In today’s fast paced work environment technology plays a major role in our lives, and most of us may find it hard to remember a time when phones, computers, tablets, and other devices weren’t a part of it. While technology certainly makes life easier and more convenient especially for many retailers, it also has put a hinderance on life when it goes out, and or is unavailable. We rely on these line of business applications so deeply that when they have problems, like a little bit of over usage on the national cannabis holiday of 420 that we do not know what to do when we can’t use it. Dan Foote joins us to share a recent outage due to overuse and how he is helping his clients better prepare for these situations in the future.
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Harry Brelsford 0:23 Hey 420MSP Harry here back with Dan Foote. And Dan, you have the the best story of the annual holiday, almost a religious holiday in our industry. April 28, you know, have a 420 surprise, you’re up in Alaska. And your, your client tipped you off to it? Or you know what, at the same time, what’s going to give me the whole context? Because that’s the big holiday man yesterday?
Dan Foote 0:50 Well, it was it was 420 yesterday, and I’d even forgotten, you know, the the, quote, importance for 420. You know, you know, it’s there in your mind. But it’s not front because you’re dealing with other things. And I get a call yesterday afternoon and our registers are down. Okay, hang on, let me go look. And I take a look at our monitoring, I take a look at their machines, and you know, everything is up, and I so let me go check. And so I go to Greenbits status calm, which is their provider for this. And sure enough, they’re down. And he says, Well, I’m going to call them next. We know that they’re down, they know that they’re down, you know, what are you going to accomplish by calling them? Well, I’ll call Eddie, who does hardware for him? I’m sorry, Eddie can’t do anything for you. You know that this this. We rely on the internet so much. We rely on these line of business applications so deeply that when they have problems, like a little bit of over usage on the national cannabis holiday of 420 in the in the what would be the East Coast early evening hours. And it makes sense, because now you’re starting to hit central time as well. People getting off work, and they’re showing up at their favorite cannabis purveyor and wanting to get their Stoke on. Yeah, and, you know, all of a sudden, things just don’t flow as smooth as you’d like to see them. You know, I really feel for green bits, because, you know, it’s really tough to, to gauge what kind of response you’re going to get. When you’re when states are opening up. More and more all the time. And the the industry is opening up more and more all the time. It creates quite the sizing dilemma for for companies like green bits and other providers. So you know, it was going back to paper receipts and tracking information the hard way. And, you know, if you’re if you’re a cannabis retailer out there, you have to have backup plans, just like actually, you know, it and show me one that doesn’t. You have to have a backup plan for when things don’t work. And last year with COVID was a perfect example of this where all of a sudden, we have hundreds and hundreds of 1000s if not in 12, who definitely millions of people being shifted to work from home or out of work. Yeah. totally changed dynamics everywhere. What is your backup plan?
Harry Brelsford 4:01 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that this is a perfect example of any industry. It’s just it’s notable that it literally was the the outage was on April 20 of all of all things. I’m looking at the incident report. So we have they started investigating it 2:20pm Pacific, they had it resolved by four hours later at 6:30pm. Pacific. That’s actually an interesting report that the site puts up about what’s going on and so But yeah, I guess yes for my question that the your client a cannabis dispensary. They were still able to keep the doors open and be transactional, right. So they they Yes,
Dan Foote 4:47 but it was a struggle. Initially, the I imagine the first half hour of that until you start getting into a rhythm of how to handle it was a real struggle. Especially if you don’t have that pen and paper handy. Yeah, literally got things down or, you know, a quick method of digitally tracking the information that you’re dealing with. So, yeah, it’s it’s a, it’s a definite challenge.
Harry Brelsford 5:17 And I wouldn’t have this for the audience that doesn’t know. And it always does good for me to revisit what what is Greenbits? What does Greenbits do?
Dan Foote 5:26 They provide inventory tracking. So when I am selling a product, and we scan in that barcode, either, either to put it in inventory or to take it out of inventory, it allows the retailer to know what they have in inventory and what what’s been sold. And when it comes to regulations and compliances with the with your state government, you know, and the regulations that are in place there, it becomes very important and, and all of that stuff gets funneled into organizations like metrics, and and such. And that’s a very simplified overview. But it is important information tracking for well, to get right down to it so that you can pay your taxes.
Harry Brelsford 6:29 There you go. Love it. Well, we’ll end on that my friend can’t top that line. All right. Thanks, Dan.
Dan Foote 6:35 I love your I love the background you have behind you too. That’s it. That’s beautiful. It is really nice.
Harry Brelsford 6:41 Yeah. Wooden desk. Built in the 1870s. I have some paperwork been in the Brelsford, Texas family the whole time. So yeah, it helps to have the name Harry. I’m Harry the fifth. And I guess that’s the family rule that the desk goes to Harry. And watch out for Harry the eighth he’s, he’s gonna be a little rascal. Okay. Thank you. Damn,
Dan Foote 7:10 good. Good on you, Harry. Take care.
Harry Brelsford 7:12 Alright.
