With just a couple of clicks, MIDAS can generate an invoice for a booking, or indeed a series of bookings. You can also manually create new invoices at any time.
Once an invoice has been generated or created it can then be printed or emailed to your customer from within the system.
Before an invoice is finalized (before it is printed or emailed), its contents may be freely edited.
This allows you to add or remove items on the invoice or update quantities or charges.
However, until now, there’s not been an easy way to ‘move’ items up or down on invoices to change the order in which they appear.
Why might you want to reorder items on an invoice?
If you’re retrospectively generating an invoice for all a customer’s bookings over a period of time, MIDAS will include these bookings on the invoice in chronological order.
If the client has booked multiple rooms on a number of different dates, you may prefer bookings for the same room to appear consecutively together on the invoice.
Alternatively, if you use the “Merge Invoice” tool in MIDAS to combine two or more invoices for the same client, MIDAS will simply append each invoice’s items onto the end of the first invoice. This may result in items listed on the invoice not being in a logical order.
Introducing the ability to change the order of items on invoices
Starting with MIDAS v4.39, we’ve introduced the ability for you to move items up or down on invoices prior to them being finalized.
Modifying an invoice in MIDAS v4.39
On the create/modify invoice screen, to the left of each invoice item you’ll now see both a small up and down arrow.
Moving items up and down on invoices
Clicking the up arrow alongside an invoice item will move that item above the previous invoice item.
Likewise, clicking the down arrow will move that invoice item below the following item.
Clicking the “Save Invoice” button will then save the changes you’ve made to the order of invoice items, along with any other changes you’ve made to the invoice.
3 minute read time · Updated April 9, 2025 · First published April 7, 2025
Ever since the first version of MIDAS, we’ve used to the term “venues” to refer to the rooms or bookable spaces you can manage using our scheduling software.
Why did we choose the term “venue”?
There are a number of reasons why we originally settled on the term “venues” to describe bookable spaces.
Secondly, the school that MIDAS was originally designed for had not only rooms, but also sports facilities, a recording studio, a courtyard, and a theatre available for booking – so the term ‘room’ didn’t quite fit when it came to addressing things like football (soccer) pitches.
We also didn’t want to use the word “resources” to denote bookable spaces, as “Resources” in MIDAS are things like equipment and consumables that you can ‘add’ to bookings.
“Venues” don’t work for everyone!
From its first release nearly 20 years ago, MIDAS has since found booking applications across a whole host of industries and settings.
Today, MIDAS is used by bowling alleys, libraries, village halls, recording studios, cruise ships, vehicle rental companies and many more!
As such, the term “venue” we use to describe a bookable ‘thing’ isn’t necessarily always the most appropriate in all scenarios.
Changing the term “venue”
Now, self-hosted MIDAS customers have always been able to modify the included language packs to change the wording and terminology within their booking system. That way they can tailor the language used in their MIDAS system to their specific operations.
However, this can be quite a cumbersome process, and there’s been no way for cloud-hosted customers to make such changes (unless they have the optional Custom Branding addon)
But we’re improving this for MIDAS v4.39.
For new self-hosted or cloud-hosted installations of v4.39 (or later), the first time you login you’ll be prompted to select the term which best describes the primary ‘things’ you’ll be booking.
Setting up the terminology for the things you’ll be booking in MIDAS
The 10 terms initially available to choose from are:
Areas
Desks
Facilities
Lanes
Locations
Rooms
Spaces
Studios
Vehicles
Venues
…so if you’re using MIDAS for managing bookings at a recording studio, you could select “Studios”. Alternatively, if you’re using MIDAS for desk booking in a library, you could select “Desks”
MIDAS will then replace all references to “venues” with your chosen terminology throughout the software.
Should you wish to change the term MIDAS uses in place of “venues”, you can update this setting at any time. You’ll find it via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Appearance → Language.
Changing the term ‘venues’ to something more relevant
A couple of things to note…
The ability to change the ‘venue’ terminology as described above is only available when MIDAS is displaying in an English language variant.
