call. Basically allowing the code and the response to be run using different code languages (mixing and blending coding languages).

- Wayne was also talking about off loading certain API socket calls and groups of calls to certain sub processes. Splitting up the flow and traffic based on needs and like functionality. Basically specializing code to be more effective and grouped.

- File versioning and auto file versioning - comes automatic with certain boxes out on AWS.

- Designing a life cycle process of sorts (putting things deeper and deeper into storage). Maybe use the access time (when was it last asked for or used) as the key indicator. This could be done if we need to mange active vs passive storage. We talked briefly about the analogy of water turning into snow and then going clear to ice. This may also come in to play with compliance, storage, active/inactive accounts, and long term cold storage.

- We spent quite a bit of time going over how the transition between our existing model and where things are headed and how to help with that transition. It got us into some discussions about master corporation lists, master user lists, and what permissions where set per section. Steve joined in and gave us some good ideas while we were talking about breaking out user/payee/employees off into their own entity.

- We ended with some conversations about world building, universe level, cluster and galaxy levels, world levels, etc. Fun conversation and lots of upcoming options.

I was going to be working with Eric but got hung up on a call with Steve and Wayne going over server stuff.

Recording notes, emails, and basic to do list stuff.

Contacted Shawn but wasn't able to connect to work on payroll stuff. I ended up working on some other code and fixing some known bugs.

Working on some code changes for Kelly. She had reported a page where the quick search wouldn't work. I also started working on another page that needed URL (web path variables) scope access. This was a request from a client wanting to be able to get to reports externally by passing in search criteria without interacting with the normal search form.

Bryan and I got on a GoToMeeting but were having some problems with connections. He had some code that checked for certain things and then would beep (small sound) when some attention was needed. Once we started looking at the code, we had to still go back in and work on it some more. We have to be able to switch between test and live environments.

Finished up the night by doing some emails and tech support information.

When I first got on, Steve and Alan were going over some Metrc (state compliance) API socket questions and what not. They talked for quite a bit until Alan had to take his kids somewhere.

Later on, we were talking with Steve and Wayne about the login process and procedure. Steve would love to keep going with the data portal type analogy where a person comes to adilas and then logs in. At some point, they are able to enter the virtual data portal or data sphere. As part of that conversation, Steve would love to open up the entry point and almost make it their own (the user's) virtual landing spot (my own room or my space). What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What does it look like? What is available to you? etc.

Wayne was talking about going to a more simple login for the entry point. Maybe just an email and password type authentication process. Even using a single login access type level (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, etc.). As a future to do project, it sure would be cool if we could allow users to come into the virtual data portal or data sphere and let them set things up as a frontend entry point. Imagine a virtual lounge with some tables and chairs, pictures, etc. Get the people into a nice comfort level and then let them go from there. It would be cool if they could pull in quick numbers, graphs, charts, etc. - basically their own dashboard. Eventually, even their own features, functions, and options.

Steve was also talking about, in the future, allowing users to be more open and actually set themselves up as assets (teachers, trainers, consultants, or even workers). Allow them to use their own virtual home base entry point to be able to help others who need their help.

After that, Wayne and I got into some talks about how the adilas API sockets are setup. We talked about the different highways (virtual roads within the API socket connections) and what authentication was done for each of the different paths. We went in and did some drawings and even looked and code and database records. I showed some page samples (existing pages and flow) to give him the full idea of what goes where and how things play.

Before Eric jumped on, I was just working on small to do list projects and what not.

Working with Eric on code review for his sub special account tracking project. We spent some time last week starting in on it, but today was the first day with real code review on the project. That is awesome and we are making progress. Currently, everything is going pretty smooth.

The Community Chooser Project allows developers, business owners and consultants to add project ideas. They can then vote on them to help Adilas prioritize the projects.

Touching base with Shawn. We setup some time for tomorrow. I started working on some other pages.

Working with Shannon. We met up and did a little bit of catch up. We then decided to do a small work session. I was working on some other code changes while Shannon was working on concepts for the sales flyer. We got back together towards the end of the session to review. Shannon showed me some potential headings and/or topics. These are things like (still working on exact verbage):

- The freedom & flexibility of a self-serve model

- Real expectations for success

- Our most successful client recipes

- Building your business world on system relationships

- Zipping up the gaps

- Telling the whole story

- How we play the game a different way

- Picking the right fit for you

- Think of where we can go

- Calling for dreamers

Alan and I touched base on some of the work that he is doing with reoccurring invoices and automating that process. He is working with USAePay (merchant gateway) and automating both the reoccurring invoices (when and how do they happen) and automating the reoccurring payment part of that puzzle. Currently, the there are two side, the USAePay side and the adilas side. The current project is automating things so that both side know what the other is doing and the reoccurring credit card payments get attributed to the correct reoccurring invoice on the adilas side. Currently, a human has to make some of those connections and finish some of those transactions.

After Alan and I were done with that, Wayne joined us and we had a good discussion about the new Lucee/AWS stuff (new build out). We spent quite a bit of time talking about OAuth stuff (special multi-level authorization processes), single sign-on, and other user level security things. Wayne had a couple of questions and both Alan and I were helping with ideas and direction. That project is deep, but Wayne seems to be fully going in the right direction.

Pushed up some code that allows the advanced parts/items search page use URL (web address) variables. We have a client that has requested URL access to a couple report pages, so far. As a side note, if you expose the variables to the URL scope, you can virtually manipulate the search form without actually pointing and clicking on certain search criteria. They are basically creating their own links (virtual favorites) and then running their own pages to control inside adilas pages. That is pretty advanced, but as long as you have an active login, you could do it, no problem. Kinda interesting.

