On the morning meeting with Steve. We merged in some of his code and then made a few new changes. Alan popped in and gave us a small report. Dustin was also on the meeting and working on his own stuff.

Eric popped in towards the end of the main morning meeting. He and Steve were talking about category level rules on expiration dates and how to track and process items as they age over time. Basically, keeping track of expiration dates and helping to flag and move inventory to help keep things fresh and moving.

There was also some discussion about part/item categories and parent attributes. Both tools are well used and there is some cross over between them. The difference is how many things may be applied per item. Only a single item category may be assigned per item, but an unlimited number of parent attributes may be applied. Sometimes, the clients and users, and doing some mixing and blending. We may need to keep looking at that and maybe even allow for some rules, flow processes, etc. What we are hearing is the need for high level rules and then applying those rules to the items that are cascaded under that category. Basically, grouping and sub grouping, even inside the categories. Steve and Eric would like some other filter options for the main categories. Almost a mix and blend of categories and attributes.

There is still a growing need for sub categories within the main part/item categories. It is amazing how many new feature requests keep coming in on a daily basis. Pretty crazy.

This is just a side note... but we are getting more and more requests for some of the subs of elements of time to be applied to other pieces of the system (other 12 main player groups). We would love to push that out and allow for it to happen, but it just hasn't been built out yet. These are things like: color codes, sub dates/times, sub flags and tags, sub locations, sub phases, sub grouping, sub notes and comments, and sub sign-off's, and such. We have tons of ideas on this (virtual adoption process between elements of time, subs of time, and other system players). I'm excited to see where these things go. As a side note, we could create daily elements of time for certain things and/or tasks (this almost creates its own group) and then you move things or flip things from there.

We are also seeing a problem with some companies that use adilas for just one or two processes, but they don't use adilas for the whole thing. That creates problems because things can't flow from phase to phase and state to state. They are kinda wanting things to flow to a certain level and then just magically appear over in some other section. That gets tough to automate that because it is basically skipping steps.

Steve was showing Eric how to setup custom page settings and storing those values in JSON. As another side note, our original goal for the custom page settings was to give every page an id number (web_page_id from the web_pages table). We also wanted to give every CFC method or virtual API socket connection a similar web_page_id number. That way we could track what is being used and how often (behind the scenes stats). We started that process, but got pulled off due to other projects that needed attention. This is a huge piece of the puzzle and would really help if we go to the full adilas fracture account level. Dealing with page level id's, we also need to figure out what is needed for black box takeovers and extended settings of settings and/or conditional settings. It gets pretty deep fairly quickly.

Steve was just dreaming, but he would love to see the adilas application as an artist pallet where you could pick and choose your widgets and where to place them. Basically a build your own dashboard and build your own layout. Steve would also love to see a configurable shopping cart, where users could pick and choose what they wanted to see. Just some dreams.

Another huge observation today... Steve was showing Eric (who has done tons of development for us) around the system. This was huge for Eric and he could see and catch the vision. Sometimes you don't even know what you do not know. One of the down sides to adilas is the current size of the application. It is huge and has tons to offer, because of that, some people never venture into certain areas, even though they could really use the functionality offered. Maintenance and training are huge concepts that need to be pushed and available to our users.

Steve - Question - Is that even a tree you want to cut down? Steve was cutting trees as a winter job, just out of High School, and was talking to a old sawyer (tree cutter) and the older guy was telling Steve to leave a certain tree alone because it wasn't worth it. Steve was young and wanted to conquer and do a good job. The tree had some old barbed wire embedded in the bottom of the trunk. The old sawyer was telling him to leave it alone because it would be a ton of work and may end up ruining your chainsaw. Business is like that, you may not want to cut down every tree in the forest. Abundant model - next! Great advice.