A few guys were checking in and touching base. I ended up doing a bunch of email stuff. I'm trying to focus on projects and getting things done. Steve and I were touching base and chatting about plans and things. Everything keeps right on going and rolling out in front of us. We literally just keep taking the next step. We'd like to think that we are good at planning and knowing where things are going, but in reality, it just keeps unfolding in front of us. We do add some efforts and resources, but the project seems to be unfolding as we go.

Cory, Steve, and I on a meeting. We were talking about the need for the global item or product catalogs. We then chatted about a number of projects and checking on the state and status of each project. Steve and Cory ended up doing some checking on Metrc (state tracking and compliance system).

I went in and added in a small check for flex grid output on the customer log page. Ended up adding it in double if they have flex grid and logs of log notes. This is dealing with the flex grid output or display. Originally, the flex grid tie-ins were at the very bottom of the page. However, if a client has or had tons of log notes, you have to scroll way down to the bottom of the page to see the flex grid tie-ins. This little project moved the tie-ins up and even showed ones at the top and the bottom to help with the display. As a side note, after I launched it and it was live for a couple of hours, they asked for it to be reversed (back to normal).

Showing Cory progress on different projects. Helping Steve with his local database setup. He's got a new laptop and it usually takes a couple of days to get everything flowing and going in the right direction. Lots of little tiny things to setup the local development environment.

Working with Danny on code sign-off for 5 new email slots and template holding spots. This allows for customer email messages to be preconfigured and then used to communicate with the clients or vendors using nice, HTML and CSS formatted emails, with dynamic codes to pull in live data (sometimes called a merge field). Anyways, we did the code review and made a few small tweaks and then pushed up the files.

This was a great project for Danny, he researched it, looked it up, planned it out, and then went in and got it done. We only had to help a little bit here and there. That is awesome!

Ended up backing out the code to show the flex grid output both above and below the customer logs for clients with multiple log notes and flex grid tie-ins. The ladies thought that it looked too busy. Good call. The new code was backed out and new files were pushed up to all servers.

Switched gears and ended up back on the massive custom sub inventory data extract for a client. Towards the end of the session, I had to help make a small fix for Danny on his new email templates. Light tweak and then we re-pushed his code up to all boxes.

Eric and Steve were chatting about changes in the little town of Salida, CO. The world in which we live keeps changing. Some good, some bad, some better, some for the worst. Interesting!

Eric was reporting back to Steve and I about the EMV chip reading project for USAePay and possible conflicts with First Data. Our current integration works in most cases, but it fails if First Data doesn't send back the correct response on every transaction. We are expecting a certain format and response, but it doesn't always come back as we hope and planned for. That is causing an issue. We told Eric to keep tracking things down and let's move this project to the next level. We do want a good and solid integration and if we need to, we may have to flip the backend chip reader processor. Anyways, Eric will keep following leads and try to get some meetings setup to help figure out a good business choice.

Switching back to the sales tax aggregates and sales tax aggregate project. We (Eric and I) talked about a small to do list, future plans, data drill-downs, use cases, scenarios, activation process, event scheduling, and removing limits on other corporations. Eric is circling back around on that project and even has scheduled some future meetings to go over next steps and details. I was giving Eric permission to run with the project and be the senior dev or senior lead on it. We also got into talking about new expense types and planning a course of action there as well.

Dustin checked in. Danny check in and had questions about using adilas as a media/content library for email template assets. We talked about using an element of time, and uploading needed media/content (files, images, prep stuff, etc.) for all others to use. We went over a few other ideas and Danny will be running with that or those pieces. Good meeting!

Meeting with Euflora and FlyHi. Lots of questions about delivery options, API sockets, automation, being able to update and edit certain fields for delivery, and order of events (what happens first and what happens later or never at all - flow processes). We had lots of good dialog back and forth. For the next meeting, they would like Alan to be on the meeting as there were a number of questions that he knew better than anybody else, due to the projects that they were asking about.

Note to self - Don't get lost in all of the details. Make sure and get the basics and we can fill in the details later on. If you focus so much on the details, you may miss the big picture. Part of our discussion - pulling out a small take away message from our meeting.

Multiple different meetings within this time slot. First off, Cory and I spent some time going over projects and making plans after the earlier meeting ended. Lots of reporting in, circling around, and doing follow-up on different topics and projects. Steve and Cory were touching base on production (manufacturing) stuff.

At some point we have to turn things over to the people who are doing it (meaning our clients). We can't hold their hand forever. Eventually, the subject got back to deployment and who is doing what. We do want to take care of our clients, but we also can't babysit them every waking hour without charging for that service.

Shannon joined the meeting and she and I worked on brainstorming on adilas core concepts. We spent most of our session on permissions and settings and recording ideas, notes, and brainstorming on those fundamental concepts. We often say that adilas is built on a foundation of permissions and settings. That keeps expanding and rolling along as the whole thing unfolds. Very interesting. See attached for our ideas, progress, and notes from our brainstorming session.

Shari O. joined the meeting and had some payroll, internal audit questions, and email template questions. She and I went over a small questionnaire and chatted about independent contractors, independent developers, and independent reps/consultants. We then looked at some bank registers and fixing a small error on the save as PDF page for bank registers. Busy couple of hours.

Merged in some files for Dustin and pushed them up to all servers.

John and I doing database updates for a couple of hours. We also made a plan and started into things for the payroll and timecard flags and total time project. Lots and lots of clicks - 10,000 (10K) records updated per click. Each server, clicking through all timecards per server and running the database updates and migration scripts.

Dustin was checking in on the morning meeting. In the background, I was migrating 10K timecard records per click and updating them with new timecard flags and total times per time card. Helped Danny fix an internal email issue. We had to add in a global find and replace line of code to help it interpret the code correctly. After that, I logged into all of the servers and synced up some of the globally shared tables with new web page id's and API settings.

Small note on the things that we need to sync up - the value of using a last date modified field to help only update and sync what is needed. Some of these sync procedures were thousands and thousands of records, when only a couple of hundred may have changes (or less). If we had a last date modified field on some of those tables, the lift would be smaller and I could limit data syncs between servers to just things that had changed, based on a date or date range. The end goal would be to make a lighter light of these global server syncs and procedures.

Chuck and I were talking about sales and offering services. You have to give to get. We got into pain points and then taking action based on those solutions to pain or pain points. Chuck was talking about an acronym of AIDA - short for A=attention, I=Interest, D=desire, and A=action.

Chuck has been working on the sales or presentation gallery project. Small review of where he was at with some of the pieces and introducing new background themes.

After the meeting, I kept cascading and syncing up global tables between servers for certain database tables.

Cory and Alan were chatting and touching base on some projects. Alan is working on the transitional invoices project and how to recalculate prices based on tiered pricing. Alan is also working on breaking things into different objects and different levels. Those may be objects that are specific to a subject or objects that exist within a certain playing field (like out in ecommerce land). He also reported on some changes to sub inventory and sub inventory objects and logic (new objects) out in ecommerce land. Lots of refactoring and experimenting. Once we figure things out, at different places, we roll back around and try to implement those pieces in other areas (like the internal shopping cart or within the secure environment).

Alan and Cory then went over some Metrc and delivery bases questions. Some of the discussion was dealing with options for auto processing certain pieces and/or values within the delivery API sockets and functions.

After Alan was done, we switched over to meeting with John and getting a report from him on his projects. Cory and John were chatting about updates and small tweaks that are still needed. We are getting closer on the payroll project for the holiday chooser and timecard flags and total time project for payroll. We still have a few details to work out and refine but getting much closer.

John and I got together and worked on the payroll and timecard project. We did some prep work and fixed some merge conflicts. Pushed up files to data 0 to do some live testing.

Reviewing a big project with Bryan. Lots of new files and also some huge library assets (over 1,000+ new files). Bryan had to do some graphic work to change things out, so I worked on other stuff while he was finishing up. Did some testing on new code and reading over a resume for a possible new team member. While Bryan was working in the background, John and I were doing some live testing with the payroll and timecard project. Lots of back and forth.

Some of this time slot was blended and merged with the time slot that Bryan had from 3-4 pm. We (Bryan, John, and I) bounced between different projects for a couple of hours. It wasn't specific to one time for Bryan, one time for John. It was kinda all over the place based on needs and what was ready and what needed to be worked on. See earlier entry for more info on what we worked on.

Steve and the guys were talking about sales, custom development, and finding the right clients. Not every client would be a good fit with what we have, do, and offer.

Looking into campgrounds and booking all kinds of stuff. Lots of future development options.

I did some emails and helped Steve with his local environment for coding. After that, Steve and I chatted about the future and some of our vision heading into the future. Cory joined and here and Steve were talking about projects and clients. Both Cory and Steve really want to pitch the data intel systems and taking things to that level. Good direction.

