Category: Development

Greater Control Over BCC’d Email

2 minute read time · Updated March 12, 2024 · First published March 12, 2018

The first big update of 2018 for our MIDAS web based room booking and resource scheduling system is nearly ready, and includes a number of user-requested features and improvements.

Now, MIDAS has included a “BCC outgoing email to” setting for quite some time now. This setting allows you to enter an e-mail address to which e-mail (excluding generated notifications) sent by your users through MIDAS will be BCC’d (Blind Carbon Copied) to.

It’s a useful setting, as it allows administrators to keep track of outgoing e-mails, or for archiving purposes.

However, the setting has caused confusion for some customers who instead expected this setting to send a copy of EVERY single outgoing email (including system-generated notifications) to the defined email address, rather than its intended use of only BCC’ing emails that are not generated notifications (for example, if a user emails a client through the in-built email function).

Therefore, to add greater flexibility for those customers who have requested it, we’ve expanded the email BCC capabilities of MIDAS for v4.18.

Choosing which emails to BCC

You’ll now be able to select which “types” of outgoing emails from your MIDAS system you’d like to be BCC’d to a pre-defined address:

Choose which types of email to BCC
Choose which types of email to BCC

The types of outgoing email you can choose to be BCC’d include:

  • Generic
  • Bookings:
    • Booking Cancellation
    • Booking Confirmation
    • Booking Reminder
  • Booking Requests:
    • Booking Request Approved
    • Booking Request Approved (with changes)
    • Booking Request Rejected
    • Booking Request Submitted
  • Invoices:
    • Invoice (Cancellation)
    • Invoice (Regular)
    • Invoice Overdue
    • Invoice Reminder
    • Receipt

We do however suggest that you think very carefully as to which types of emails you select to be BCC’d. For larger MIDAS systems this could result in a significantly higher volume of outgoing email traffic.

For this reason, the extended BCC email options for our “cloud-hosted” customers are limited to only be available if your MIDAS system is configured to send outgoing email via an external SMTP server/relay. If your cloud-hosted MIDAS system is configured to send email via the internal “Sendmail” option, extended BCC email options will be unavailable to you. This restriction does not apply to self-hosted MIDAS systems.

Click here to continue reading about some of the other new & improved features coming in MIDAS v4.18!

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Bulk Modify Venues

1 minute read time · Updated January 20, 2023 · First published March 12, 2018

One of these concerns the setting up and modification of venues within the system. Whilst setting up your venues is typically a one-time task, if you’re setting up a large number of venues it can become a little mundane having to set hours of operation, rates, groups, managers, blocking rules, alternative venues, etc for each venue individually – especially if the settings are the same across multiple venues.

That’s why in v4.18, we’ve made it easier to make “bulk” changes to multiple venues at once, which we’re sure will be a real time saver!

Bulk Modify/Remove Venues
Bulk Modify or Remove Venues

On the “Manage Venues” screen, multiple venues can now be selected simultaneously from the “All Venues” list to the left. Any changes then made in the “Venue Details” section to the right will be applied to all selected venues.

Furthermore, you’ll also be able to remove venues in bulk (rather than one at a time)

Click here to continue reading about some of the other new & improved features coming in MIDAS v4.18!

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New Custom “Checkbox” (tick box) Booking Field

2 minute read time · Updated March 18, 2024 · First published March 12, 2018

MIDAS booking systems incorporate a set of basic booking fields enabled by default. These allow you to capture the type of booking, the number of attendees, resources, and booking notes. That’s in addition to the space being booked (the “venue”), the date/time, and client details.

These booking fields can be re-ordered as well as made optional or required. They may also be selectively hidden from individual users.

MIDAS also offers even more flexible control by allowing you to add your own “custom” booking fields as well!

A variety of different custom booking field types may be added to MIDAS, including:

Last year, we expanded the types of custom booking fields available. This included the addition of a new “Range” (or “slider”) custom booking field type.

For MIDAS v4.18, we’re adding a further custom booking field type to the available range, with the introduction of a custom “Checkbox” (tick box) booking field type:

Custom Checkbox/Tickbox Booking Field
Custom Checkbox (Tickbox) Booking Field

When adding a new “Checkbox” custom booking field to MIDAS, you’ll be able to title it, specify whether the box should be “checked” (ticked) by default, and also whether the checkbox is required to be checked/ticked in order to proceed in adding/modifying/requesting the booking.

This new custom booking field and associated options will certainly find uses in a variety of applications. For example, it will now be easy for MIDAS users to ensure that their hirers/customers have accepted any Terms & Conditions of Hire, etc before making their request/booking.

Click here to continue reading about some of the other new & improved features in MIDAS v4.18!

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New Custom Links Addon

2 minute read time · Updated July 21, 2023 · First published November 30, 2017

MIDAS has a growing range of optional “addons” available. These extend the capabilities of your booking and scheduling system with additional features and functionality.

To coincide with the v4.17 update to MIDAS, we’ll also be launching a brand new “Custom Links” addon. This new optional addon is based upon feedback we’ve received from some of our customers.

Customers have expressed the desire to be able to add their own custom links after the standard “Logout”, “Change Password”, “Help” and “Full Screen” links underneath the main date near the top of the screen when logged in:

Standard links when logged into MIDAS
Standard links when logged into MIDAS

Our new “Custom Links” addon allows administrators to do just that! They can add up to three additional custom links for logged-in users:

MIDAS Custom Links Addon
MIDAS Custom Links Addon

Administrators can specify the URL to the web page or resource to link to. A name for the link as it will appear on screen can also be set. Furthermore, administrators can specify whether each link should open in a new tab/window, or within the main booking grid area:

Custom link to Wikipedia opened within MIDAS
Custom link to Wikipedia opened within MIDAS
Custom link to an Accuweather forecast opened within MIDAS
Custom link to an Accuweather forecast opened within MIDAS

A note about opening custom links in the booking grid area:

Some 3rd party websites prevent their content from being directly embedded within other websites/apps. In such instances, you would need to specify that your custom link opens in a new window instead.

As mentioned, the new Custom Links addon is expected to become available with the upcoming release of v4.17. In the meantime be sure to also check out some of our other exciting addons available for MIDAS at https://mid.as/addons

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