You’ll still see references to ‘venues’ across our website. For example, in our online documentation, there are references to the “Manage Venues” screen. However, if you’ve set your MIDAS system to use the term “Rooms” instead, your “Manage Venues” screen will be a “Manage Rooms” screen.
The local documentation which accompanies your MIDAS system – and which is accessed via the [Help] links – will automatically update reflect the specific terminology you’ve set.
4 minute read time · Updated April 4, 2025 · First published April 4, 2025
Have you ever hit the reload/refresh button in your browser whilst logged into MIDAS? Were you surprised to be bounced back to a login screen when you did? Well no more!
We’ve redesigned and improved the sign-in experience for MIDAS v4.39.
In previous versions, two options were offered on the sign-in screen..
Remember Me
Previously, the login screen included a “Remember Me” tick box. If this was selected when a user logged in, MIDAS would store their credentials in a cookie. The next time they accessed the login screen in the same browser, MIDAS would read this cookie and automatically populate the various fields on the login screen.
Auto-Login
An optional “Auto-Login” box was also present on the login screen whenever the “Remember Me” box was selected.
If “Auto-Login” was also selected, then the next time the user accessed the login screen, MIDAS would not only read the ‘remember me’ cookie and automatically populate the fields on the login screen, but also automatically click the “Login” button.
Drawbacks
There were a number of drawbacks to this approach. The primary drawback being that the “Remember Me” option stored a user’s credentials in a cookie. Whilst this data was encoded and obfuscated, it is no longer best practice to store such data in this manner.
The “Remember Me” option is also now somewhat outdated redundant. It was first introduced some 16 years ago – way back with MIDAS v2 in September 2009. Back then, password managers weren’t really a thing, and web browsers themselves didn’t provide a means to remember logins to websites.
Nowadays, all modern browsers off users the ability to remember credentials to websites and webapps. In addition, third party password managers are now also common place.
So it was time to give the “Remember Me” function a complete overhall.
In doing so, we also wanted to address a frustration which a number of our customers have reported over the years. If, when using MIDAS, they accidentally hit their browser’s reload/refresh button, MIDAS jumps them back to a login screen. (That is, unless they had selected both the “Remember Me” and the “Auto-Login” options when they initially logged in).
To combat this frustration, and to simplify the number of options on the MIDAS login screen, starting with v4.39 users will see a single “Stay signed in” option on their sign in screen.
The previous “Remember Me” and “Auto-login” options have been removed.
Staying signed in
Selecting this new “Stay signed in” option when signing in will keep the user signed-in to MIDAS on that browser until they sign out (or until their session times out, based upon the security settings setup by an administrator in your booking system.
Here’s how the new sign-in screen looks:
MIDAS sign-in screen with the new ‘Stay signed in’ option
Like the previous “Remember Me” option, the new “Stay signed in” option also stores data in a cookie. However, unlike the former, the new “Stay Signed In” option only stores a randomly generated and unique session ID. No credentials themselves are stored in a cookie.
Refreshing and Reloading
Regardless of whether the new “Stay signed in” option is selected on a user’s sign-in screen, once the user has signed in, hitting refresh or reload in their browser will no longer jump the user back to a login screen – they will remain signed in!
With the “Stay signed in” option selected (and assuming the user isn’t accessing via a private/incognito browser window), the user can completely close their browser, and the next time they open it and access your MIDAS URL, they will still be signed in.
Security Considerations
Naturally, if the browser/device you use is shared by multiple people, then you should not select the “Stay signed in” option when signing in to MIDAS.
An administrative setting also exists to prevent the “Stay signed in” option from being shown to users.
An administrator may also still wish to force user’s sessions to expire if there is an extended period of no activity. To accommodate this, new settings have been added to the Session Control section of the security screen. This screen may be accessed via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Security.
New Session Control security options in MIDAS v4.39
5 minute read time · Updated February 11, 2025 · First published November 25, 2024
Two-Factor Authentication (sometimes referred to as 2FA) is a more secure method of logging into websites or online services.