Server meeting. Wayne, Cory, John, Steve, Shari O., and I were all on the meeting. Lots of back and forth with small questions from each person/party. Some new directions were given and requests made. Wayne will be ordering some new boxes for a client. We then went around and checked on the status of different projects. We are hoping to get back to the developer's notebook box (developer box) and also making some plans about the Emerald Fields custom data extraction project.

After the server meeting ended, Cory stayed on and was asking some questions on the new payroll changes. We made a small list of bugs and setup another meeting to go over things and add some loving to the new pages. Nothing huge, just some tweaks and refinements.

Work session with Shannon. Brainstorming on adilas core concepts. We were working on ideas for systems, vision and future developments, tech, tools, and maintenance. We also did some light work on brainstorming on running objects and data over time. See attached for our progress. The document is still kinda rough, but at least we are catching ideas and concepts.

Cory, Bryan, and I on a meeting with three others from Green Link Merchants and Dejavoo (hardware side) - pin debit cards and custom payment hardware integration. Good meeting and mostly a get to know you/first round kick off meeting. We chatted about parts and pieces and had a chance to do some Q and A's between ourselves and the others on the meeting.

After the meeting, Cory, Bryan, and I got back on the GoToMeeting and did a small review and rehash of the earlier meeting. We talked about a few small things and answered some questions between ourselves.

Bryan and Cory kept going on the GoToMeeting and Steve and I jumped off to a smaller Zoom session. Steve and I were looking at some queries and adding some new output columns. Pretty simple stuff.

Working with John to go over and resolve some small bugs and issues in the new payroll code that was added to the system. Fixing small typos, defaulting calculations to auto, flipping links over to the correct permissions (between managers and admin time clock pages). We also went in and fixed the new payroll summary report for timecards and timecard flags. Merged and pushed up new code to all servers.

Steve and Dustin were talking about sub attributes and using smaller getters and setters to modify data as needed. We talked about different level of coding - in-line, using methods, and using dynamic getters and setters. We would like to use the getters and setters where possible. The more dynamic we can make it, the better off we will be. Code once and then use many. They were also talking about more settings on top of what is currently hardcoded for some of the verbage. It is so important that these companies speak their own language. It makes a huge difference.

Eric joined and checked in on the USAePay and EMV chip reader stuff. We are making progress, but there are many parties that seem to be involved. Steve and Eric were talking about adilas jumping in and being more of a middle man and actually pitching and selling some of the merchant processing pieces. We talked about some options and making some plans as we move forward. Part of our plan will be to provide a super robust and fully integrated system and payment solution. We have a bunch that work, but nothing that we are actively behind and trying to sell as our recommended solution.

John and I checked in and merged in a small branch of code dealing with his payroll and timecard projects. Small tweaks. We also setup another meeting time for later today to get into the new timecard logic a little bit deeper.

Cory joined the meeting and had some tech support questions. We looked into some small changes and requests that were wanted.

Working with Cory on some database updates and client requests. We did some clean-up on two corporations that had tons of unused customer types. We got all of the clean-up done and checked it out on their (the client's) server. After that, Cory and Steve talked and chatted about other projects and things that need to done.

Eric, Steve, and I going over how we are going to help book earned credits from early payment for sales tax. Most of the session was research and getting back into some of the older tables and what not. This is a continuation of the sales tax aggregation project that Eric has been working on. Here are some notes.

We will need:
new expense types
drill-downs
roll-ups per day per location

top_secret/secure/add_edit_groupings.cfm - adilas page that handles the financial groupings and sub groupings.

type=16 >> expense types >> chart_of_account_type (table name) - global

1 - destination >> money_destination_id (column name) >> id's >> 2=BS, 3=P&L >> money_destinations (table name) - global

2 - category >> currently we allow for financial_category_id (column name) of id's 8=cost of sales, 9=normal expense, and 5=special expense >> global >> financial_categories (table name)
- may need to add a new one "Other Revenue (credits) - steve was voting no on this
- maybe use the one id=7=Other Revenue (not from sales)

3 - groups >> financial_groups (table name) (changeable)
- looking to stick with an existing one called other revenue

4 - sub groups >> financial_group_subs (table name) (changeable)
- looking to make a new one per corp called "Credits Earned"
- tie it other revenue on the grouping

5 - expense types >> chart_of_accounts (table name) (changeable)
- looking to make a new one per corp called "Sales Tax"
- back tie it to the credits earned and other revenue

- all five of the paths
I.S. - Other Revenue (not from sales) - Other Revenue - Credits Earned - Sales Tax

John and I were looking into a rounding error. We have two very similar calculations. If they match, all is well. If they don't match, it shows a flag. We are seeing the slightest rounding error and it is making the flag appear. We got in deep and looked around. We added some logging but weren't able to find the difference. We will need to dig in deeper. We ended up rolling back all of our temporary changes so as not to disrupt the apple cart.

Steve and I jumped on and talked about some funding options. Kicking a few ideas around.

Paying bills, emails, and other to do list things.

Back on the paypod integration project. Reading over documents, scope of work, and making notes on what this project may look like and what is required. Reviewed a number of training videos for the BNR (bank note recycler). Brandon took a couple of pages of notes and has then in a paypod folder on his computer.

Steve and Sean were on the morning meeting this morning when I joined. They were talking about creating SOP (standard operating procedures) for some of our clients. We have a bunch of companies that have made up their own, we may be able to piggy back and use some of those ideas and concepts to create a list of our own. They were talking about using those as part of the sales tools and package type approach. Interesting and lots of good ideas.

Dustin joined the meeting and he and Steve looked at some new code that Dustin is working on. He already has tons of settings for the cultivation stuff that he has been working on. He showed Steve some new settings and they went through a number of scenarios. Looking good and more options to allow the companies to control the flow and verbage of the different pieces. Once they can control those pieces, they tend to settle down a bit. Once they aren't fighting the flow and verbage, the rest of the process seems to fall into place. That seems to be a big key.

Steve had some questions about Git and the code repository. We got him all hooked up and going. In the background, I was downloading documentation for Paypod project that we are going to be working on (cash management - and bill/note and coin recyclers). Light review of each piece that I was downloading.

It was just Cory and I this morning. We didn't bother to text or call any of the other guys about the server meeting that was scheduled. We just barely met with them last Thursday. Instead, Cory and I went over a bunch of different projects. I gave reports on where I was at with a number of things and also reported for some of the other guys on where they are at with different projects.

We spent quite a bit of time talking about the new payroll and timecard changes that we added here recently. Cory wanted to know where we stopped development (virtually drawing a line in the sand) so that she could pitch the next steps and phases to others who want it to go further down the road. The next phase of that project will be to help with logic to help with over time and passing that information over to payroll and making it all seamless integration between timecards, flags, and payroll calculations.

The other subject that we discussed fairly heavily was our current email server and options going forward. We send over 30,000 emails a month. Some of that is internal and some of that is through the system from our clients (invoices, ecommerce, quotes, PO's, customer or outbound emails, etc.). We would love to get Wayne to help us spin up a new and fully customized email server. Back in the day, that (spinning up a new custom email server) was over my head. Wayne should be able to handle that pretty easily as he has done that for other clients at other places where he has worked.

Work session with Shannon. We were back on the adilas core concept documents and recording some new ideas and brainstorming on maintenance concepts. Good session. The docs are still kinda raw, but we started to get in there to figure out how to refine them. Ideally we'd like to boil things down into a presentable format that is easy to read and understand. Both documents are currently unpolished, but coming along. See attached.

Met with Eric about sales tax aggregates and taking the new aggregates into the balance sheet and income statement. We had some good discussions and passed notes and comments back and forth over GoToMeeting. Here are the three new expense types that we will be using the help automate the sales tax liability (amount owed), amount paid off, credits earned, and any other penalties, interest, and fees associated with sales tax.

I.S. - Other Revenue (not from sales) - Other Revenue - Credits Earned - Sales Tax

B.S. - Liabilities - Current Liabilities - Accounts Payable - Sales Tax Payments Made

I.S. - Normal Expense - Semi-Fixed Expense - Fees - Penalties and Interest From Sales Tax

We also went over some possible settings and known pages where we will be working. Eric has a full copy of all of the notes, ideas, and bullet points.

After the meeting, I went back and did some recording of notes, checking emails, and recording info for paypod project. Light clean-up session.

Met with Bryan and we pushed up some code to surface the sub invoice types in the daily/weekly sales reports. We then went over some other project and chatted about them and timelines for each.

Bryan was asking about some advanced job costing, using elements of time. Lots of good ideas. I would really like to build out the advanced job costing. Including mini P&L's per element of time. Currently, you can use reflexive flex grid tie-ins, but it would be super cool to see mini P&L (revenue, cost of goods, gross profit, expenses, and net profit) per element of time (aka the job).

Danny, Sean, and John were on the morning meeting. We checked in and chatted for a bit. Danny and Sean were talking about email templates and using some of the new things that Danny has setup and created. After that, we all went on mute and just started working on our own projects. I went back to finishing up the custom data extraction project for Emerald Fields (a client). The project involves going and flip flopping between different data types to get a complex sub inventory report to pull and be formatted correctly.

