Development Archives - Page 36 of 42 - MIDAS - Room Booking System

Category: Development

Active Directory Integration

2 minute read time · Updated January 19, 2023 · First published March 18, 2014

Room Scheduling Software with Active Directory Integration The most popular suggestion on our Feature Request page in recent times has been a desire for integration between MIDAS and an Active Directory allowing single sign-on to MIDAS using a user’s current system credentials.

We have been working to bring such integration to MIDAS for some time, and we are now pleased to announce that integration with an Active Directory will be possible starting with our forthcoming update to MIDAS, v4.06.

So, instead of a user having to log in twice (once to their computer, and then again when they open MIDAS), MIDAS can instead authenticate against your organization’s Active Directory, meaning users logged onto your network can simply open MIDAS and be seamlessly logged in each time!

Please Note: Active Directory integration will only be available if you’re running MIDAS on your own server (our “self-hosted” edition), and your MIDAS is licensed for “Unlimited” users.

We’re currently looking for beta testes who meet the above requirements (i.e. currently running a “self hosted” MIDAS with “Unlimited” users) who would be interested in testing integration between MIDAS and their Active Directory. If this is you, please contact us for more information.

Also, if you’re interested in Active Directory integration when it becomes publicly available with MIDAS v4.06, you can get a head start by making sure your infrastructure is ready with our Active Directory Integration Test Tool and by referring to the dedicated Active Directory Integration Documentation.

Tags: active directory, LDAP, single sign on, v4.06

Invoicing Improvements in v4.05

2 minute read time · Updated February 11, 2025 · First published November 29, 2013

Well, it’s Black Friday once again (more about that later!), and if you’re a regular reader of our blog then you’ll already know about some of the upcoming features in MIDAS v4.05 including improved iPad and touch-screen device support and a new Venue “Blocking” feature.

So we thought we’d take a moment to reveal some of the other improvements you can expect with the next update to our powerful web based room scheduling solution, this time in Invoicing:

Improvements to Invoicing

Previously, the “Booking Notes” associated any booking for which an invoice was generated were automatically included in the “Invoice Notes” area of the corresponding invoice.

In MIDAS v4.05, you’ll be able to disable this behavior, or choose a different booking field (including custom fields) to include in the “Invoice Notes” section of your generated invoices.

What’s more, we’ve included an “Itemize” option so for invoices containing multiple bookings, MIDAS can automatically denote which “notes” apply to which bookings:

After feedback from a couple of our customers, we’re also introducing a way to completely remove the “Tax” line from your invoices if you don’t charge tax, and don’t want to show a 0% tax rate on your invoices. In MIDAS v4.05, setting the “Default Tax Amount” blank (rather than just 0%) will hide the tax line on invoices where there is no tax element (existing invoices which contain a tax element will not be affected and will still show the tax line)

Now, back to Black Friday – if you’re not following us on Twitter (@mid_as), then right now you’re missing out on some incredible deals – for today only – for both new AND existing customers of our MIDAS web based room scheduling software

Tags: invoicing, v4.05

Improved support for iPads and other touch screen devices

3 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023 · First published November 20, 2013

With this month’s launch of Apple’s new flagship iPad Air tablet, as well as the continuing growth in popularity of Android and Windows 8 touch-screen tablets, one of our main focuses for our next update to our online room scheduling software MIDAS v4.05 has been on improving support for these touch-screen devices.

We’re making numerous improvements, including improved accessibility for devices without a physical keyboard, and improved support for devices operating in “portrait” orientation.

For example, below left is how the upcoming MIDAS v4.05 update will look on an iPad Air in “portrait” orientation, compared with how MIDAS v4.04 currently looks on the same device, below right:

Room Scheduling Software for iPad Air — iPad Air running the forthcoming MIDAS v4.05

Room Scheduling System for Tablets — iPad Air running an earlier version of MIDAS

As can be seen from the above images, in current versions of MIDAS, the screen layout in “portrait” orientation is far from optimal – we’ve overhauled this for v4.05 by rearranging and resizing various visual elements to make your MIDAS experience easier to navigate and interact with on your portrait orientated tablet device.