Going through pages and working on code review. Starting to get into the dynamic rules per master special account.

Reviewing code and running some tax table updates locally. Passed the existing files back over to Shawn.

Working with Bryan to cover some options for a client. The client wants to be able to record more information on a per PO basis. We talked about 4 different options. 1. Use flex grid tie-ins and black box code to get the job done. 2. Add more flex grid tie-in fields. Currently there are 15 and there has been some talk about extending that to 30 (double). 3. Use a custom form to collect the data, a custom action page to push the data where it needs to go, and build a custom black box database table specific to the task at hand. 4. Look into and build out the real in-line database extensions (be able to expand the native database tables as needed based on a per corporation basis).

We spent quite a bit of time discussing each option. Without trying, we ended up spending more time talking about the option 4, real in-line database extensions. See the link below for more notes about this option. We already have a few small in-roads to this solution, it just needs to go out the next level. As part of that conversation, we talked about a new table to help control the custom field names and assignments. This would be a new table that would allow us to setup the new fields, what to call them, what data types they were, and where the data would be stored. Along with this, we also briefly talked about the existing custom dates, custom numeric, custom text, and custom json tables. Currently, we already have some logic in place on sub inventory and sub attributes as well as parent attributes. Both sections use the custom tables to hold the data.

I warned Bryan that even though these new dynamic features sound awesome, there are some major challenges. Including searching, dynamic show/hide, requirements, sorting, defaults, custom instructions/directions, ect. In a way, it almost sounds like another project that is tied to a database table called db_field_settings. That table allows for normal or default database fields to be named, show/hide, sorted, defaults, maxes, mins, etc. They both have a similar flavor. The main difference is one controls tables that already exists and have fixed columns or field names and the other is kinda managing vaporware or fields that are wanted and needed but only exist in the real in-line extensions. Interesting.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=database%20extensions%2Breal%20in%2Dline

I got a call that a client was having problems with their patient (customer) queue and keeping people in the queue. Apparently, when the queue was refreshing, it was appearing that all persons had been flushed and it wasn't able to hold them (their order in the queue and who was in the queue). We looked at servers, code, and finally they confirmed that all was well. No physical changes happened, it just seemed to start working again. Kinda random.

Steve and Alan were talking about frontend automation on the credit card side of things. We are looking into API sockets for USAePay (our credit card gateway that we are using) and being able to pull reports that show customer credit cards that have expired, will expire, or expire during a set date range. It would be super cool to get this information in order to help our billing department.

- Steve is really excited to see what the AWS (all of the stats and such) side of things will bring to the table. We really want switch our billing based on storage, throughput, bandwidth, requests, etc. That would be awesome.

- Two parts, the gateway side and the adilas side of things... we need the header and app side of the communication process (extension of the invoice due date project). The goal there is to use adilas and be able to communicate back to the users (different companies) and let them know if their invoices are getting to a certain age. Based on settings, the goal is to warn and help get a payment and if needed, to shut off and prompt for payment before usage resumes. There are more details, but that is the general idea.

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Got on a Zoom session with Calvin. He was having a problem with an existing API socket. As he was looking deeper, we recently made a number of changes to that page back in January. It is dealing with sub inventory, searches, and calculating sub inventory quantities. I scheduled an hour, later today, to look into his question.

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About 11 am, Steve, Bryan, and I got on a meeting to look at Bryan's adilas community projects page. This is an area where adilas users and consultants can submit and vote for what projects they want us to work on. Basically a way to get outside input on priorities and what is needed and wanted. Steve sees some of this as each user having their own little individual user account (almost outside of adilas). They then could do whatever they need to outside of any specific corporation, just as a user. When they want to go in and do some work, they would need to enter a corporation and/or world. Basically creating a separation between users and worlds (adilas accounts).

Some of our conversations turned to possible misuse, abuse, rants, and managing potential problems. In a way, it is almost like opening up a virtual forum and public facing entry point. We also talked about design and styling out the page to make things look more modern. It is crazy how deep, sometimes just a single decision goes to crazy deep levels, and it is hard to see what is going to happen. Lots of cause and effect decisions. Steve was talking about how the look and feel almost helps guide the process. How well does it show? Do people want to spend time doing something that looks old? If it looks modern and smooth, would they use it more? What do people accept? What do people want?

After the discussion about look and feel, Steve ended up back on the master user accounts topic and being able to use a single sign-in type interface. This deals with users being able to independently use certain functionality outside of an assigned corporation. We also talked about being able to submit projects and notes and having some sort of sign-off and/or approval type process.

We also talked about timelines and being able to show other projects, ideas, completion rates, what project are on target and/or in progress, and other ways of communicating as to what is going on. Long story made short, we love the ideas and concepts, but it still needs some loving and direction. Eventually, we want to open this adilas community forum and community projects to all users and consultants.

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Talking with Wayne about the new open/general login process. He was talking about an open id (somewhat of a master user id - a hashed username string). We were talking about questions about what happens if a user gets setup but hasn't been associated to a specific world and/or a corporation? How do we allow those assignments to be made, requested, and eventually approved. Wayne was talking about an authorization queue and a way to approve and allow access to certain users.

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Worked with Dustin on adding new entries in the sub GPS/RFID tag table. This is a sub of elements of time. He is tying things into his cultivation and production pages.

2/26/21: This has been resolved with the updates to the transitional invoice.
4/27/2020: Brandon is spending a couple hours every week or every other week on this.

2/3/20:Brandon and Steve need to take a look at this and schedule time together. They booked time on Tuesday 2/4/20 work on this.