Great meeting with Chuck. He reported and showed me tons of new images that he has been setting for the presentation gallery (new sales tool) with the different background themes. It is looking great. I recommended a new theme for recreation and people out having fun doing things like hiking, biking, skiing, snowboarding, fishing, ATVing, etc.

We then looked at some web stats, visitor counts, click throughs, and session lengths. Chuck and the sales team have been adjusting the website to match the stats. It is good to have someone actively playing along and getting into the stats, flow, and then doing maintenance to make things better and better.

Towards the end of the meeting, Chuck and I had some great conversation about making decisions about who we are and what we want to do. That is a great question - who are we? What do we do? For the record, we are not a full cannabis software package. We get pulled heavily in that direction due to client requests, custom projects, and industry demand. I told Chuck that I would walk if we got forced into that tight of a stereotype or business vertical. We do offer a number of solutions for those in the cannabis industry, but that is not who we are. Right here, in my little town, we have ski resort and their ski school that uses adilas. I have a women's clothing store, a financial planning company, a number of independent software developers, a small home remedy and wellness shop, a repurposing and donation center, an annual race event, that uses adilas. I want to keep it that way.

I promised Chuck that I was going to start scheduling and building where we want to go, instead of just being pulled around. After the meeting, I went in and scheduled some time blocks for the next few weeks to work on elements of time and new settings that we want to get done there. See this element of time for some of our ideas.

Working on getting projects finished up and off my plate. Working on the custom data extract project for sub inventory for Emerald Fields. This sub inventory extract required some data flip flopping. We pulled a query, pulled a number of other supporting queries, built an array of structures (objects), looped over the data, manipulated and filtered the data, and then pushed the results back into a query object to show and display. Kinda like data gymnastics.

Emails and going back through post-it notes and transferring notes and scribbles into entries in the developer's notebook. Stacks and stacks of post-it notes. It feels so good to finish things up and throwaway each post-it note once it gets recorded.

Cory and I jumped on a meeting and were touching base on some projects. John joined in for a bit. He reported that we (he and I) are still working on a timecard rounding error and flag. It only shows up at certain times, so it's a tough one to debug. We'll jump on that in the next day or so.

Alan joined and gave Cory and I a report as well. He is currently checking differences in calculating prices, discounts, and sales tax out in ecommerce land. As part of that testing and process, he is building some unit test for those calculations. As a side note, data 0, a live server, does have the test box application installed and available if we need to test things in a live environment.

We talked about some mappings, passing test files through the local code repositories, and taking some of the unit tests to the next level. Interesting to see the progression of the testing that we are doing. Lots and lots of smaller tests and then slowly building up a virtual testing library. Eventually, we will need to get all of the developers involved and on the same page with regards to testing and unit tests. There is a progression, and we are taking things as we are able and as we can handle that or those changes. Good stuff and making progress.

The last major topic of discussion for the meeting was decimals and tracking and showing levels of decimal accuracy. We do have a setting that says show things to a certain number of decimals. However, if the users start splitting hairs (virtually), we have to go to the deeper levels, no matter what. Otherwise the visuals don't match and the database can't get back to the same numbers if those levels of decimal accuracy are missing. Anyways, some discussion on that topic and storing at the highest level and then helping to show what we can in the format that they like - eventually, everything has to match or line out in the end.

Working with John on the timecard totals and the flags that were showing on timecards with disconnects. We fixed a small bug and pushed up some files. We still have a small rounding error bug that we'll need to revisit it.

When I joined, Steve was talking with some of guys and giving out ideas and permission to bring on others who can help on the sales side of things. John reported on his current state of flux - in between homes (his apartment flooded so he's been bouncing) and school starting.

Eric popped on and we went over some flow for financials (P&L and balance sheet and how things flow and get mapped). We went to a page (special system calculator called the financial flow calculator). See attached for a screenshot. This is a help file for the financial flow calculator. As a fun side note, Steve wanted me to build this page and special calculator tool way back. He and I have used it tons of times to play with P&L (income statement) and BS (balance sheet) mappings and flow. Anyways, Eric and I did a session on it going over some of his sales tax aggregates, sales tax liabilities, making payments on the sales tax liabilities, and earned credits for prompt or early payment of sales tax. Good little session.

Eric and I got into some advanced mappings over time. We also talked about helping to protect certain values (special accounts for sales tax liabilities and credits earned). Inside of adilas, the users can change and manipulate almost everything. Sometimes we have to limit certain actions (updating or editing) on things that are required and dynamic per corporation. Sometime we have to limit things on a technical side and sometimes just on a sanity side. Everything else, we let the users make all kinds of changes and then record the history of who did what. It's part of our methodology.

After we got done, I jumped in on the timecard reports and changed out a flag that we were having problems with. We changed it from looking at database values vs real-time calculations to a more simple check for problems with start and end dates. The code was a little bit deeper, but it makes it more simple and got rid of the erroneous errors or flags that it was showing. Much better now.

Working more on the timecard flags and new date checks. Sean and Cory were talking about different clients and light follow-up. We were supposed to meet with a guy but he didn't show up unit half way through the meeting.

Once the ATM and pin debit card guy showed up, Cory and I met and talked with him. We explained what we had and listened to what he was pitching. Nicely, Cory ended up saying that we don't want to integrate with his product. He does have a debit card solution, but it would require tons and tons of crisscrossing API sockets. He wants to be the full kiosk and show live menus of current inventory, do full invoicing and payments, and full integration with Metrc (state tracking system). It was just too much. As a side note, it feels like we spend $5,000-$20,000 a month on keeping current with Metrc. Lots and lots of moving pieces. They are always changing things and forcing new requirements and new endpoints. It's a rat race sometimes.

Work session between Shannon and I. Brainstorming on adilas core concepts. See attached for where we were working (word doc). Also, we were basing some of our discussion and efforts off of an older adilas formula flyer that shows business functions, application players, and adilas core concepts.

By way of a break through today, we decided that the adilas core concepts have two main categories and underlying groupings. Here are the 12 core concepts:

1. Capture & Record The Story
2. Groups, Players, Individuals, & Characters
3. Relationships
4. Trouble, Problems, Needs, & Goals
5. Decisions & Choices
6. Consequences (Cause & Effects)
7. Accountability
8. Permissions & Settings
9. Systems
10. Vision & Future Developments
11. Tech, Tools, & Maintenance
12. Objects & Data Over Time

The two main categories are: 1 - Elements of digital storytelling (numbers 1-6) and 2 -  How we adapt the digital environment (cloud/web) to track and record that story that is playing out (numbers 7-12). This is new for us and we were excited to see that there was a new classification within the adilas core concepts.

Like anything else, it is still kinda in flux and we don't know exactly what we have and what to do, but we are trying to refine things and boil things down. This is part of creating new content and verbage for the adilas system. Fun! We had a good session. Once again, if you want to see our raw notes, see the attached word document.

Also, we were thinking that number 1 (capture & record the story) was actually kinda like the end result - what we are aiming for or trying to get to.

We also felt like number 12 (objects & data over time) was actually how we enable the flow of the story to take place. The wording may be slightly different, but those are the concepts. Lots of interweaving pieces and give and take that goes on. Part of a living, breathing, system. Welcome to adilas!

At the end of the session, I did merge in some new code for Dustin as well.

Packaging Test Samples

Bryan and I met up to go over a project that he is working on. For one of his projects, he is working on some credit card and EMV chip reader actions and functions. He had some questions on doing voids and the difference between voids and refunds. There is a slight difference. To void a credit card transaction, it can't be batched or settled (on the gateway side of things - it still needs to be non batched or pending settlement). A refund requires a new, negative invoice to reverse the process. Ideally in a refund, you have the original invoice number and transaction id or reference number to relate back to the gateway where the refund is happening. Bryan asked me to record some of it. See attached if you want to see some of what we were talking about. Not the world's most exciting stuff, but part of the project.

Some other insight from the meeting. This is more for me and notes on the value of good project management.

- Missing a scope of work. The original project started and then the client changes his mind and the developer started on the new project. That doesn't happen very often. No scope of work was every set in stone for the new project. It was just kind of - get this done. What does done mean. During our meeting, we discovered that there were tons of possible options, many deeper than other that weren't required but felt like they could be part of the project. Imagine a checklist of 30+ options that a payment gateway could possibly do. We only needed 4 or 5 of them but because they existed, the developer was starting to go down that path - and some of the functionality was deep and complex.

- Communication - the developer was expressing that no one was answering his questions. He was sending emails to the group, but no body was responding. It may be that no one knew who was the main contact and who was supposed to do what. I know that I do that, if I'm part of a big group email, I may read it, but if it's not my area or I'm not the main contact, I don't usually answer back unless I need to. Having a single point of contact is ideal. You can copy other people in to the thread, but point the email at a single contact if a response is needed. Once again, this is the ideal.

