Archive for March, 2023

World Backup Day 2022

The 31st of March each year is World Backup Day. This day is designed to help raise awareness of the importance of keeping your critical data backed-up.

A “backup” is an additional copy of all your important files and data – for example, your family photos, home videos, documents and emails.

Instead of keeping a single copy just in one place (like your computer), the idea is that you also keep another secondary copy of everything somewhere else as well. That way, if anything should happen to the device where your original data is stored, you’ll still have a “backup” copy stored elsewhere.

Here at MIDAS HQ, we strongly believe in the importance of regularly backing-up data you can’t afford to loose. We’ve built in a number of backup features to our leading room booking and resource scheduling software to do just that!

How MIDAS backs up your data

MIDAS seamlessly makes complete and automated backups of its own database. It does this upon the first successful login each and every day. These backups are compressed, and typically backups are less than 1MB each in size. Backups are also encrypted, and stored on your MIDAS server for a length of time you specify, typically 7-30 days.

To further protect your data, these automated daily backups can optionally also be emailed daily to a specific email address too. This feature allows you to retain your own “off-site” copies of your MIDAS data within no effort!

In addition to the automated daily backups which your MIDAS system takes, we also provide the ability to instantly generate an backup at any time too! An administrator can navigate to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Database, and use the one-click “Backup Now” button. We really couldn’t make it easier to backup your MIDAS data on-demand!

Restoring Backups

Database backups (whether generated manually or automatically) can be easily and readily restored at any time. You can choose to partially restore a part of a backup, or restore it in full – at any time, all through a simple interface. This may be accessed through MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Database → Restore. So, should you ever wish to “roll back” your MIDAS system to an earlier point in time, or if you suffer a massive server failure and loose data, you can have your MIDAS system back up and running again in no time!

Database Backup and Restore in MIDAS
Database Backup and Restore in MIDAS

For more information on the backup and restore features of MIDAS, please see mid.as/help/manage-database-settings

For our “cloud hosted” customers, we also take complete database backups three times a day. A daily backup is then separately stored off-site for a period of six months.

So as you’ll see from the above features and processes we’ve built into our software, we take backups seriously! We make it painless to ensure your important MIDAS booking data can be easily backed up and restored with minimal fuss!

Whilst you can be confident your MIDAS data is taken care of, why not take a moment to backup your own important personal files on World Backup Day? Your family photos, home videos, documents and emails are important! Can you afford to loose them!? Yes, it may be a little tedious, but you’ll be glad you did should anything ever happen to your files!

How many backups of my important data should I make?

As a general rule, it’s a good idea to have at least three copies of your important data. At least one of these copies should be kept off-site or in the cloud. This is known as the 3-2-1 backup rule.

Here’s what it means:

  • Keep at least three copies of your data, including the original data and two backups.
  • Store the copies on two different types of media, such as an external hard drive and a cloud storage service.
  • Keep one of the backups off-site. Either in a different physical location or in the cloud, to protect against disasters like fire, theft, or flooding.

By following the 3-2-1 backup rule, you can ensure your important data is protected even if one copy is lost, damaged, or destroyed.

It’s also a good idea to regularly test your backups too! Testing a backups ensure they are working properly in the event you’ll need to access them. It’s important to update your backups regularly too – to keep them current.


We recently looked into how long a software’s free trial should last. In doing so, we analyzed numerous competitors who also offer room booking, scheduling, and appointment software.

As part of our research, we were quite surprised at the number of vendors who didn’t display pricing information for their software anywhere on their websites.

In fact, out of the 72 vendors we analyzed, 31% of them didn’t display pricing on their websites.

Software Vendors Displaying Pricing Information On Their Websites
Software Vendors Displaying Pricing Information On Their Websites

Of the 22 vendors who didn’t publish pricing, 10 actually made no reference to the cost of their software at all!

The 12 remaining vendors encouraged those interested in purchasing or subscribing to their software to instead contact them for a price.

Why do some software vendors not display any prices on their websites?

There are a number of reasons why a software vendor might choose not to display prices on their website:

  1. Their software is customized for each customer and the price will depend on the specific requirements of the customer.
  2. The software is sold through a network of resellers or distributors. The final price will depend on the specific terms and conditions agreed upon between the vendor and the reseller.
  3. The software is offered on a subscription basis. The price will depend on the length of the subscription and the number of users.
  4. The vendor is trying to create a sense of exclusivity or scarcity around their product. They believe that by not displaying prices they can generate more interest and demand.
  5. The vendor gives different pricing deals to different customers. If they think they can get away with charging certain customers more than others for the same product/service, they won’t publish pricing on their website.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these…

The software is customized for each customer

All of the software vendors we looked at offered standard “off the shelf” software solutions. By this, we mean that the exact same software product is supplied to multiple customers. Whilst some vendors may offer additional one-off bespoke customizations, there were no indications that any vendor supplied each and every customer with bespoke software.

Here are MIDAS, we don’t understand therefore how this could be a justification for not displaying prices.

Whilst we ourselves occasionally do the odd bespoke customization for customers, any such customization is an additional cost. It does not affect the basic price of our software, and doesn’t prevent us from displaying prices.

The software is sold through resellers

Out of the 72 software vendors we analyzed, we could only find one who didn’t sell their software directly to customers through their own website. Instead, for this vendor a “How to buy” link on their website led to a “Find a local reseller” form.

All other vendors sold directly to end-customers themselves.

Therefore, aside from the one vendor who sells through resellers, this shouldn’t be a reason for other vendors to hide their prices.

The software is offered on a subscription basis and has different pricing tiers

Some subscription based software is offered at a fixed monthly or annual price for all customers. Other vendors may adopt a simple “tiered” approach – offing perhaps a very limited “Basic” package to start with. Followed by “Standard” and “Pro” packages at increasing cost.

Other vendors may offer a wider range of prices based upon specific criteria. For instance, when it comes to booking or scheduling software solutions, the price may depend on the number of bookings that can be made over a given period of time.

However, even if there are multiple pricing points, this shouldn’t be a barrier preventing a vendor from displaying prices. If pricing is dependent upon the number of bookings, users, spaces, etc, it’s not that difficult for a vendor to provide a calculator on their website. That way, customers can see the price they’ll pay for their specific service configuration.

Creating a sense of exclusivity by not displaying prices

By not displaying any publicly visible prices, prospective customers are then forced to make contact with the vendor. This initiates a dialog to between prospective customer and software vendor. During the dialog, the vendor can employ sales tactics to “hook” the prospective customer and convince them that their software is both right for them and they’re getting a great deal.

Giving different “deals” to different customers

Some software vendors may even “inflate” their prices depending upon the type of customer. For example, if a vendor thinks that a particular organization is likely to have a big budget, they may feel that they can get away charging that customer more for the same product that they typically charge another customer with a limited budget.

If the vendor was to display pricing on their website, they wouldn’t be able to arbitrarily charge different prices to different customers.

By not displaying any prices, this gives the vendor the ability to vary the price of their software at will. The customer has no “base price” to reference the price they’re quoted back to.


Ultimately, the decision to not display prices on a website is primarily a marketing and sales strategy. Software vendors may have a variety of reasons for choosing such this approach.

How we approach pricing at MIDAS

Here at MIDAS, we’re totally transparent and upfront about the pricing of our room booking & resource scheduling software.

We clearly display pricing on our website at mid.as/pricing. There’s also a “Pricing” link at the top of every page of our site too.