1/23/20: Client is having trouble balancing due to end date on transitional invoices. Steve asked Cory to push to priority 0 and speak with Brandon at next meeting (2/3/20)

The variance in the BS is described through the COGS values (Inventory) of these three invoices.  If you convert these to Customer Invoices, then the Inventory reduction is properly reflected.  If you don't, then the Inventory is not reduced and generates an out of balance.

 
Can you please assist with why these invoices are different?  It is something we have seen throughout the past and are now raising due to the issues it is creating.
 
Also, there is a constant out of balance due to a duplicate Transition Inventory line item in the BS calculation.  This has been ongoing and I don't think anything is happening.  It is a constant adjustment we have to make to true up our balance sheet.Brandon has started working on this. Deeper than we thought. Only in backward direction and only when complete.

Eric came in on 9/24/19 and had some questions about the transitional invoices. We went over the existing code, database tables, and process. There are some things here that could be sped up and automated. He also has a need to be able to use those transitional invoices from ecommerce (orders with no money collected). We also need to be able to flip the transition period for a single day. Currently, the transition period for a Q.T.I (between a quote, a transition invoice, and a real invoice) value has to be a single day. We may want to speed that up and allow for things to be in a transitional period for just a single day or even add a time element to the mix. For example: The transitional invoice was created at 3:05 pm and then the person came and picked it up at 4:15 pm on the same day. Those time options might be nice.
As a side note, this project does have some reports and logic that ties clear out to the balance sheet level. We need to be aware of that.

Shawn and I got on a GoToMeeting. He wasn't quite done, so we both just worked on our own projects. I finished up some custom code for Beaver Mountain. They wanted me to modify their add/edit process for adding new ski/snowboard lessons (new elements of time).

Bryan and I spent most of our session trying to get the snow owl data tables to work outside of the secure environment. We tried a number of different things but ended up with a plan to contact Russell and ask for help there.

Working on a fix to help Calvin with a custom project. We had a mixed cart search that returned sub inventory and their values. I had to rework the method call and logic to return the correct number of decimals in the quantity sums. It was treating the sums as integers (whole numbers) vs sub inventory quantities with decimals. Anyways, made some changes and pushed up new files. Let Calvin know to go and do some testing.

Did some prep work for Wayne. He is working on creating a new open user login using AWS vs internal adilas login stuff. He needed a couple of pages built to help approve and accept open users being bridged between corporations. The pages allow for accepting a request or denying an access request. I built him three small pages that had an outline of the code that will end up being real. This was more of a prep work project than actual code. Sent the files to Wayne.

Joined up with Steve on the Monday morning meeting. He was showing me some new pages that he was working on and using some prebuilt CSS templates that we purchased. Russell Moore got us started with those CSS templates a few years back. Steve has been in there playing around and is grabbing code and pages and plugging in real code and database values. It is starting to look pretty good. As a side note, a couple times today, we have circled back around to prebuilt templates and what they offer.

Steve and Dustin were talking about some of their combined efforts and different demos that Dustin has been giving and doing. He has done a great job and is very easy to work with. That is a huge plus.

Calvin joined in and had a few questions. He also helped both Steve and I get the latest versions of his adilas label builder wizard. We worked with the label editors and then also gave Calvin a few change order to do list stuff. We would love to get some data formatting functions to help make the data look good. The other major topic was talking about 3rd party solutions and how we secure those pieces. I told Calvin that I would work with him on what is needed and how best to get the desired outcome. We are planning on adding a section for Calvin and MyEasySoftware in the adilas 3rd party solutions section.

One little nugget from todays talks and discussions was: We may be better off getting one or two key persons trained up on certain features and implementations and then allowing those parties to charge or get paid to help setup the others who need those pieces. It helps get specialists and also really cuts down on the tech support required to do harder or more complicated tasks and processes. The summary is: Get people to pay for value added services, especially somewhat technical or complicated setup or in-depth processes vs trying to teach everybody how to do it on their own. The other option to that, which would be nice if possible, is to make the setup and/or processes more simple and intuitive. Somehow we need to monetize some of these deeper tools. Either charge for setup and training or increase the monthly reoccurring.

Wayne joined the meeting and had a few questions. He and Calvin chatted about AWS, windows services, and how they may be able to use AWS Lambda functions to do similar things that we are doing under the current Windows server model. It got pretty techy. We setup a new permission for Wayne to use in his open id user pools and how to grant or deny access between open id users and different worlds or corporations.

Steve and I did some more work on templates and getting a good starting place to work from. Steve was talking about how awesome it is to use prebuilt CSS templates due to the fact that you start from a working picture (static or fake data) and then build in functionality from there. We did a code merge for Steve and I had to help out with some page view icons for some of the new pages.

Towards the very end of the call/session, Wayne popped back in and had some questions about changing the MySQL data engine from MyISAM to INNODB type tables. Techy database stuff. He also had a question about the scan and add to cart process and how complicated it seemed to be. We talked briefly about some performance tuning and options. Basically ways to help go in and split things apart and/or speed up certain queries. Afterwards Steve and I chatted and talked about some of the cool things that are coming down the pipeline. Keep moving forward.

Checked current SSL's as of 2/13/19

data 0 - 3/2/20
data 1 - 12/5/20
data 2 - 12/5/20
data 3 - 12/5/20
data 4 - 2/12/20
data 5 - 3/14/19
data 6 - 9/23/19
data 7 - 1/21/20
data 8 - 9/14/20
data 9 - 1/31/21
data 10 - 5/14/20
data 11 - 10/30/20
swc - 5/20/20
content - 5/4/20

Added some notes to other elements of time and did some email stuff.