- Last of all, I honestly didn't even know that any of this was going on until we had the meeting. Pretty scary. We are trying to help and mange the projects that we have in front of us, but sometimes we don't really know what is going on. More lessons learned.

Cory, Steve, and I meeting to decide if we wanted to do a project with the paypod (cash management) stuff and folks. We (mostly me) have been reviewing documentation and making a list of requirements that are needed. We were hoping to do some quoting and making some decisions. We still aren't quite deep enough yet.

We started out the meeting talking about project management and some of our successes and failures. I had just come off another meeting where some things had been going off the tracks a bit. We spent some time going over some of those things and also noting the difference in some of the projects that are coming down the pipeline. Some of our projects are super simple and some of them are deep and super complex. Those two extremes (super simple and super complex) are completely different animals on what is needed and required to get them done and to do them well. I get frustrated sometimes because I feel like things just get dumped in my lap and then we have to figure them out. That technique loses its appeal really quickly. Not very fun.

Switching back to the paypod project. Cory was asking the question, should we or should we not take this project on? Yes, it is a paying project, but it's huge, it's deep, and we will need multiple of our developers to get it done. Because it deals with high level admin hardware integration, it may be over the heads of many of our normal web or cloud based developers. Hardware is a different matter all together. I'm super grateful that she was willing to ask those questions. Good discussion.

Steve wanted us to do some pros and cons to see what we think. Cory took a few notes but mostly we just talked about pros and cons. There are both, goods and bads (pros and cons). It's not just one sided. I like to be positive, but I've been feeling lots of stress and burnout lately. Just overloaded with tons of things trying to grab and/or fight for my time. I was venting and telling both Cory and Steve some of my thoughts and feelings. It may sound weak, but it's real. There are tons of hidden stresses and little things seem to keep adding up. It can be timelines, promises, funding, number of projects, complexity of those projects, and million other things. Sometimes we need to vent and express where we are at and how we are feeling. It may make you feel weak or unable, but it is real and part of life.

One of the pros that Steve was talking about was getting into AI (artificial intelligence) and using some form of robots both now and into the future. Interesting angle. The paypod using is basically a cash management robot of sorts. As we keep going, we may see more and more hybrid type solutions - browser, web/cloud, software, hardware, combos.

We talked about limiting our scope and walking through things one step at a time vs trying to quote out the whole project, which is a pretty big lift, even just to quote it out or give a full estimate. We have to get a little bit deeper first. Another thing that we talked about was letting them (the paypod folks - as a virtual client) help to lead us what they want next vs just our thoughts and ideas. If we were funding this project on our own right now, it would just sit. It's too big of a lift right this minute. However, if they want to fund it, we can and are willing to keep taking baby steps to get it done and chip away at it. We already have 4 phases that we know of right now with this project.

Steve wants the first round, even before we quote anything, to be a quick knock, knock with the machine or simulator. We can then go from there.

These are some other notes from our meeting:

- What about maintenance? Who does what and who will pay for what? We need to define that.

- Go step-by-step and literally take baby steps

- Help to prep the project and dashboards with fake or dummy data. Give our guys and gals a visual of what we are looking for vs just trying to explain it through words.

- Lean on their developer guys - we already have a point of contact that will and should be willing to help us on their side. That could be huge. We don't want to push too hard, but we do want to get their guidance and lean on them where we can. They are the masters of their stuff and they are the ones who want this integration.

- Cory and I (and Steve) will keep working on the project management stuff to watch, control, and manage this project. It will take all three of us on this one. Steve has some vison of what he wants, I've done a bunch of research and initial checking things out, and Cory knows what the the other developers are up to (with their project loads).

- We want to make this a value add on vs a deep dark spot (good job/bad job).

- Making good decisions and it's ok to say no.

- Helping and letting Cory bring in the angles that she is playing at - asking hard questions and being honest about yes, no, possible, don't even think about it, or whatever those angles might be. We are super grateful for her help in that piece of the puzzle.

The last random side note is that Steve is a salesperson or good sales man - He was literally pitching Cory and I and getting us to buy in to his vision and his ideas. I can't tell you how many times he has done that. I will virtually be on the side of a cliff (some crazy gnarly decision) and Steve is able to talk me off the virtual cliff and gives me just enough to keep going or take some other angle on the project or task. That is both good and bad. I'm grateful for his help, but sometimes after the fact, I think to myself, how did I let him talk me into this (again)? Just being silly (kinda). Steve we love you!

Paying bills

GoToMeeting session to go over a resume for a young lady - looking to join the adilas team. I met with her and we chatted and went over her resume. I'm thinking that she could help out Marisa on the marketing side of things. She doesn't know adilas yet, but she is a quick learner, good with software packages, likes to organize events, seems to work well with a team, and has some experience helping in tech support for a technical college in northern Utah for a couple of years. Hopefully it will be a good fit.

I sent Marisa a copy of her resume and left a voicemail message on Marisa's phone.

Sent an email to Marisa about the Audrey, the new girl who may be helping with some marketing efforts. Paying bills, scanning receipts, and purchasing some gift cards for the guys and gals (using reward points).

Emails, recording notes, and small changes to the news and updates section. Reintroduced the login count and only showing news and updates the first time each day vs every time you login.

Recording notes and transferring little post-it note messages into actual elements of time in the developer's notebook. Interesting going back over some of the events and actions of the past week or so. Lots of moving pieces and lots of learning. One of the ways that I learn is rehashing things and recording thoughts, lessons learned, and observations. All part of the process.

Back for another session of recording notes from smaller post-it notes.

Touching base with Steve McNew. He is working on a number of high level white papers for our group. Here are some of the subjects that we spoke about this morning.

- Training and roles – Within your staff - Make a list of who does what and how well they do things - Maybe even a matrix or sorts.

- Degrees or levels – Help, solve, knowledge - Who can help on a project, who is going to solve the issue, who has some prior knowledge or experience with a project or topic?

- One deep vs two or more deep (better options) – Meaning who is working on the projects? One deep is a solo worker (one man team). Two deep (or more) become a small team or a partnership of sorts.

- Installs – Sales and security - We need sales and talk about sales - That is one of the focuses. Having said that, we also need to include some security items in the sales pitch. Let our clients know that we take security seriously and do it well. That is a big part of sales.

- Security – Physical and systems - Steve McNew wants to write up a couple of white papers dealing with security.

- Training philosophy - Not just the training, but also the philosophy of why and how we do the training. Steve McNew was thinking that this may help us on our journey.

Steve, Danny, and Sean were talking about sales, directions, and breakthroughs. John checked in and had some files to merge and push up to servers. Just some template changes. Dustin and Steve were talking about production phases and next steps. Eric checked in and had some questions on expenses and special math for the balance sheet for his aggregate sales tax stuff. I'm glad that he is taking that project to the next steps. In the process, he is getting deeper and deeper into some of the financial logic and background processes. That is exciting.

Tons of emails and other small to do list things.

Cory joined and had a number of questions on payroll. We talked and went over a few of her questions and tech support requests. An error was reported from a guy who was trying to run semi-monthly and it was missing some of the hourly calcs. It seems to be a special case where the calculate payroll page doesn't open the timecard range enough to take into account the full date range (things called memo hours or hours in other weeks that need to be calculated but not included for overtime, because they were on a different week). Randomly enough, this same user reported a similar problem almost a year ago and we couldn't find it. Anyways, almost a year later and it happened again. There must be some special case where it only happens under certain circumstances. All of his other ones have gone through just fine. We'll have to look deeper. We have some info on the corporation, the server, the users (payee id numbers), the date ranges, and other settings that we didn't have last time. That may help us find it.

Cory was also showing both John and I an issue with the auto midnight rollover for employees on graveyard shifts that start on one day, rollover the magic midnight hour, and clock out sometime the next day. We've been able to do that for years. We recently added in some new payroll timecard flags and that seems to be the place that the process is struggling with. We will have to do some testing to figure it out. Looks like a small bug or oversight. The new code is forcing the flag to needs manual attention, even if nothing is wrong. Anyways, we'll check it out and see what it is missing.

After that, Dustin and Cory were going over settings, and changes in Metrc API sockets and endpoints. Metrc is literally a moving target (Metrc is a state compliance system).

While they were talking and going over things, I was starting to look into the midnight auto rollover issue for the timeclocks. Once Cory and Dustin were finished, Cory asked if she could help. We talked about getting a dedicated developer to help with payroll, withholdings, new yearly forms, and other updates and expansions in the payroll area. John expressed some interest to be that developer, along with some of his other responsibilities. We spent some time talking with John on what would be needed, expected, and some general advice and guidelines. We are going to give it a go and I'll work with him to get him fully oriented in that area.

Great little work session between Shannon and I on adilas core concepts. We spent some time looking into concepts of accountability, histories, and how those things interact with permissions, settings, and cause and effect type consequences. We also got into some discussions on flow state, game changers, and virtual data addictions (need and almost a lust for data and what that provides). We were just brainstorming, but we had a great session and made some personal breakthroughs and connections. Great little meeting. See attached for our current thoughts (rough and raw) on the matter.

