Category: Development

Invoicing Improvements in v4.08

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November 25, 2014

MIDAS v4.08 is on the horizon, and as is becoming tradition we’re giving readers of our blog a sneak preview of some of the new and improved features you’ll be able to find in this forthcoming update to our popular Web Based Room Booking and Resource Scheduling Software.

In this blog post we’ll take a look at some of the improvements coming to the invoicing capabilities of MIDAS…

Cancellation Fee Invoices

Generate Invoice For Late Cancellations
Generate Invoice For Late Cancellations

MIDAS v4.08 introduces the ability for your booking system to automatically generate invoices if a booking is cancelled at short notice. You can set the generation of these invoices to trigger is a booking is deleted less than a specified number of days or hours before the booking was due to take place. These “Cancellation Fee” invoices can be configured to charge the client a fixed amount for a late cancellation of their booking, or as a percentage of the total cost of their original booking.

Cancellation Invoices also have their own customizable “template” (MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Templates) allowing you to customize their appearance separately to your regular invoices.

Automatically Send Invoices

Automatically Send Unsent Invoices
Automatically Send Unsent Invoices

Building upon the automated Scheduled Task features introduced in our previous update, v4.08 introduces an additional option to have the system automatically send any unsent invoices at a specified time each day.

In earlier versions, invoices would remain “unsent” until manually actioned by a user. This new feature gives you the option to automate this process!

Prevent Invoice Deletion

Back in MIDAS v4.03, we introduced a setting to prevent an invoice from being deleted after sending, until the invoice was paid in full. Following customer feedback, we’re now extending this in v4.08 to give you the option to prevent invoices from ever being deleted/removed from the system.

Re-Email Invoices

Previously, once an invoice had been partially paid, or when payment was overdue, it was no longer possible to re-email the invoice to the client again. This restriction has been removed for v4.08.

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Version 2 of the MIDAS API is here

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August 12, 2014

Introducing API Version 2…

MIDAS API The MIDAS API is an optional addon for MIDAS, allowing you to interface directly with your MIDAS scheduling system from your own applications.

First introduced just over a year ago, version 1 of the API allowed developers to access and retrieve data from MIDAS.

Version 2 of the API builds on this, and extends the API’s capabilities further by now allowing “bi-directional” access to MIDAS. This means that as well as being able to simply “read” data from MIDAS through the API, developers can now also “write” data to MIDAS, and modify existing data.

Nearly two dozen new API calls have been implemented for API v2, allowing you to:

  • Add, delete or modify bookings, clients, and resources
  • Add, generate, or delete invoices
  • Approve or reject booking requests
  • Email clients
  • Change settings
    …and more!

Full documentation for version 2 of the API is now available online at mid.as/api, and will shortly be available in an offline format too.API v2 will be available to coincide with the upcoming release of MIDAS v4.07, and will a FREE update to existing API users who have an ongoing annual support subscription covering the release of v4.07.

v2 is also backwards compatible with v1 of the API. Existing customers who wish to add the optional API to their MIDAS installation can do so via mid.as/upgrade.

New customers can purchase MIDAS along with the optional API addon via mid.as/pricing.

MIDAS API calls
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Improved Support For Smaller Screens (including iPhones)

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August 11, 2014

The next significant update to our leader web based room booking and resource scheduling software is just around the corner, and throughout this month, we’re outlining some of the new features and improvements you’ll find in the upcoming v4.07 release….

Improved Support for Smaller Screens

We’ve already previously optimized MIDAS for use on tablet devices (including the iPad), and for v4.07, we’ve further optimized the layout of MIDAS for use on even smaller mobile device screens – such as the iPhone.

Below are some screenshots of MIDAS v4.07 accessed using an iPhone 5 (Click for bigger images)

The Booking Grid
Monthly Overview
Add Bookings
Search
Invoicing
Reporting & Statistics
Manage Venues
Manage Fields

Best of all – there’s nothing additional to install on your phone/mobile device – there’s no separate “app” to download from the app store – you simply access MIDAS through your device’s web browser. If you’ve got an iOS device, such as an iPhone, you can also add a shortcut to MIDAS directly to your home screen for easy one-touch access to your booking system.

These improvements make MIDAS the ideal scheduling solution for seamless access to your bookings across your desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile devices alike, and it’s supported in all major web browsers too!

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Public Booking Request Improvements in v4.07

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August 8, 2014

The next substantial update to our popular web based room booking and resource scheduling software is just around the corner, and so we’re taking the opportunity to outline some of the new features and improvements you can expect to see in the upcoming v4.07 release….

This post covers some of the improvements coming to the Public Booking Request capabilities within MIDAS.

Pre-Populate Selected Dates/Times

Public Booking Request Header

The standard public “Booking Request” process has the following five stages/screens

  1. Select Venue(s)
  2. Select Date(s)
  3. Select Times
  4. Your Details
  5. Finished

When a member of the public makes a booking request for your facilities, they follow these stages in order. In v4.07, we’re giving you much more flexibility, by allowing you to “hard code” venues and/or dates into your public booking request links to allow requestors to “bypass” the first couple of stages using data supplied via your link.

For example, if the Public Booking Request for your MIDAS is https://your_midas_url/request, appending a “?venue=Hall” to the URL/link will jump straight to Stage 2 (Select Date(s)), with the “Hall” venue selected.

Alternatively, appending “?date=YYYYMMDD” to the end of your Public Booking Request URL will preselect the date you pass – Example: appending “?date=20141015” to your public booking request URL will pre-select the 15th October 2014.

You can also pass a combination of both a “venue” AND a “date” parameter at the same time to bypass stages 1 and 2 of the booking request process and jump straight to Stage 3 (Select Times) – Example: “https://your_midas_url/request?venue=Hall&date=20141015“

Furthermore, you can optionally pass multiple venues and/or dates by simply separating them with commas. In the following example, “Hall” and “Gymnasium” venues are preselected on 15th and 16th October 2014:

https://your_midas_url/request?venue=Hall,Gymnasium&date=20141015,20141016

“Remember Me” Option

Remember Details For Next Visit On the “Your Details” stage of the public booking request process, there’s now also a “Remember Me” tick box, allowing the requestor’s browser to optionally remember their details (name, organization, email address) for the next time they make a booking request from the same browser – so they won’t have to manually enter the same information each time.

 

Custom .css Styling

External Custom CSS We’re also giving you even more control over the “look and feel” of your entire Public Booking Request process, by allowing you to override the default visual “theme” for your MIDAS, and use your own external .CSS style sheet instead! You can specify an external .css style sheet via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Templates → Web Request

 
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