Worked with Bryan on new flex grid tie-in changes. He has a client that wants to increase the number of custom flex grid fields from 15 to 30. We talked about pros and cons and decided to go for it. He wasn't sure where to start. So, we jumped on and went through the process. I was showing him pages and mentioning things that might need to be tweaked and changed. He recorded the small session and will go back and make sure that he gets all of the pieces. Each developer has a different style on how they collect and gather information. Kinda fun.

Later on, after our initial meeting, he called back with another question. His new question was dealing with a client that wanted a date sensitive inventory report to be emailed on a certain schedule. We talked about options, we go in and looked at some pages, and I made a few suggestions. He seems pretty busy.

As a fun side note, it has been a long winter here in Northern Utah. Today feels like spring and we are both wanting to get outside and see the sun. Bryan encouraged me to get outside and I ended up taking him up on that. The sun is good for the soul. Good stuff.

Steve and I were on the GoToMeeting session for about 2 hours this morning, just the two of us. We were both working on other small projects and just talking back and forth. Lots of good things are going on. It has been quite the journey. Some of our subjects were things like: progress, small micro tweaks, continual growth and tweaking, building for the future, countless blessings, laying down stepping stones, building on foundations, willingness to learn, skill levels, being inspired by one another and what we are doing, our guys and gals (developers, sales, tech support, reps, consultants, etc.), and how many untapped avenues there are in front of us. Tons of potential.

As a side note, sometime it really helps to have someone else along with you on the journey. When one gets tired, bored, or burned out, the other may be able to help, encourage, inspire, and/or lift. It really helps to have a friend and just keep going. Sometimes that continual pushing is better than one short burst of energy.

Wayne came on and had a few questions. He also reported on a few of the things that he is working on. After he left, Steve and I kept talking about some of the talent and team members that we have, that are going along with us on this epic journey. Those other people are carrying the load and helping out. That is awesome and we are very grateful. We are hoping that they are having fun and being supported as well. It takes a team to do these things.

After chatting and working on small projects, Steve and I decided to look into a report that some of the sub inventory searches were struggling when finding certain sub inventory values. These problems were only reported in certain cases. We did some local and live testing and couldn't make it fail. We came up with some possible issues or scenarios and then tried to fix what we could. We may need to go deeper, but we got a few things tightened up. We removed some spaces in the code and in the display for sub inventory items. We did some data trimming to help make sure we were getting what we were expecting. We pushed up the code and did some testing.

Just a little after 11 am, I got a hold of Shawn and he jumped on with us. He is working on some payroll numbers and withholdings. Shawn and Steve were talking briefly about gardening and greenhouses. Both are somewhat hobby gardeners.

Emails and tech support. Added in a new link on the customer log page if the corporation allows for online bill pay. Also worked with Shawn to get some new numbers and federal tax withholding numbers.

Shannon and I met up and got back into looking into some sales ideas and concepts. We started out by going back to last week and reviewed some of our notes. Then we figured out our plan for today and divided and jumped into working on our different tasks. Shannon went in to the online training photo gallery and took some notes. I went into Adilas and started looking up photos and entries that have been pushed to elements of time. My plan is to go back and gather up some of the nuggets that have already been entered and time has somewhat forgotten. Fun to dig in the past a bit.

Working with Bryan on some display options for his adilas community projects. Also talked about some tweaks on new flex grid fields that are needed.

Tanner (my son) and I went to a thing called the young writers and artist fest at USU (Utah State University). The theme was "This is me!". I really enjoyed the event. This is not directly related to adilas stuff, but I learned a lot and took some notes. Just sharing...

- Be brave enough to say - this is me

One of the workshops was with a band called Dyer Highway (a number of siblings and family members who do country and blue grass). Here are my notes from their presentation. I really enjoyed it. They did a great job.

- You have to learn the basics before you can take it to the next level.

- Once you get the basics down, you start to mimic other masters - getting influence from others

- Start getting out there

- Find a professional that can really help you get in to it

- Song - Basic message was things grow on you - love gets sweeter with time

- They were telling their story and used some fun songs to help fill in - helping to inspire young minds and help them see how things build up

- They allowed us to stand up and get in to it (break from being perfectly quite and sitting - I liked that)

- Finding out your path... it comes down to choices, decisions, and consequences

- They chose to give some of their music away for free

- Write and do what you believe... what is important to you

- They were thankful for their parents - watching and learning as they go along - "I learned more than just cooking"

- What is the moral of this story... We don't need fame or fortune to do what we do - do you have something to share? Tell your own story - Tell the truth and share your own story.

- You have amazing things to do

- Go change the world and tell your story

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Next we went to a workshop from a professional writer and author. His name was J Scott Savage (www.jscottsavage.com). Here are some of my notes from his presentation:

- Plotting vs Pacing - Often we only think of the plot or the set of events... Pacing deals more with when things happen and wrong and right times for those actions.

- Get tools to put in your tool box - you don't have to use the same tool every time, but it helps to have a number of different tools

- The big picture - start with what you know and divide your story into meaningful chunks

- The power of fourths (quarters)

- Conflict is necessary - writers introduce sub conflict early and then get more into the main conflict later or tie-in the sub conflicts with the main conflicts

- Plant seeds - good foreshadowing

- He was talking about a virtual "readers radar" - ping, ping, ping - How fast or crazy are the ping patterns. If you are doing a higher ping pattern, you had better use that later on

- Characters get sent on a quest

- Often they get put on a false path of some kind

- Something that the main characters believes to be true but that changes later on - seeds being planted for the real path

- Characters are active, not reactive - people want to root for your character

- Internal and external dilemmas collide

- Something changes everything - changing from inquiry to charging forward

- Obstacles help pull the readers in... the magnitude of the real dilemma

- The main characters may question their own ability and devotion

- Time is running out, the clock is ticking - what does the character learn?