Emails and merging and pushing up some new code changes for Dustin. He has been working on a number of small fixes lately.

Emails and text messages. Pushing up a few more changes for Dustin.

Looking into a small issue with the auto midnight rollover for timecards and the total time not calculating correctly. Spent the time looking over the code and making notes when certain variables would change or flip.

Sean joined the meeting and reported on what he is working on. He and Cory are working behind the scenes to clean-up a company's records to help them get started with a clean slate. Sort of a manual clean-up process of getting rid of old packages. Danny checked in and had a small question on a query for some labels. After that, Eric joined and had some questions on some new expense types, background logic, and new changes dealing with his sales tax aggregates and mapping them into expense/receipts for paying down the sales tax liabilities. Lastly, Dustin joined the meeting and needed some new code to be checked and merged in. He has been doing a series of updates to the Metrc and cultivation and packaging stuff. Pushed up new files to all servers. Other than those things, I was doing emails and going through things if no one else needed my help for anything.

Chuck and I started out talking about payables and cash flow stuff. After that we switched over the to the sales and presentation gallery project. Chuck showed me some of the progress that he is working on. One new change is that he has implemented some +'s and -'s (plus signs and minus signs) to help with mini drop-downs for sub or extra verbage. It is looking good and he is making progress. He also reported that he is almost all the way done with the background images and having the different themes stick and play through the entire presentation gallery.

We talked about some new verbage and content for the adilas core concepts. Marisa has been feeding Chuck some new verbage and content. I pointed him to the latest Word document that Shannon and I were working on for new verbage and content for the adilas core concepts. He pulled the document up and we went over some of it briefly. I touched base with him on some of the brainstorming that Shannon and I were doing just yesterday.

Chuck was showing me some training that he is working on and some email campaigns and automation processes that he is researching and playing with. Chuck was talking about using lead magnets (slowly leading the, our clients, to the goal) and using things that we can help them with vs just plain buy our product type marketing. Interesting direction. Also, as you look at marketing, if we can show a need, fill that need, and offer to help ease some kind of trouble or pain, that is very effective. How can we help you? Let us show you how we can!

Along with the email campaigns and automation processes, we talked about controlling splitting paths, following user actions and/or non-actions, and building the automation processes and campaigns based on where the client is in the process.

We then changed directions and talked about bookings and online reservations. We have a client that will need some of these pieces here in the next few months. We talked about some of the new time settings and going over more adilas core concepts and virtual game changers. Both of these pieces are dealing with where we are heading in our world building and digital storytelling processes. I find it interesting that time and elements of time is going to be at the heart of some of these new changes and advancements.

Cory, Sean, John, and I were on the meeting. Cory and Sean were talking about speeding up certain harder processes with automation or bulk tools. Once again, pain is the leader in showing what needs to be done differently. Sometimes big manual processes or clean-up actions are or can be very painful. They also highlight what needs to happen, what processes need to be automated, and provide motivation to get some new development to help ease those pains and speed things up.

John briefly reported on what he is working on. He's been kinda distracted trying to get school, home, and other things ironed out. Lots of moving pieces.

We texted Alan, but he was unable to meet up with us. So, Cory and jumped into other projects and what not. We spent a good part of the meeting going over different projects and talking about direction. One project that we talked about was an existing client is going to be buying a shuttle service that takes mountain bikers up to the top of the mountain, takes their bikes up, and then provides a parking place for them at the bottom of the mountain. The client already uses adilas for a different business. They want us to automate the process for the shuttle reservations and help them get their whole business online and allow people to book and reserve things online through an ecommerce type scenario.

Cory and I spent some time talking about options and I even showed her some similar type things that we had done for other projects and clients. She will be setting up a meeting for next week to talk and work directly with the client.

At the end, I spent some time recording notes and transferring notes from post-it notes to digital entries. One of the biggest take a ways is that the pain of doing things manually and how that pushes us to the next level of thinking, scheming, or wanting to develop or pay for something that makes it easier.

Fixing the timeclock and timecard auto midnight rollover issue for employees who are on the graveyard shift. Pushed up new code and ran a small 20 day look-back clean-up report to fix timecard flags and total time per timecard. Let Cory know so she could let the client know and do some testing.

Installing the documentation and simulator app for the Paypod integration. Going through things, listing out steps that I had to do, and little helps while doing the install and going through their documentation. Eventually downloaded Postman (API socket tool) and went through some tutorials and small videos.

Finished up some small tutorial videos on Postman. Light playing around. Spent some time writing an email to introduce Marisa to Audrey (new girl) so that they could work together on some marketing stuff.

Emails, recording notes, and doing some daily clean-up type tasks.

Cory popped on the morning meeting and had a few requests - things for us to look at. We merged some code for Danny and got it pushed up. Dustin wanted us to check some new code and push it up to a server as well. Steve and Dustin jumped on and talked about some of their processes and how they are somewhat sanitizing things. They are changing some of the names so that they are more generic vs strictly tied to certain industries.

Steve and I chatted about some loan documents and Steve gave me a couple of tasks to do to help with the process.

John had some code to check in as well. We worked together to make some changes to payroll verbage and added some file path changes. There was a new file called payroll summary report. We ended up changing it to pre-payroll summary report and flipped links, verbage, and what not to match. It really is meant for pre-payroll vs actual payroll. Good change.

Cory, Steve, and I on a meeting to discuss projects. We went over some existing projects at first and then turned our focus more towards the Paypod and cash handling project. I reported on what I had done, what I was finding, and progress. We have spent, as a group, well over 20+ hours just looking at this project to see what it will take. It's pretty big. Steve really wants to keep pushing forward. He also feels that we will be communicating with other machine/robots in the future. He sees this as a great learning exercise.

We talked about what we thought it would take and how to approach the company. If it were up to us by ourselves, we wouldn't do this lift (too big) but if they want to pay for it, we are willing to get in there and look around and push it through. This project could be $20K-$50K or more. Pretty big lift. Not only do we have the normal adilas functions, we also have to make and create an entire admin backend to interact with the Paypod unit. These are things like loading, unloading, floating up and down (adding and taking away bills/notes and coin), audits, reporting, status levels, empty, error handling, etc.

Great little session with Shannon. We jumped right in and started reviewing some of what we wrote and added to the adilas core concepts on Tuesday (8/17/21). We reformatted a lot of the verbage and text and really focused on the analogy of the video recorder and how much of a game changer it was to the whole world. We were drawing a parallel to Adilas and the way that the Adilas recorder (for business) works and how you can gain some of the same benefits by harnessing those pieces. We are still working on it, and it's still a little rough, but it is coming.

Think of the angles that we take, the stories and relationships that we capture. We can roll time backwards (that is huge) and forward. We can play at the present, we can allow updates in the past and then let those cause and effect consequences to roll forward, etc. The whole Adilas system is a giant business recorder and translates raw numbers into virtual and digital storytelling. It is pretty cool! You can only do this, if you have a full system that goes end to end. If not, you only get a snapshot or just a portion of the whole. The deeper the system, the more full coverage you get (no dead ends but a full system).

See attached for where we are working. It's still kinda rough, but making progress.

Cory and I touching base on the Paypod project. She is going to be emailing their team to setup a meeting. Next, we jumped into some tech support requests that Cory had. One of them was dealing with calculated total times for a client. They go in every day and record the hours into a spreadsheet. I did some updates just the other day and recalculated the last 20 days of timecards on every server. Apparently, the numbers changed ever so slightly and Cory and I were looking to see what happened. We determined that the new calculations are one hundred percent based on the stored database values and should be good to go. We also looked at the auto calculated value and tried to see if we could find any variances. Deep look. If the error comes back up, we'll have to force format things along the way so that we are truly apples to apples. We even got on their server, looked up data, and did manual recalcs to check the math and stored values. Cory took some screenshots to show the client.

Going over a document with Bryan dealing with API socket sign-offs for a 3rd party solution and payment gateway. Bryan is required to go through a sign-off process and data integrity type test for this merchant. We switched to a couple of other projects and touched base on those projects as well. Bryan has a couple of different hardware integrations on his plate right now.

We reviewed processes for voids and refunds. We will end up making a refund process that allows for a user/employee to click refund as a link. That will take them to a page where they can select which products from a single invoice were returned. It would then cross tie the original invoice to the new negative or refund invoice. Lots of drawing and screen sharing to draw what we are looking for.

Lastly, we switched over to his custom project for a guy who is using adilas to track problems and solutions using element of time and time subs. We got into the developer tools in Google Chrome browser and cleaning things up by looking for errors and problems in the console for the developer tools. Lots of dependencies and library assets that need to be pulled in to make this project run correctly. Lots of moving pieces. Bryan is making great progress.

Reading up on adilas core concepts. "He or she who masters the concepts, stands to gain by owning more than just code." - Brandon Moore

Recording notes from the past couple of days. It is fun to go back and relive and reread what goes on day by day. It just keeps going and unfolding. It is also fun to watch for trends, patterns, and breakthroughs. That makes it fun!