Traditionally, when you “log in” to a website or online service, you enter your username (typically your email address) and password. Then you click a button, and if the details you enter are valid, you’re logged in.
Unfortunately, many people reuse the same credentials (username / password combination) again and again for multiple websites and online services. The danger of this is that if one of those services gets “hacked” or suffers a data breach where user credentials are exposed, an attacker could potentially then access all other websites and online services that that person uses.
Two-factor authentication combats this. It does so by employing a secondary means of authentication in addition to the traditional username / password combination in order to authenticate a user’s access.
This means that even if a user’s password has been compromised, an attacker couldn’t then this to gain access to someone’s account.
Two Factor Authentication in MIDAS
Since 2015, all MIDAS room booking systems have included optional two-factor authentication. If enabled, this adds an additional layer of account security to our software.
With Two-Factor Authentication enabled, each time a user logins in, a code is sent to their email inbox. The user must then enter this code into MIDAS in order to complete their log in.
But starting with MIDAS v4.38, we’re improving 2FA options and support in our software!
MIDAS v4.38 (and later) now support authenticator apps – including Google Authenticator and Microsoft Authenticator – as an alternative 2FA login option to email.
Per User Two Factor Authentication Settings
Previously, the 2FA option in MIDAS was a ‘global’ setting. This meant that it could be enabled or disabled for all user accounts at once. It was not possible to have ‘per account’ 2FA settings.
We’ve made this more flexible for MIDAS v4.38!
Now, administrators can set whether 2FA is enabled for each individual user account. The 2FA option for each account can also be set.
Available 2FA options are now:
Authenticator App
Email
Enabling 2FA Authenticator App Globally in MIDAS
To globally turn on 2FA for all users, administrators can go to MIDAS Admin Options > Manage MIDAS > Security. In the “Two Factor Authentication (2FA)” section, tick the “Enable Two-Factor Authentication For All Users?” box, and then select the “Authenticator App” option:
Global Two-Factor Authentication Options – now includes authenticator apps
Click “Save Changes” and 2FA via Authenticator Apps will be enabled for all user accounts.
Enabling 2FA Authenticator App For Individual User Accounts
2FA options are also available on a per-user account basis. Administrators can enable, disable, or change the 2FA method on a user account by going to MIDAS Admin Options > Manage Users & Permissions.
Select the user account you wish to enable 2FA for, and choose “Authenticator App” from the “2FA Login” setting:
New per-user Two-Factor Authentication Options
Then click “Save Changes”.
How 2FA via an Authenticator App Works
When 2FA authentication via authenticator apps has been enabled on a user’s account, the next time they login, they’ll be presented with a QR Code to scan with their authenticator app:
Setting up your authenticator app upon first login
If they’re unable to scan the QR Code a ‘secret key’ is also provided which can be manually entered into authenticator apps.
The user’s authenticator app will then generate a 6 digit code which they can enter into MIDAS to complete their login.
The QR Code / Secret Key needs only to be scanned/entered into the user’s authenticator app once upon first use. For subsequent logins, the user will simply need to enter the 6 digit code generated by their authenticator app:
Entering a OTP generated by your authenticator app to complete login
Supported Authenticator Apps
Popular FREE authenticator apps supported by MIDAS include:
Google Authenticator (available for Android and iOS)
Microsoft Authenticator (available for Android and iOS)
However, anyOTP authenticator app which generates Timed One-Time Passwords (TOTP) derived from a shared secret value and the current time should be compatible. TOTP codes are typically six digits long and change every 30 seconds.
Resetting 2FA
If a user looses their authenticator app, an administrative user in a MIDAS system can change the user’s 2FA method, or reset their authenticator token. By resetting a user’s authenticator token, the next time the user logs in, they’ll be presented with a brand new QR Code/Secret Key to enter into their authenticator app.
Availability
2FA login authentication has been available since MIDAS v4.10 (2015). However, this implementation is limited to authentication codes sent to users via email. 2FA could also only be enabled globally (for all user accounts)
2FA login authentication via either email or authenticator apps is available in MIDAS v4.38 or later. These options can be enabled globally, or an a per user account basis.