- Big revelation - something happens and makes everything clear

- Scenes and sequel - fast and slows

- Towards the end... high action with minimal time to react

- Try fail cycles - false success - you think you know the end, but it doesn't work - once again, try fail cycles

- Eventually, all is lost - how can you possibly pull this off

- The author always has the real plan - the solution or the exciting climax

- Take your time with this (meaning the climax or solution) - The reader is looking for a big pay off

- When the reader finished... you want them wanting more

- Finish the story and then introduce something new - a new conflict and/or dilemma

- Writer's block - something went wrong with the story... how do you fix that...

>> Backtrack to where the disconnection happened

>> Put a plug in... something amazing happens here... keep going - do what you know

>> Push through to the end and you may need to circle back to fix some things - there will still be time, even if everything isn't fully fixed

Anyways, these are my notes from the workshop. It has nothing to do with adilas but that is what I learned today. Enjoy!

Steve and I were looking into a barcode scanning question from a client. We went in and logged in and looked around and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. We changed the item names and looked in the backend database to see if we could see anything. It seem like all is well. After that, Steve and Dustin started working on some of their production (mini manufacturing) processes.

Eric joined and had some questions about adilas API socket settings and being able to turn certain things on/off through the 3rd party solutions. We also setup some time to work on code review for his sub special accounts stuff (loyalty points, gift cards, etc.).

Tech support and helping Drea out. Wayne jumped on and helped with the backend tech support stuff. Basically, a company was missing a couple of records. We looked and the database had no record of them. Even the auto id numbers totally skipped them. From our point of view, the system should have given them an error message saying that a certain actions were not possible. Anyways, we did some research and got Drea as much information as we could. She will have the client call back two of their customers to see if they could get some data from them. There is no record in the actual database.

Wayne and I then did a little session where he wanted me to look up some small bugs that are showing up in his server error logs. I recorded one of them and we looked at a couple of other ones. Small little issues.

Emails, follow-up, and recording notes. Also checking in with Alan on a server-side bug that is being reported.

Going through code done by Eric for the sub special account tracking project (loyalty points, gift cards, in-store credit, etc.). I was working through master account rules today.

Went into Logan to participate in a Bear 100 meeting. The meeting was at Bridgerland (Btech) to go over a changing of the guard (key players) for the Bear 100 mile race for 2019. They use adilas to help track runners and aid stations. Most of the meeting was dealing with other parts of the race vs just adilas stuff. The only thing that they wanted was to head more towards mobile or full app stuff.

Steve, Alan, and Dustin were on the morning meeting with us. Steve had some questions about a custom gram control that he was working on. Alan was reviewing with us his work with USAePay and helping to automate the invoice payments and reoccurring invoice stuff. The conversation trended towards the use of the external alternate id number and how those fields get used. We are already seeing a need for a one-to-many relationship between normal id's and the use of the external alternate id number (id numbers from outside parties and/or outside systems). Very interesting.

We ended up talking about custom needs, settings, and how to help direct people in other areas. We spent a little bit of time talking about building generic tools and generic database tables vs industry specific and vendor specific tools and database tables. There are pros and cons between both. Generic helps cover the basis but sometimes takes a little bit longer to implement and design and develop. Specific code could be very fast, but you then need to somewhat duplicate pieces as things grow and expand (different parties wanting the same things).

We also got into some talks about frontend development and backend development. Look and feel, user interfaces, flow, animations, and design vs functions, code, logic, database stuff, and backend tools. So many people judge our entire application based on their first impressions (what they see). There has to be a good balance between good tools and good looks.

Working with Dustin on some JavaScript and advanced options. We spent over an hour looking around and trying to figure out how to cross tie some application pieces together. It got pretty deep with some of inspinia and bootstrap code (special CSS templates, JavaScript, JQuery, and HTML output pieces).

Wayne popped in and gave us an update on where he is at on the AWS stuff. Lots of new moving pieces. Our goal there is to get the existing code working out in AWS land before adding all kinds of new code to the mix. After Wayne left, Steve and I were talking about some of the changes in the wind (virtual direction and force of the upcoming changes). Pretty interesting. We may need to get some other players involved and then figure out where they are going to fit in and who wants to do what. Lots of options.

Russell updated in 2017. Prior to that hadn't been updated since 2010-2011. Due for another face lift. New designers coming on-maybe they can work on it.

Emails and light tech support. Added a few more projects to the tick list.

Working with Bryan to go over the new flex grid fields. We are adding 15 new custom flex grid tie-in fields. Some of the session was going over code and making sure that all is well. He is getting close, he just needs to test a few more things and do some light clean-up. We also talked about a couple of other projects including the adilas user group code and a new setting for what email address to show on invoices and quotes.

I came in late, but Alan and Steve were looking into some Metrc API sockets and matching up things between systems. After that, Alan and Dustin got into some of the Inspinia datatables and how to interact with some of those new things. Alan was able to help Dustin out and point him in a good direction. Steve and I then looked into a balance sheet item called inventory in transit (asset). This is part of the math and code for the balance sheet. Eric popped in and had a few questions to help with his sub special account project (loyalty points, gift cards, etc.).

Wayne was talking about some other options that are available through AWS. Top level firewall rules, XSS (cross site scripting) validation, queues, topics, reminders (SMS), etc. Wayne predicts that our ColdFusion pages will become smaller and more efficient as we offload some of the other code functionality to other tools and/or other applications. So many options. We also talked about new possible options for using and doing custom black box pages as well as custom themes (global or industry specific). We were talking about all custom code and file storage (photos, scans, images, files, media, content) per corp and being able to charge for that. That really takes it down to the corp level and charging for storage and usage.