8/20/21: This would help with setting the mmj and mj dispensary homepages out of the gate with a new corp. Would also help with creating an environment that could potentially be setup by a new client on their own- sign up and start it up diy 

General emails and one back to Wayne answering some questions about a custom data extract for a client. Wayne had some good questions and I tried to answer as best as I could. Somewhat guessing. After that, back on going through handwritten notes and transferring them to digital notes in the developer's notebook.

John asked me for some file over email. I knew that we had them, but I hadn't been able to get back to them and review them. The files in question were tons of great R&D files on fracture done by Jonathan Wells. I started to review the files and got completely sucked in and inspired by the level of detail, the work and research that was done, and the possibilities. Great stuff. Anybody who is researching the fracture project, needs to review those Adobe XD files. Wonder full. The originals were done between 2019 and 2020. There are numerous screenshots that have been posted, but the real value is in the raw files, including the clickable desktop previews (mini click through slides and links on the actual documents).

Towards the end of this session, Heather (my wife) came down to talk with me. I showed her some of the things that I was playing with and learning about. Great enhancements and much easier to consume and digest. I loved working with Jonathan Wells, sad that it had to end (time and budgets), but we got a lot of great stuff (R&D, research, mock-ups, ideas, and direction) from the efforts.

See attached for a small list of XD files that I was looking at.

More research and clicking and navigating around in the Adobe XD documents and files. Really enjoying things.

When I got on, Steve had some questions about time templates and making some of them hidden and not allowing users to interact with them. I thought that was interesting, as when we were developing time templates, that there were needs back in 2010 and first part of 2011 where we wanted to build system monitors and system time templates and not let the users interact with them and/or change anything on them. Originally, that was one of the reasons for thinking up some of the templates in the first place. We talked about possible solutions and using the time template status to help control - active, inactive, and hidden templates. The hidden ones would or could end up being the system controlled templates. They would exist, but we could limit them from being edited, updated, and even viewed from time to time. Lots of options.

The other day,  Shannon and I were thinking about permissions and settings and it felt like there was a third piece to that mix. I couldn't put my finger on it. I'm wondering if it has something to do with a mix between the two and dealing with templates, of all kinds, not just time templates. A template is somewhat of possible mix between permissions and settings. Technically, you could have user-defined templates, system templates, time templates, invoice templates, user templates, location templates, corporation templates, etc. The list could go on and on. The templates allows for an interesting mix and also playing more in bulk vs single or standalone permissions and settings. Anyways, just a thought.

Danny, Dustin, and John were on the meeting as well. Each one checked in on what they were doing. Dustin will be out of pocket during the month of September, he was just letting us know (family and travel plans). Also, just wanted to record this - "family first" - super common phrase that comes out of Steve's mouth. Good stuff. In the end, that's what really matters.

Towards the end of the meeting, I was explaining to those on the meeting what Shannon and I are working on and how we are comparing the game changer of the video recorder to what Adilas is doing on the same business recording type level. I gave them some examples and we chatted about some ideas. Tons of potential.

We talked about how the video recorder went through a whole process and series of adaptations to go from big, huge, super expensive, exclusive, and had to have special equipment, budgets, and connections to being handheld, on a phone, in almost every hand (literally) and even cool inventions like the GoPro and how small, mobile, shockproof, waterproof, etc. It has become accepted and readily available. It really is and was a major game changer. Adilas is following a similar path in what we are trying to do and record and make accepted and available our business recordings. It (adilas) is the business recording device, without having to use 6-10 different software packages and then trying to marry things together in a huge mash-up type model.

This, adilas platform and dynamic app, is a fully integrated and fully functioning system - system being the keyword. End to end, the whole digital story. I can't tell you how many times we have said, wouldn't it be cool if we could play the virtual story (movie) backwards or forward and could stop, pause, or replay certain happenings. We don't have the data quite that flowy (aggregated and rolled up summaries and counts) yet but it is getting better and better. Think of the kind of data and business intel (BI - business intelligence) we will be able to get and show as we keep going forward. Once again, end to end, the full digital story! Backwards and forwards! Super cool!

Dustin - How to show an elephant? You show a picture of it and then break it down. We were looking over some research and Adobe XD documents from Jonathan Wells and talking about getting those prototypes, visuals, and mock-up's out to the public. Good stuff. Lots of work there still to do. Show people and the world what is possible. Adilas is a huge, working, fully functional prototype. We would love for people to take the time to really see what we are doing and working on. The trick is how do you do that? Make people slow down and/or take notice of what is going on. Lots to offer!

Cory and I going over projects. Cory reported that the quick search is auto closing in certain browsers. We'll have to check that out. You can still use it, but something went wrong with the JavaScript. We also went over some questions on payroll and being able to calculate overtime on the fly and being able to add additional tools and functions to help speed things up for our clients and users.

We got into talking about cash flow statements and budgeting. That is a known need but we are having some clients asking for it, so it will most likely keep gaining heat and attention. Hopefully, we can get a client to help and pitch in on some of the development costs. The level of complexity that we need and have is a big financial burden for any one to carry. We need help, often. One alone could not do what we are doing.

Cory and I were talking about adilas as an idea farm, and being able to harvest those ideas. That is big part of the puzzle. We can't figure everything out by ourselves and we need the constant stream of ideas and harvesting those ideas, in order to make it happen. Kinda fun!

The last part of the meeting was dealing with prep steps, direction, and prepping the field. We have a number of projects that you can't get the desired outcome without prepping things and filling in the gaps. It becomes too large or too heavy of a lift. Keep taking small little steps in a good direction.

John and I were on a meeting. I ended up doing a little bit more research and looking at the file from Jonathan Wells and his Adobe XD mock-ups and prototypes. I FTPed  the files up to the content server. John asked me to explain the content server and how that whole thing works. We did a lot of drawing and bouncing to different pages to explain the processes. Some of the highlights were talking about why and how we allow for 3 different sources for media/content (files). We allow for local paths (where are things stored on the local computer or drive), remote references (where are files stored on outside or other servers such as google drive, drop box, skydrive, etc.), and finally, physical upload (files that you push up to our servers for storage and security). Great questions.

John really wants to help out with some visual flow charts and graphical user interfaces, including graphical homepages and layouts. That would really help - for people to get their heads around what is out there, possible, built-in, and available. Each section needs a small visual and/or virtual map of the area. As we get into fracture, I really want to include some maps of the sections so that people could follow along, know what is there, and also be able to customize their own workspace and data flow (digital assembly line with phases, sub locations, date/time stamps, checkpoints, etc.). Make the whole thing a visual delight to work with and organize your space or work environment.

Email to Wayne about the custom data extract project that we are working on. Answering some of his questions and giving him some ideas. I also did some file comparing to see what I had done and what changes he was making. We are going in a good direction. At the end of the session, I was reviewing and looking over some more Paypod documents and API sockets. We have a Paypod meeting later today and just trying to be ready for that.

Got on a GoToMeeting session with Drew, James, Shari O., Cory, and myself. Drew and James are looking at using Adilas to track and handle all of the business side of a shuttle business for the Monarch Crest Trail. Both are long time friends and we all worked together up at Monarch Ski and Snowboard Area out of Salida, CO.

We went over tons of options. I was driving and Drew was mostly asking questions. We did a small dog and pony show, some show and tell, and took some notes. Lots of drawing on the screen and explaining how things need to go and flow for it all to work out. We talked about the ecommerce side (customer portal) or section as well as internal adilas (backend secure options) flow of the data. We talked about customers, profiles, invoices, invoice payments, scheduling, time templates, mapping, and tying all of those pieces together.

I think that this will be a fun project and will get elements of time out in ecommerce land. Looking forward to pushing on this project. As a side note, it also includes email and notification options, digital waivers, cancelations, user day tally marks (quota of people that they can take on the shuttles), and eventual check in functionality. It should be pretty fun.

On a Paypod integration meeting with Murray and Aaron from Paypod and Cory, Steve, Bryan, and I from the adilas team. We were talking about the art of selling the possible - potential. Both companies love to play in the realms of possible. We are trying to make a mutual beneficial product and investment. We are both (companies) striving for an MVP type solution. The minimal would be the POS (point of sale) transactions and the admin console.

Steve was having fun talking about the future of AI (artificial intelligence) and where things are going. With Adilas being an end-to-end operations and accounting solution, we could really roll out a good product output.

Steve and Murray were talking about all kinds of use cases and other scenarios. One of the major goals is to use the Paypod unit to eliminate the cash drawer and provide a safer, more secure, self-checkout type option. There are tons of other options, that's just one them that I recorded.

Towards the end, you could tell that both Steve and Murray were pitching their products towards each other and trying to come up with possible ways of doing joint sales and strategies. As a note, the Paypod company already sales tons of other cash and coin based solutions. These are more of an integrated solution with a backend POS system.

