Development Archives - Page 29 of 42 - MIDAS - Room Booking System

Category: Development

Maintain a line of credit for your clients

2 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023 · First published March 12, 2016

The next update to our Web Based Room Booking and Resource Scheduling software MIDAS is on the horizon, and throughout March we’re giving you a first look at some of the new features and improvements you can look forward to in this next MIDAS update..

One of the areas of our software that we often receive feedback and ideas for new features for is “Invoicing”. We’re pleased to once again adding even more Invoicing features for v4.12, one of which will facilitate the ability to maintain a line of “credit” for each of your clients.

Adding credit for a client is really simple, and is done via the “Current Credit” field in each client’s database entry. Simply enter the amount to credit to associate with the client and click “Save Changes”:

Maintain a line of credit for each client in a MIDAS booking system — Maintain a line of credit for clients

Then, the next time an invoice is generated/created for the client, this credit will be applied to their invoice as a discount, and the line of credit remaining for the client updated accordingly.

Example 1:

A client entry has a $70 credit associated it.
The client’s next invoice is for a total of $100.
$70 is automatically deducted from the pre-tax total of their next invoice
The client’s remaining credit balance automatically reduces to $0

Automatically apply credit to customer invoices in MIDAS — Credit automatically applied to client invoices

Example 2:

A client entry has a $70 credit associated with it.
The client’s next invoice is for a total of $50.
$50 is automatically deducted from the pre-tax total of that invoice
The client’s remaining credit balance automatically reduces to $20, which will be applied to their next invoice

Users with access to the invoicing capabilities of MIDAS and who also have the ability to modify clients can update the amount of credit associated with each client at any time.

MIDAS v4.12 is expected to be made available to Beta Testers later this month, with a general release shortly after. We’re currently looking for additional testers to help test and provide feedback/bug reports on pre-release versions of our software. Becoming a tester is free and no experience is required, and what’s more we’ll reward you for your participation! Find out more about becoming a MIDAS Beta Tester here.

If you would like to be notified when v4.12 is fully released, then why not join our Mailing List?

Tags: invoicing, v4.12

New Current Availability Report

2 minute read time · Updated May 30, 2023 · First published March 10, 2016

This week marks 10 years since the very first public and commercial release of our Web Based Room Booking and Resource Scheduling software, MIDAS, back in 2006. As well as celebrating our longevity, we’re also very proud of the fact that a decade on, our software remains in active development with new and improved features being regularly added!

To that end, MIDAS v4.12 is on the horizon, and over the coming blog posts, we’re giving you a first look at some of the new features and improvements you can look forward to in the next MIDAS update..

The first new feature of v4.12 we’d like to unveil is a brand-new “Current Availability” report:

Arising from customer suggestions of being able to see an “overview” of the current and forecast availability of your venues “at a glance”, the new Current Availability, provides just that!

The report analyses each venue to determine is current status. If a venue is presently “available”, MIDAS will check to see when it’s available until (i.e. when the next booking takes place). If a venue isn’t presently available, MIDAS will check to see when it’s next available.

The results for all venues are then amalgamated into a single easy-to-read “Current Availability” report, which can also be printed.

The Current Availability report is just one of over a dozen real-time reports and statistics that MIDAS can generate. For more information, please see: https://mid.as/help/statistics

Finally, as we mentioned at the top of this article, it’s been 10 years since the first release of MIDAS, and there’s still time to enter our epic giveaway to celebrate – head on over to [THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW ENDED] – for you chance to WIN a FREE Cloud-Hosted edition of MIDAS, or your share of $1,000 worth of discounts off our software (including upgrades, addons, and subscription renewals)

Tags: reporting, statistics, v4.12

Improved Client Selector

3 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023 · First published December 16, 2015

As the next update to our web based room booking and resource scheduling software fast approaches, we’re giving you a “first look” on our blog at some of the new and improved features you can look forward to in this next update to MIDAS v4.11…

We’ve overhauled the “client” field on the Add/Modify Bookings screen for v4.11:

The previous Client selector in v4.10 and earlier

The improved client selector is easier to read, larger (making it easier to select clients on very small screens), and highlights in bold the parts of the search results matching the characters you’ve typed into the Client field.

The improved client selector is also better able to handle thousands of client records. In MIDAS v4.10 and earlier if you end up with thousands of clients in your database, the loading time of the Add/Modify Bookings screen could become degraded. The new client selector in v4.11 combats this, by loading searching results dynamically “on demand” if there are a significant number of clients in your database.

One of the reasons why your client database can become very large is if users failed to select an existing client when adding new bookings. We’re also combating this in v4.11.

Previously, on Add/Modify Bookings screen, users had the option to select an existing client from a drop-down list of clients which appeared when they begin typing into the “Client” field. However, if a user ignored the drop down list of existing clients, and completed manually typing a client name into this field, MIDAS would assume that you didn’t wish to use any existing clients and instead wished to create a new client.

This led in many cases to customer’s databases containing numerous entries for what was essentially the same client, simply because users failed to select from the list of existing clients each time they added a booking.

There’s been a “Merge Clients” tool within MIDAS for a while now to allow administrators to merge the bookings & invoices of clients they deem to be essentially “identical”, however, we hope the need to use this tool will be minimized with a new feature in v4.11.

In v4.11 if you fail to select an existing client from the drop-down list of suggestions, and manually complete typing of a client’s name, MIDAS will check in the background whether there’s already one or more existing clients in the database that match the name you’ve manually typed into the client field. If there is, MIDAS will display of list of these clients, prompting you to “Use” one of these existing clients:

If, however, you really do want to create a new client, you can simply click dismiss this prompt to continue adding your booking with the new client.

MIDAS v4.11 will soon be generally available, however for now it is only available to Beta Testers. We’re currently looking for additional testers to help test and provide feedback/bug reports on this and future updates to our software before release. It’s free and no experience is required. Find out more here.

If you would like to be notified when v4.11 is fully released, then why not join our Mailing List?

Tags: clients, v4.11

Activity Logging Improvements

2 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023 · First published December 15, 2015

The next update to our web based room booking and resource scheduling software is fast approaching, and throughout this month we’re giving you a “first look” at some of the new features and improvements coming in MIDAS v4.11…

Perhaps one of the most powerful, yet overlooked, tools in MIDAS for administrators is the Recent Activity Log.

The Recent Activity Log records all recent actions that have taken place within your MIDAS system. It records the date, time, IP address and user who initiated the action.

We’re making a couple of improvements in this area for v4.11 to help you better understand and keep track of how your scheduling system is being used.

In v4.11, the Recent Activity Log now also records all failed login attempts, including those on locked or suspended user accounts:

Audit Log - Failed Login Attempts — Audit Log – Failed Login Attempts

Additionally, as the Recent Activity Log can become large, we’ve added a filter so that you can quickly filter the log by different event categories. The 8 categories available cover the following areas: Bookings, Clients, Email, Invoices, Printing, Settings, System, and Booking Requests.

For example, filtering the Recent Activity Log to only show events in the “Bookings” category will then only show log entries relating to the addition, modification, deletion, and restoration of bookings. Similarly, filtering the log by the “System” category will only show system-related log messages, including successful & failed login attempts, password changes, logouts, backup generation and system updates.

Tags: security, v4.11