Emails, paying bills, and light tech support.

Back doing code review for Eric's sub special account tracking project. This is a sub of the balance sheet and will end up allowing for things like reward points, loyalty points, gift cards, gift certificates, punch cards, in-store credit, lunch cards, vendor credits, employee payroll draws, affiliate programs, tiered marketing options, and tons of other special accounts. Basically, we will track all of the special accounts and then connect them to a single balance sheet item. The main balance sheet item will show up on the actual balance sheet. Behind the scenes, we will keep track of all of the tiny twists and turns and individual transactions. The summed up results will then be available for the balance sheet as part of the assets, liabilities, equity accounts, or even phantom accounts (kinda there and kinda not there). Pretty interesting.

Shannon and I met and talked about progress. I shared with her that we have 4-5 big projects that are coming into play in the next little while that all have a balance sheet flavor of sorts. We went over those pieces and how they play in. Some of the projects are: expand the transitional invoices and adding in inventory in transit (shown as an asset), new transitional PO project that Will is working on (in code sign-off but stills needs a little work), sales tax expansion project (on phase 5 of 5 and just need to finish some things up), Eric's sub special account tracking project (sub of the balance sheet for things like loyalty points, gift cards, in-store credit, etc.), and sub inventory with mini conversions (deeper inventory tracking and how that affects the balance sheet).

I also spent some time drawing out some changes that are coming with our transition out to AWS (amazon web services - new web hosting model) and things that Wayne is working on. I drew our current model and also what I know of the newer AWS model. We talked about pros and cons and I tried hard to help Shannon know where things are going. Some exciting stuff coming down the pipeline.

We talked about the concept of filtering and boiling things down and using a funnel type analogy to get towards the goal. Sometimes it takes years and years, but we are still making progress and learning along the way. We ended our meeting by using a quote from an author (different Shannon - Shannon Hale) - "There will still be time..." Sometimes that really helps me out, if I'm stressed or something. There will still be time...

Back working on the code review process for the sub special account tracking project. Working on the corporation level assignments (copying master special accounts to individual corporations).

The morning meeting started with Steve going over some of his plans. Normally he has been taking Wednesday's off, but he had a couple of small questions. He is building a new page to help cross tie PO's with balance sheet items (some special tax project of sorts). He is using some new CSS templates to wire things up. He is getting good and is able to start seeing his way through the entire project. It is pretty cool to see him getting the ideas, concepts, and then being able to mix and blend the pieces to get the output that he is looking for. That is exciting.

Dustin was on with us as well. He is researching backend classes and API options for working with datatables for some of his projects.

Steve wants me to start working on the transitional invoices and adding the inventory in transit (asset) piece to the balance sheet. I went in and added the new code. It wasn't too bad, most of the work was already done, it was just showing it up in the correct place on the report.

Eric joined the meeting and had some questions about 3rd party solutions and push vs pull type requests. Most of our 3rd parties want to get data through the API sockets as a pull type request. We do have some that want the data pushed to them as things change (just in time or at the source of the changes). We talked about the differences in developing and also the differences in costs. Eric will be helping some of his clients move more towards the push type technology. We get better results that way and don't get flooded by too many pull requests. It is actually better for both parties, it just takes a little bit more planning and coding on the front end. Eric will end using that as a small revenue stream depending on what the clients want.

Wayne and Alan popped in. Wayne let me know about a couple of pages out in the adilas marketplace that were not very secure. I ended up going through a number of pages and adding in some URL validation to help prevent XSS (cross site scripting hacks).

Bryan and I got together and worked on his code to up the custom flex grid tie-in fields from 15 per system player group to 30 per system player group. We checked some code, ran database updates, merged the code, uploaded and tested. We also updated a few help files and even a small image to help with flex grid basics.

Steve and I were talking about our general direction as a company and how we want to get where we are going. Good discussion. I was running updates that Wayne had passed over to me for updating database tables between servers. I helped Steve with a small Metrc package table update and pushed up some new code. While I was doing that, Steve and Alan were working on some new code that deals with looking up both adilas id numbers and Metrc id numbers. Lots of back and forth between the two systems. Metrc is a state compliance system that we have to integrate with for some of our clients.

Steve, Bryan, and I had a discussion about the adilas user group and when to launch some of that code. It currently exists, it is just somewhat hidden. We were talking about working with Wayne and his open id (open users) stuff. Eventually we would like to have all of the users held outside of the main corporations (a general user pool). Then, once we have that, we could then allow the users, in the open area... to vote on things, add new projects, and participate as they feel prompted.

Steve would love all of the users to login into their own area... Then we could allow them to jump into the virtual data sphere and either start working, participate in the adilas community (all kinds of stuff), sell their own skills (real users doing training on what they do best), buy stuff, request access to certain sites, get training, etc. Lots of good options.

Steve was talking about first impressions and helping to really help get some "wow's" and "that's cool". Steve wanted Bryan to start working on a timeline type page and/or report. Steve was talking about 4 main things that he would like in our virtual lobby - what are we working on, where do you want to work (what corps have granted you access), news and updates, and a virtual marketplace to allow you to offer your services (what are you good at). As far as the what are you good at (virtual job board), it would be super cool if we could show stats on what you have done in the system. For example: John Doe has 32,000 expense/receipts that he has made and 150,000 invoices and 10,000 uploaded photos and scans. Expand that idea, but just some ideas and such.