Looking at ways of funding development, we could do a possible joint customer solution, and get them to help fund it. They, Paypod, could pitch in. We could pitch in (self-funded) , or we could figure out some sort of sales type agreement based on leads and closures for the Paypod units. Lot of options and talking.

We wrapped up with estimating time for implementation and development on the different sections that are required. There are still some big unknowns, but we will try to transition the project from Brandon over to Bryan and then go from there. Brandon and Cory will then make up some quotes, timelines, and requirement documents. That is our next steps.

After the meeting, Steve, Cory, Bryan, and I stayed on and went over some plans and got some more vision from Steve.

Talking with Bryan about the Dejavoo payment interface and possible options there. Bryan has been doing lots of invoice payment solutions lately. After that, we switched over to talking about some other projects. I finished up by doing some emails and other follow-ups from the day. Some days we roll from project to project, meeting to meeting, without even missing a beat or pausing to switch gears, we just shift on the fly. Busy times!

Steve and Sean were talking about sales and deployment stuff. After that, Steve and I were working on the SBA loan stuff. John joined and asked about a small proposal that he sent via email. I had to download Adobe InDesign in order to see the file. Emails and other general to do list stuff.

Quite a few of us on the server meeting today. We had Wayne, John, Steve, Cory, Shari O., and myself. We talked about the transition between Newtek and Hostek and how that is going. We are almost fully transferred over to the Hostek side, as far as servers. We still have a few lingering accounts and servers on the Newtek side. Shari O. has negotiated some hard stop dates on the Newtek side for certain servers and contracts. Light follow-up on dates and being ready for those hard stop dates.

Wayne and I talked about the Emerald Fields custom data extract project. Wayne is almost done with that project. I prepped things and got the queries all tweaked out and the main logic done, then Wayne is going in turning those queries and custom logic into new database tables on a totally different database. That involved some timing, scheduling, and custom looping over some data logic functions. This particular project is not just data, it is full on ETL (extract, transform, and load) type changes to the data. Some of them require multiple queries and logic to mesh and blend the pieces. Making great progress, the final touches should be applied in the next couple of days.

John and I asked Wayne about Adobe XD files and the content server not allowing them to be downloaded and/or rendered. I sent an email to Wayne with the URL link and the error message that we were getting. He will look in to it.

After that, we talked about the internal email speed, grey listing, and possibilities of doing our own custom email server and spinning up a server, just for our adilas.biz emails. Currently, we are using Newtek servers and have to use API sockets to send emails from all of the other servers. The last topic of the day was getting Wayne and John hooked up to do more cross training and sharing of knowledge. At the end, Wayne was having fun sharing info about his solar panels and the savings that he is getting, there in Portugal at his house. Kinda fun.

Meeting with Eric to go over some questions on the system maintained sales tax project. We went over his progress on new expense types and where we are going from here. We spent some time talking about limiting and/or hiding certain pieces that are required for the system to do it's job. We allow so much editing that sometimes we think that we have to allow edits on all of the parts and pieces. In reality, there are certain high-level things that we need to guard and maintain behind the scenes.

Eric brought up some questions dealing with certain drill-downs (links from one page to another page with more details) and whether or not we needed those same options for some of the new code. We followed a few of the pieces around (method calls, pages, and drill-downs) and determined that what we are doing is different and doesn't need to play along those lines that we setup for other processes. As a side note, we often do what is called "following a handrail" in our code where we find something similar and then do searches for everywhere that certain pieces are used and expanded. That gives us a good idea of what else or what may be needed for the new pieces without going line by line by line. That can be really tough.

At the end of the meeting, we were talking about aggregates and other ETL (extract, transform, and load) options for data and databases. That seems to be a growing topic as we keep pushing forward. The daily transactional data is great, but at some point, you need to roll things up (and down) to get faster and faster responses and data (counts, averages, summaries, maxes, mins, etc.). The scary part is how much needs to roll up so that things become fast efficient and nimble.

Eric and I also talked briefly about accounts receivable and accounts payable and the cash flow games that go on - chasing monies and paying different bills and expenses. A constant battle.

Trying to catch-up with notes from past meetings. Finished up all of the meetings from yesterday. Lots of notes and recording of ideas and what we are doing and learning. This is a pretty constant process. Live and learn, live and learn.

Back working on time template settings for element of time. Most of the day today was spent printing out live pages (html versions within adilas) and writing on them and doing some highlighting and planning for the new settings. Light review of other settings that are wanted. Also did some global name changes to help standardize some things. See attached to figure out where we are at with the new settings. More still to come. Pretty big changes.

Both Sean and John popped into the meeting. Quick saying hi and checking in. Nothing major. We all went on mute and worked on our own projects. I did some emails and what not. I also spent some time looking into some issues with the adilas quick search. I was trying to make some changes locally, but I wasn't able to affect the quick search like I wanted to. That project will take some more work and effort.

Meeting with Chuck. He had a busy week and wasn't able to get much done. He had some back problems and then just getting kids ready for school and what not. We talked about getting back on the presentation gallery and then, in the next couple of weeks, looking into more modern calendars and mobile ready calendar output and display options. That's the plan for now.

Cory and I touched base on a couple of projects. Alan and John then joined and gave us some reports. Alan reported on his sub inventory model and his unit testing. It was going good but it is currently breaking. He will check this out and push the ball forward. His sub inventory model is being worked on outside in the ecommerce area. Once we get it working good and smooth out there, we will bring it inside and replace some older code with the newer object model based code.

Alan then did some reporting on some Adobe ColdFusion training that he participated in. He had lots of notes. These are a few of the notes that I took from his notes (secondhand notes).

- On the Application.cfc's - using the request scope - great place to put actions that need to be done or checked on every page.

- Lots of info on the cfc's and how the onRequest methods and code works. Also notes on onApplicationStart, onApplicationEnd, onSessionStart, onSessionEnd, onRequestStart, etc. Places to put code that gets called and used over and over again.

- ORM - Object relational mapping

- Lots of new ways to auto create getters and setters.

- Being able to handle mapping in both directions - one-to-many and many-to-one - this was a way of using a cfc (component) as a super simple database type structure without really having the actual database. We may need to look into this one a little bit deeper (need some clarification and more info).

-  Error handling and using try/catch better - Currently, we mostly use a catch "any" to do our error handling. They were recommending that we use special try/catches with type database, type syntax, and then the general "any" catch.

- Security stuff and watching for spoofs and things coming from other or outside sites. There were ways of passing tokens, generated on our site, and then looking for those tokens on the action pages. There were also ways to flip flop and rotate session values. Basically, let them login, set session scope values, and then auto switch certain values just to make sure it was a valid request from our site. Lots of little security ideas and hack prevention stuff.

- They are recommending that we use a new pdf tag called cfhtmltopdf (cf html to pdf) vs the older tag cfpdf - faster rendering and more options to offload the work to another server.

- Setting properties and then getting those properties to create auto getters and setters.

We encouraged Alan to keep checking for new code, keep learning, and keep pioneering some of these new concepts and new code options. Good stuff.

After that, Cory and Alan were talking about ecommerce and subs and parent line items, rules for picking and fulfilling packages assignments, tiered pricing, etc. They got into some order of operations. Cory and Alan were also talking about other ecommerce needs and options.

John reported in. He has been busy moving and getting settled in. He has made a small proposal for the year end payroll and tax forms (W-2's and 1099's) that he would like to get approval on. We haven't had too many developers create their own proposal that want to get approval. Interesting. I think he is asking for more documentation for his projects vs what we normal give him. I think he is lightly asking for more guidance vs flying by the seat of his pants. Lastly, Cory went over some other projects with John that we need his help on. They are the discount engine and the adilas quick search stuff. Good meeting.

Emails, on the phone with Newtek about the adilas merchant processing account. Trying to update some information and contacts.

Met up with Bryan via a GoToMeeting. We ended up pushing up some code for a custom project that he is working on for data 10 and a client. After that, I drove over to his house and we installed the Paypod files on his machine. It was almost a Gig worth of files, PowerPoint slides, documentation, and sample apps. I helped him get started and transferred what I knew over to him to let him run with the project. We spent the rest of the time going over things and lightly advancing the ball on the Paypod project. Bryan also showed me how his work on the Dejavoo project (EMV chip reader hardware for a client) was going. Pretty cool tech! The device has its own wi-fi built in and that allows easy access to cloud based API sockets and connections.

Steve had some questions about escaping characters and building multi-line variables. We got into some other adilas code that does similar things using cfsavecontent and cfoutput tags and values. We also got into some tricky escaping and URL encoding to mix technologies and what not. Kinda some backend hacks that we have to do to make things work or virtual work arounds to mix the pieces.

John added some new links to some news and updates for his payroll holiday chooser and pre-payroll summary reports. Pushed up new files.

Cory and Steve were talking about some new changes that are coming for production and manufacturing. Steve is working through a tick list that he and Kelly and Cory have been putting together. Sounds like some good stuff. Cory and Sean were also touching base on some of their joint efforts and working with existing clients. Sounded like some clean-up of an older system and making sure that certain tasks were done for the client.