Now the toolbar icons will appear across the bottom of the screen, the booking grid has expanded to fill the entire width of the screen, with the calendar and booking information panels near the bottom just above the toolbar:

Don’t like this layout? No problem – just rotate your device into “landscape” orientation to revert to the familiar desktop screen layout.

We’ve also made significant improvements for touch devices when it comes to selecting multiple items from drop-down lists as well as actions requiring keyboard interaction:

Selecting multiple items from drop-down lists

HTML 5 Multi-Select Element If we take the “Add Bookings” screen as an example, this screen allows you to select one (or more) venues to add your booking to. This wasn’t an issue on a desktop, laptop, or other device with a keyboard, as multiple venues could be selected from the list by holding down “Ctrl” (in the case of Windows devices) or “Cmnd” (in the case of Apple Mac devices) whilst clicking.

HTML 5 Multi-Select Alternative for Touch Screens On touch-based devices such as iPads, this isn’t quite as easy! Our solution has been to replace these multi-select elements with checkbox elements, allowing easy selection of multiple items even from touch-only devices!

Moving and Duplicating bookings from the grid

Dynamic Room Booking Editing For a while now, we’ve given you the ability to quickly move (reschedule) or copy (duplicate) bookings directly within the booking grid by simply dragging and dropping bookings whilst holding down a key (i.e. Shift or Ctrl, etc). We realize that this isn’t that useful to those using touch-devices – so we’re changing this behavior for v4.05. You will be able to move/copy bookings with ease – simply click (or tap!) the padlock icon under the main toolbar, and you’ll be presented with a choice of dynamic grid editing options:

Simply select your option, and then you can dynamically edit bookings in the booking grid!

Adding MIDAS to your home screen

Adding MIDAS to your iOS Home Screen We’re also making it really easy to add MIDAS directly to your iOS Home Screen for quick one-click access to your bookings!

…all these forthcoming improvements for iPads and other touch-screen tablets mean that with MIDAS v4.05 you really can have the MIDAS “touch“(!)

Tags: iOS, iPad, tablet, v4.05

What is Venue “Blocking”?

2 minute read time · Updated February 11, 2025 · First published November 19, 2013

In the next update to our room scheduling software MIDAS, we’re introducing a powerful new feature called “Venue Blocking”.

Venue Blocking allows you to define a set of “rules” for making some rooms become automatically “Unavailable” when certain other spaces are booked.

Let’s take a closer look at how “Venue Blocking” can be useful in a typical usage case…
Say you have a large “Sports Hall” that can either be booked in its entirety, or divided into two halves that can each be booked separately…

Sports Hall Booking system — An Example Sports Hall

Sports Hall Scheduling System — The Same Sports Hall Divided Into Two Bookable Spaces

The 3 different spaces available for booking (“Sports Hall”, “Half Hall A” and “Half Hall B”) can each be added to MIDAS as individual venues:

Sports Facility Management System — The three spaces as shown in the Booking Grid

Now, if someone books the entire “Sports Hall”, you then want to prevent anyone else from being able to book a half hall at the same time – and that’s where Venue “Blocking” comes in!

You can setup a few simple blocking rules to prevent the “Sports Hall” from being booked if either half (or both halves) of the hall have been booked, and vice versa. This is achieved from the new “Blocking” tab on the Manage Venues Screen (MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Venues). In the screenshot below you can see that “Half Hall A” and “Half Hall B” have both been set to be blocked when “Sports Hall” is in use:

Venue Blocking — Setting up venue blocking

Once your blocking rules have been defined, MIDAS will then apply them accordingly when checking booking availability. In the below example, we’ve tried to book all 3 spaces at the same time, and because of the blocking rules that have been defined, MIDAS prevents us from booking all 3 spaces:

So as you can see, “Venue Blocking” is a very useful and powerful addition to our web based software, that’s coming with our next update, MIDAS v4.05.

Tags: v4.05, Venue Blocking