Bryan and Steve got in to talking about some cool timelines, CSS templates, Inspinia and bootstrap options, awesome look and feel, etc. We also talked about how to move open community projects (general pool) into the adilas community funded projects (projects that people could donate and/or help fund) and how that would work. It would be super cool to show and allow votes to be cast on what people want, projects to be planned and commissioned and assigned, and parties being able to help and fund things as they see a need and/or want to participate. Great ideas.

Ongoing project
Organizing training within adilas university

Where people can go to get help. Adilas is producing by-products.

Concept of market is a place to offer these services.

Adilas Café options as well. Come and work, play, learn, buy, sell, participate, etc.

https://data0.adilas.biz/adilas_for_business/adilas_market.cfm

Emails, tech support, and general to do list stuff. Replacing adilas for business emails with normal adilas stuff.

Meeting between Kelly, Steve, and Brandon. This was a discussion about the current state of adilas, wishes, hopes, disappointments, frustrations, needs, wants, and dreams.

Kelly has been involved since 2010. She has trained, trained our trainers, done tons of tech support, and opened up tons of accounts on her own. She would like to help drive the business but feels like she doesn't have much say.

Steve was talking about payment and commission structures (monies paid and owed to Kelly). Kelly wanted to know, what is our admin structure? Steve said, well, we have dependables - people who just help and work with adilas. Kelly would really like to see our organizational structure.

We are seeing different people and they have different skills in different places... How do we mix and blend those pieces?

Kelly proposed a basic model... see graphic. She really wants to build out a standard structure. She sometimes get very frustrated by having to provide customer support for things that we are adding and doing in the background.

Question: Is it the size of a company thing or is it personnel thing? Kelly came back and said - It sounds like you need a motor (a person), someone to help drive the ship per company. We are starting to see that there are some dependencies. Some of the known dependencies are good consultants and good developers. Steve said, our solution is a tool, we need to find those that want to use our tools, in whatever state (our system) it is in.

It kept coming back to different people being good at different things. Nobody can take adilas from a to z. Currently, it is a very loose model right now. Steve kept coming back to having a person who helps to drive the adilas implementation per corporation. Kelly wants it to be standardized. She really wants some kind of structure to be able to hand off to a company so that they can run with it. Currently, there are a lot of moving pieces.

From our side... every corporation runs slightly different. That makes it really hard to setup a perfect standard and/or structure. We currently are having some of the best success with people who really want to jump in try and love to learn things. Kelly really wants adilas to come up with a more standardized structure - do this, do this, do this, we recommend this, ok you're set. The easier that we can make it, the easier we can get more people on board.

Adilas - all data is live and searchable - we need more options to get at the data better. Kelly wants all of the pieces live and searchable. We have a good start, but there are certain places that really still need some loving. Kelly wants to know what our plan is? What about funding and going out and trying to raise monies? Currently, that door is not an option. We are really trying to stay within our means. We don't like owing money and living under that debt.

We talked about some of the challenges that keep pulling at us. Tons of projects and tons of demands. We also talked about accounts receivable, reoccurring credit cards, and constantly chasing payments. We talked about some of the trouble makers (hard clients and customers) and what to do with them. We talked about online bill pay stuff and how to get the monies that are owed to us quicker.

How do we market our product? New sales, marketing, word of mouth, referrals, etc. The power of a good consultant. Those who have a good consultant seem to be able to keep it going. Another place where we sometimes struggle are in the developer arena. Those skilled persons are very critical. That seems to be the squeeze point (trained people and who does what and how do our people know what expect and who to ask).

Sometimes you can oversell things by saying, you can do anything. Kelly would really like for the process to be more standard and structured. Basically, putting training wheels on the system. Maybe we need an outside party to really run with their own standard process of setting up a client. It may not come from us (right now). It would be so awesome, if we could get people going without a great consultant. Turn it into a step-by-step wizard and/or step them through the paces by virtually holding their hands (Dustin calls it guardrails). If it gets better and better and faster and faster, it will become more intuitive and will take less handholding will be required. Maybe show a 1,2,3,4 setup process and/or show checkboxes to show what is needed. Help guide the users through the process.

Some people don't want to spend the time to watch a video. They want to just guess and/or fake it. There are also some who just want to be shown, by a real person. They almost want it so, so easy, that it isn't funny. It seems to come down to who wants to fund and setup these services. There are tons of things that are needed, but who is going to build it and who is going to fund that development? It gets crazy. Sometimes it is so much, we almost overwhelm people. It would be nice if we could turn things off, turn other things on, and/or limit them in certain ways.

Who wants to set up their own processes, because everything keeps changing? It gets tricky. We need it, but who is going to do it? Plus, it keeps changing and changing and has cascading cause and effects. It seems to be never-ending.

Kelly wants to know who is driving this ship and who is taking care of the financials? We keep flexing and rolling with what comes.

We may need more exports to MS Excel and/or CSV. We need access to the underlying data. This could be datatables (prebuilt exports and sortable tables), this could be normal exports, etc.

If I were a lifer (in it forever - a lifer), how would that look and where would it go and how would I be a part of that? Steve would like to put adilas in a trust - no employees, just dependables. There will always need to be a caretaker and/or person(s) that help it keep going, but it could run light and get direction from those involved.

Does anybody know adilas all the way through? No, we don't have anybody that really knows it all the way through. Kelly wants to see things get more organized and/or stable. As a side note, we know that we need adilas university (training and support) and the adilas marketplace (adilas world - who is able to help and who can do what). Kelly feels like we need to drive in a direction (goal oriented) vs just reacting to the pull of what is happening organically. Currently, we have outside independents and they tend to max out and growth is somewhat slow. The word "evolution" kept coming in and how it relates to the business model.

Different areas... communication, training, design and user interface (look and feel), development (code and functionality), and other services that are needed and/or offered (open marketplace). We need to keep bringing up all of the pieces. Keep finding people who want to play and are able to play.