Cory and I spent the rest of the block working on the High Valley Bike Shuttle project (booking seats and online reservations for a shuttle company). We read back through our original document with notes and made a few more and expanded on a few things. See attached. We also went into more details and came up with some questions, some ideas and options. It isn't fully mapped out yet, but we definitely have more of a game plan. I have been tasked to help push this project through, at least to the level where I could easily and safely hand it off.

This will end up being one of our first customer facing booking and scheduling pieces. We've had elements of time, internally or inside of adilas, since 2011. This will be customer facing and full payment from ecommerce through the customer/client portal. Good stuff.

Work session with Shannon on adilas core concepts and playing more with the idea of comparing Adilas to a video recorder. We are calling it the video recorder analogy. See attached.

Ideas die if unspoken or kept in a dark room, they (ideas) need light (exposing them and talking about them). I was mentioning to Shannon that I've been telling the guys some brief analogies to see how they take them and how they handle things. I have learned a ton by sharing and watching them (reading between the lines) on their take or feedback. Interesting stuff.

Good work session today, re-reading, refining, and trying to get the point(s) across. Still very much in the raw and rough stage, but coming!

Emails and reviewing notes and making plans. Light to do list stuff.

Phone call with Steve. We started out talking about some of our current projects and where things are at. Lots of moving pieces both in business and in life in general. Here are a few of the topics that we talked about. I filled up a couple of post-it notes while we were on the phone.

- We briefly talked about sales and reoccurring invoices (reoccurring revenue steam). Looking at trends and where things are at with the reoccurring invoices. That is our bread and butter. We also do custom code, deployment, training, and other things, but the reoccurring invoices are our primary source of income.

- We talked about the MVP (minimal viable product). To some people and some industries, we are there. To others, we are still not there, even through it's been years and years. As we were talking, we also mentioned, that adilas is so deep and complete, maybe we are just now even getting to an MVP type level. Real digital storytelling and world building requires deep waters.

- Timelines - Sometimes it takes a long time for certain things to happen. That is just true, no mater what. You almost have to adjust to the longer play (for certain things).

- Get out there and rattle the bushes a bit. If we need more custom code or client funded work, get out there and ask people if they need anything done. We could get them a quote and then get a developer on it. All of our guys are busy, but not all of them are on funded projects. That means that we are picking up the bulk of it (the virtual tab), for the new development.

- Pitch things as they are. If needed, we could customize and we can bill for that.

- We need to do some immediate fixes. We have some payables that are stacking up that we need to get out. We also have tons of receivables that we need to collect on. If we had that, we would be fine, but it's hard to get the money out of our clients some times. Always this little game of sorts.

- We talked about some short term funding and cash flow options.

- We are going for the full system or fully integrated system - that's where we want to head. This allows for the ability to record and track things end-to-end, through the entire process.

- We will still allow 3rd party solution but we really want to focus on what we do. There has to be a balance.

- Steve was talking about calling some of our best clients and seeing if they want anything? Development at $100/hour or training at $65/hour. Couldn't hurt to ask. This could be custom development or filling their needs in some other way.

- As Steve and I were talking, it is amazing how functionality and needs for functionality keep bubbling to the surface. We don't even try and it just comes up... Kinda like the ongoing idea farm type mentality... it literally just keeps coming and we end up taking the next step.

- We are a serious solution - those who get it, love it! Those who don't, go elsewhere.

- Harvesting some of our R&D and building out some of the fracture type pieces. We really want to build where we want it to go vs being pulled in certain directions. There needs to be a balance, but right now, we feel like we are just being yanked and pulled in every direction (spreading us thin). It would be great to be able to focus and really go where we feel the bang for the buck would be best for us as a company.

- Dedicate time and resources to those pieces. Work the plan! Carve out some time and push on some of our pieces.

- At some point, you kinda have to keep faking it until you make it. That sounds shallow, but it is true. Fake it till you make it!

Recording notes from the day and trying to get caught up. Lots of moving pieces. It's almost a full time job just recording what happens in a single day. We are learning tons. I'm hoping that we will be able to slow down and go back and harness and harvest some of these ideas, concepts, and plans. There is literally a gold mine in these notes and developer's notebook entries.

Going back and recording notes back in end of July. Uploaded a bunch of screenshots for Chuck and presentation gallery. Here is a link to his screenshots as of 7/20/21. Each of the photos has some good captions to summarize what each one is and does. Lots of work here on this new presentation gallery tool for salespeople and those who will be pushing the adilas platform and products. Good stuff!

Emails, follow-ups, small bug fix, and tech support.

On a GoToMeeting with Russell. We were working on the adilas quick search and helping to resolve a small issue. The quick search form, if the corporation was using the snow owl theme, would close prematurely if you were changing the search type or any other drop-down. You could still use it, but it was kinda annoying due to the early closing of the dialog box. It required some extra clicks to make it remain open until ready to submit the content or search. Russell was able to figure out what was needed and we pushed up new files.

Wasn't able to make the meeting. Steve McNew and I sent some emails back and forth to touch base.

Eric and John were going over date picker stuff (special date dialog boxes and ways of settings dates within a date field). Eric was creating a new file and the date picker stuff was not in the correct spot in the header.

Steve needed some help pushing up some new code to all of the servers. He is trying to get his new laptop and local environment all setup and ready to go. It is mostly there, just missing the bulk upload to all servers (FTP tool). After that, we looked over some code that John did to help with the discount engine. The new code was some changes to the JavaScript to help the page. The file was merged in and pushed to all servers.

The last part of the meeting was spent trying to get Steve's local environment up to date and working correctly. It was showing an error while trying to sync up system wide database entries from the data 0 box. Looking into the error and trying to track things down. This was an error on the local system, not on the main or live system. We looked around and did some research and tried a few things.

Steve and I were still trying to fix his local environment for the first few minutes. After that, Cory and Steve chatted about projects and changes. Then Cory and I chatted about different projects. Most of the conversions were dealing with follow-up, planning, and budgeting. Nothing too crazy.

At the end, John and I looked over some code that we have for dealing with the date pickers. This was a question that was brought up earlier but was not resolved in the earlier meeting. We found what we were looking for and John was going to let some of the other developers know about the code and what was needed to do that process.

Emails and recording notes. Other small to do list items.

Emails and small bug fixes (misspellings). Eric checked in and had some questions about the new expense types that he is making and creating for his sales tax aggregate project. As we were talking, I had to tell Eric that his job is not to make things match, within the system, but that his job was more along the lines of "read them and weep" type numbers (what they really are). It's funny that I had the very same conversation with Steve back in 2008 and 2009. I wanted to make things balance and Steve just wanted me to show what was real and what was in the system. The balancing comes later, by user input, not by a heavy code hand (virtually). Interesting.

Steve and the guys were going over sales and trying to fill our client's needs. That's what we try to do, fill our client's needs.

I spent some time clicking through the presentation gallery that Chuck put up. This was my first time to really click through and play around. So many fun pictures, small verbage sets, and great flow. I really liked it. I was showing some of the guys on the meeting what I was finding out. This is funny, but I was pitching the adilas guys on adilas - internal pitching.

I replaced the temporary landing page with the real one. This is the correct web address for the page (modified as of 10/5/21).

https://news.adilas.biz/sales-gallery/adilas-advert-index.html  -  live presentation gallery or sales gallery page

Cory, John, and Shari O. showed up for a server meeting. That didn't really happen. We all ended up doing our own thing while we were waiting. Towards the end, Cory and Shari O. bailed out. We were hoping that Wayne was going to join, but that didn't play out.

I was working on some small bug fixes, flipping through the presentation gallery, exploring the different themes, etc. I ended up merging in a pull request for John dealing with the date picker and small verbage changes.

John and I talked about full stack developers and characteristics of the full gamut of what we do and have to do. We have to switch between frontend, backend, system admin, content, marketing, sales, HR, project management, graphics, design, etc. All over the place.

We ended with some training on expense/receipts and the differences between splits (payments on account) and REI's (reimbursements). The main difference is how they get paid back and where the funds come. There are also some differences on end of the year 1099's and who pays taxes on what. Light training and did some drawing on the screen. Thank goodness for GoToMeeting and the drawing tools (ability to draw right on the screen, change colors, and erase as needed).

Going over the new presentation gallery (test and play mode) that Chuck put up online. Playing with things and going over scenarios with Shannon on how we are planning on using this new tool. Can't wait for it to be all finished and available to the public. Good stuff.

We spent the rest of the session going over adilas core concepts and refining verbage and content. See attached for where we are at.

Charles is doing this project for Steve.

Meeting with Chuck to go over new time template pages and do a small code review. Light review of the presentation gallery with Chuck. Showing him some of the things that I like about it. I thought that it was looking great.

On the phone with Eric going over system controlled expense types and how to use and/or limit edits and usage.