Development Archives - Page 35 of 42 - MIDAS - Room Booking System

Category: Development

New Scheduled Tasks

2 minute read time · Updated August 8, 2024 · First published August 4, 2014

Introducing Scheduled Tasks…

In MIDAS v4.07, we’ve introduced a new “Scheduled Tasks” feature. This may be accessed MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS & Scheduled Tasks.

“Scheduled Tasks” allow the software to perform a series of automated tasks in the background without any user intervention. These automated tasks include:

Sending booking reminders to clients in advance of their upcoming bookings
Sending invoice reminders to clients in advance of the due date of their invoice, if their invoice hasn’t been paid in full
Sending invoice overdue notifications to clients who haven’t paid their invoices on time

Each “task” can be configured. For example, you can specify how many hours before a booking commences a reminder should be sent to the client, or how many days before/after an invoice is due a reminder/notification should be sent.

Reminders/Notifications are sent via email to clients who have been set to receive them. You can control which reminders/notifications each client receives by modifying the “e-mail reminders” setting of their client record. Additionally, clients themselves have the ability to “opt out” of receiving further email notifications from your MIDAS.

We’ll also be giving you the ability to customize the content of these email notifications/reminders. We’ll cover this in more depth in another blog post!

Set Email Reminders for Clients

In the meantime, if your MIDAS system in “self hosted”, in order to use the new “Scheduled Tasks” features of v4.07, you’ll first need to configure your server to execute a MIDAS component once every hour. For more information, please refer to the following knowledgebase article: Configuring your server to run Scheduled Tasks.

If your MIDAS is “cloud hosted” by us, there’s no need to do this. Scheduled Tasks will work “out of the box” for our cloud hosted customers.

Tags: scheduled tasks, v4.07

New File Uploads and Attachments

2 minute read time · Updated July 19, 2023 · First published August 1, 2014

The next substantial update to our popular web based room booking and resource scheduling software is just around the corner. So over the next few weeks we’ll be outlining some of the new features and improvements you can expect in the upcoming v4.07 release here on our blog.

We really do listen to and value all customer feedback here at MIDAS HQ! One of the most requested features you’ve told us you’d like to see in our software is the ability to be able to attach files/documents to your bookings. This would allow users to be able to store room layout plans, signed booking contracts, programs & itineraries, and other relevant documents to each booking.

Attach files and documents to bookings
So we’re giving you just that by adding a new “file” custom field type in v4.07! We already allow you to add your own custom text, number, list, and URL (link) fields to your booking screen. With the addition of the new “file” type you’ll also be able to add file upload fields to your booking screens.

Select File To Attach The custom “file” field will allow users to click a “Select File” button. They can then locate a file from their computer to attach to the booking.

Booking Attachment Attachments are uploaded to MIDAS and linked to for easy accessed via the booking information panel, and through the “Modify Booking” screen where they can also be removed.

Uploading of the following file types is supported: .csv, .doc, .docx, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .pdf, .png, .ppt, .pptx, .rar, .txt, .xls, .xlsx, .zip

Administrators can also limit the maximum size of file that can be uploaded and attached to bookings. The default is 5MB.

PLEASE NOTE: The ability to upload/attach files and documents to bookings will only be available in “self hosted” editions of MIDAS v4.07. If your MIDAS is “cloud hosted” by us, this functionality will not be available to you.

If your MIDAS is hosted by us and you’d like to be able to attach documents to bookings, you’d need to first upload your files elsewhere (i.e. your own web server), and then use a custom URL field in MIDAS to link your bookings to your uploaded files.

Alternatively, you can migrate your cloud hosted system to a self hosted edition at any time.

For more information, please see: Why aren’t file upload fields available in “cloud hosted” editions of MIDAS?

Tags: attachments, document, file, upload, v4.07

Improved Statistics and Reports

2 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023 · First published March 20, 2014

We’re improving the statistics/reports that MIDAS can generate for you in v4.06 with three exciting new additions:

Venue Utilization Statistics

The new Venue Utilization report shows you the amount of usage that each venue has over a period of time. It will tell you for how many hours each venue is booked out of the total amount of hours available (taking into account the venue’s hours of operation too!), and give you a percentage utilization figure too!

Resource Statistics

The brand new Resource Statistics section generates a report into your resources (equipment, consumables, and staffing) over a period of time. It provides details of the number of each resource in use during that period, and an estimate of the income potential from each. In addition, the report indicates the current totals of all resources (as well as unique resources) in your MIDAS, and also provides an insight into the most “watched” resources.

Individual Client Statistics

Improvements to Client reports now mean that with v4.06 you can see detailed reports for each individual client. These reports show when the client was added to the system, how many bookings and invoices they have, the dates/times of their first, previous, next and last bookings (which can be clicked to jump directly to those bookings). The report also calculates the total combined length of all the client’s bookings, as well as the average length of their bookings

Tags: reporting, statistics, v4.06

New Flexible Venue Rates

2 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023 · First published March 19, 2014

We’re introducing even more flexibility when it comes to setting your venue rates in MIDAS v4.06!

Currently, you can already set up hourly/daily rates for each of your rooms, and have different rates depending upon the day of the week.

In MIDAS v4.06, we’ve extended this to also allow you to define rates based upon the length of the booking as well!

For example, you can now set up a venue’s rates so that bookings lasting say less than 4 hours could be charged and invoiced at a higher rate than those lasting more than 4 hours.

You can also now define rates as “per booking” as well as “per hour” and “per day”. The new “per booking” option charges a fixed set amount for bookings.

So, as per the above screenshot, let’s say you define the following rates for “Meeting Room 1”:

$100 per hour for bookings lasting 1+ hours
$80 per hour for bookings lasting 4+ hours
$450 per booking for bookings lasting 6+ hours

Bookings for “Meeting Room 1” would then be charged as follows:

Length of Booking	Total Charge
1h	$100 ($100 x 1)
2h	$200 ($100 x 2)
3h	$300 ($100 x 3)
4h	$320 ($80 x 4)
5h	$400 ($80 x 5)
6h	$450 ($450)
7h	$450 ($450)
8h	$450 ($450)

We believe this additional flexibility when it comes to charging and invoicing for use of your venues will be great benefit to our customers. Of course, for those who don’t require this level of flexibility, MIDAS can be simply set to charge a single rate for “all bookings”:

Tags: invoicing, v4.06, venue rates