As we get more developers... some of the pieces become less stable (different flavors and/or code quality).

There are a lot of clients that are looking for a solution. At some point, they will take what they have to as they keep looking for something better. Interesting.

There is currently no handbook for adilas. There is a lack of training materials and structure. That is a known issue that we are facing.

Emails and small bug fix for the new flex grid tie-ins. The additional flex grid settings was having an issue with pre-saved content and us adding 15 new fields. Pushed up the fix to all servers and did some testing.

Trying to catch up on emails. Dustin was on with me this morning. He had a couple small questions about some JQuery stuff that he is working on. Mostly, we were working on our own stuff.

Working on code sign-off and fine tooth combing of the sub special accounts pages.

More code review on the sub special accounts project.

It was just Dustin and I to start out with today. We pushed up some files for him to test live. I was trying to track down a small bug that Wayne had passed over to me to look at. It was something to do with code out in the adilas market (adilas world). Wayne popped into the meeting and gave us a small report as to where things are at with AWS transition. After that, Eric and I went over where we are at on the special accounts project. I'm trying to push on that project and finish up the code review.

These are just general notes, but it was mentioned earlier today that one of the problems with our model is actually allowing the clients to control how much effort is put into custom code. They don't actually code things, but they do fund things. Sometimes they opt for the cheap route vs the best route for all parties. Sometimes this has an adverse affect on poorly written code or bad code.

Another small topic from today was dealing with the size of the shared database structures. Some of them are getting very big. That makes it hard for certain queries to run efficiently or as optimized as possible. In the very near future, we will be pairing the database schema (tables and field names and values) into a smaller per corporation type model. That should really help with some speed and performance.

Towards the end of the session I was working on a new application form for the state of Texas. This is used by trailer dealers and applying for special farm license plates and registration stuff. We already had this form in place, they just have a newer version that we had to code.

Emails, tech support, and recording notes.

Bryan joined the GoToMeeting and had a couple questions. He has a client that needs to delete a number of quotes. Normally we don't delete data, we just hide it. I gave him permission to delete certain items. We talked about all of the relative tables that go along with that. He also had some questions about mass exports of PDF's that have been uploaded. We talked about web technology vs FTP (file transfer protocol) and how we have to keep things separated.

Reviewing timelines and progression. Sometimes that helps to remember where things are at and where things have been.

Shannon had an idea on house floorplans and layouts (as a concept) - We have a graphic with bread cut into different shapes and sizes (loaf, slice, cubes or sections, and mixed or different options). As far as the home floorplans analogy, people understand that. It becomes a standard package and/or a starting place. Most people don't want to build things from scratch with no plan in place. But they would love to get a few floorplans that they like and then tweak and blend between the existing pieces. Technically, we could build things from the ground up, but most people don't really know what they want and/or what is available. We may have to give them a good starting place. This may be size oriented (size of business) or industry specific templates, packages, and/or virtual floorplans. Great ideas.

We went through a document and some notes that we took (Steve and Brandon and Kelly) a couple days back.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=748&id=4464

As Shannon and I went through the older notes, we talked about a number of the concepts. We may need to start creating packages and virtual starting places for our clients. Help to standardize things and simplify the setup and implementation. We also talked about the pros and cons of getting more people involved and on the system. Is it ready for them? How do we get them in and help them get going quickly? Great questions.

The meeting today had a light flavor of education and training and standardizing.

Recording note, emails, and tech support stuff. Busy day.

On the morning meeting with Dustin. He had a question about one of his custom pages. We got into it and worked on a dynamic variable for some of his JavaScript pieces. It got pretty deep as we had to find a special column number that was used to get special data that the page needed. We had to mix hardcoded columns, conditional columns, and an unlimited number of dynamic or user-defined columns. We had to find the correct column number that held a special batch number and that was dynamic as well (a mapped setting). Lots of moving pieces. Anyways, he nailed it and we got it done. We also set him up with some light FTP access to one of the servers to do some live testing. Good stuff.

Wayne joined us and had a few questions and some updates. I then spent the rest of the session finishing up the new Texas application for farm use license plate form and PDF. I tested and uploaded files to all servers. Light tech support and emails.

Emails, follow-ups, phone calls, and light research on a custom project that is coming up.

On a GoToMeeting session with Shawn going over payroll things. He committed some new files on the sdc7 branch. Started to do a code review and code merge.

On a tech support call with Shari O. We were looking into some expense/receipts and running things through auto pay outs for splits (making payments on account).

We did a code merge and sign-off between Dustin and I. He has been working on some new settings, look and feel, and some cultivation pages and functions.

Wayne joined us and started showing us a difference between the existing Application.cfm and Application.cfc. He was showing us some code on session start, on page request, on page load, on request end, etc. Lots of cool access points for the application as a whole. Economy, efficiency, consistency, etc. Lots of good stuff. We could pick up the gains and even gain some performance enhancements.

At the end of the session, Wayne gave Dustin and I a few pictures and short peak into his life and what he and his family do for fun. It was nice to put names with faces and see what makes everybody tick. I really enjoyed that.

Working on some code merges and tax withholding updates from Shawn. Got a call from Shari O. and Dustin and I had to do a quick fix on a page that was pushed up earlier today. Minor tweak, but somewhat urgent.

Working with Bryan on a modal popup window and submitting and interacting with some underlying non connected form data. We ended up building a small test page and playing with the values there. The main page, where it was going to end up, was too complicated to mess with and/or do some testing. Sometimes we forget that a simple test page can really make a difference in the learning process.

Emails and tech support stuff. Busy day.