Category: Development

Collect Extended Client Information With Bookings

3 minute read time · Updated November 16, 2022 · First published March 28, 2022

For MIDAS v4.30 we’ve addressed a potential issue when it comes to adding new clients to your MIDAS booking system.

First, a little background to the issue…

The “Client / Organization” Field

The Client / Organization field allows selecting existing clients or creating new clients
The Client / Organization field allows an existing client to be selected or a new client to be created

On the standard “Add Booking” screen in MIDAS, a “Client / Organization” field is shown, allowing you to specify the client who you’re adding a booking for.

By typing into this field, a list of matching existing clients are shown which can be selected accordingly.

If no match is found with an existing client, then depending upon the permissions assigned to the account from which the booking is being added, the user will be able to manually type in the name of a new client/organization directly into the “Client / Organization” field.

When the booking is added, for quickness MIDAS will then automatically create a client record in the database for the newly entered client.

Of course, if the user wishes to create a new client record and provide more details other than just the client’s name and their organization, they can click the “+” button to the right of the “Client / Organization” field. They will then be able to enter extended information about the new client.

Making Client Fields “Required”

Create custom client fields and set fields to be "required" in MIDAS
Create custom client fields and set fields to be “required” in MIDAS

MIDAS also allows you to not only create and add additional custom client fields to the database, but you can also flag client fields as “Required”.

A “Required” field must have a valid entry (i.e. it can’t be left blank) in order to add/modify a client.

Now, because MIDAS allows a user to quickly create a new client directly from the “Client / Organization” field on the “Add Booking” screen, an extended client record entry dialog isn’t shown (unless the user specifically clicks the adjacent “+” icon).

This allowed clients to be added to the system with any client fields marked as “Required” to be blank.

We’ve addressed this for v4.30 with the addition of a new optional setting.

On the Manage MIDAS → Bookings screen, administrators can enable a new “Prompt for detailed client information when adding bookings for new clients” option.

Once enabled, whenever a user clicks the “Check Availability & Book” button on the Add Bookings screen, if the booking is for a brand new client, MIDAS will open the extended client details dialog. The user must complete the client record (including any required fields) before they’ll be able to add the booking(s) to the system.

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Review Previously Sent Internal Messages

1 minute read time · Updated July 19, 2023 · First published March 25, 2022

One of the feature of the built-in “Notification Center” in MIDAS booking software is the ability to send internal messages to other users.

A user’s internal messages are shown to them when they next login. They may also optionally choose to have them sent as an email as well. This allows users to receive messages from other users even when they’re not logged into their booking system.

For MIDAS v4.30, we’re providing a way for you to see, review, and delete (“expire”) messages you’ve recently sent to other users in your booking system.

Review Sent Internal Messages To Other Users
Review Sent Internal Messages To Other Users

The new “Active Sent Items” panel shows all internal messages you’ve recently sent to other users that have yet to expire. You can view each message, or immediately expire (remove) it.

There’ll also be an indication of each message’s “Status”, to help you identify whether the recipient has received/viewed your message.

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Specify an alternate “reply to” email address

2 minute read time · Updated December 9, 2021 · First published December 9, 2021

As you can probably guess, a room booking system needs to be able to send email notifications. These may include, for instance, booking confirmation emails sent to customers.

MIDAS is no exception, and an extensive range of email settings and options are available in the software. Administrative users may configure these via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Email.

One of the available email settings allows you to have email notifications sent from your MIDAS system to be sent from a particular email address.

Typically, for automated emails that you don’t require a response to, you may specify a “no-reply” style address.

However, what if you want to provide a way for your customers to contact you should they have any queries?

Well, you could use a real email address instead of a no-reply “black hole” inbox which isn’t monitored.

Or, from MIDAS v4.29 onwards, you could instead specify a “Reply To” email address. This can be different from the address that emails from your MIDAS system are sent from.

Specifying a "reply to" email address
Specifying an alternate “reply to” email address

In the above example screenshot, all email sent from the MIDAS system will be sent as though it originated from the address “[email protected]”.

However, if a recipient of an email from this MIDAS system hits “Reply”, they’ll be composing a message that will be sent to “[email protected]” (instead of “[email protected]”.

This new setting adds a standard “Reply-To” header to all outgoing email from your MIDAS system.

More information on the various email configuration options and settings in MIDAS may be found in the documentation.

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Mark notifications as “Read”

1 minute read time · Updated March 12, 2024 · First published November 22, 2021
New option to mark notifications as having been "read"
New option to mark notifications as having been “read”

In MIDAS v4.28 we introduced a new “Notification Center“. The Notification Center allows users to view messages from other users, booking and custom reminders, and Watch notifications.

Notifications each have their own expiration time, after which they are automatically removed from a user’s Notification Center. Users could also manually remove a notification at any time.

For MIDAS v4.29 we’re also giving users the option to mark notifications as having been “read”.

Read notifications will still be present in the user’s Notification Center until they expire or are manually removed. However, unread notifications will be highlighted, whereas read notifications won’t be.

Also, if the user has opted to be shown their notifications each time they log in, this popup will now only show them their unread notifications. So the new “mark as read” option will help keep clutter to a minimum. It will only show notifications the user hasn’t yet seen and acknowledged on the notification pop-up after login.

Users will of course still be able to see all their notifications – both read and unread – via the Notification Center icon.

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