One question we’re often asked is some variation of “how can people see our availability, or book with us, directly from our own website?” It’s a great question, and MIDAS gives you a few different ways to do exactly that. In this post we’ll walk through the options and help you pick the right one.

There are three features to know about. Two of them, Public Booking Requests and Public Web Bookings, are included as standard in every MIDAS system. The third, Web Calendars, is an optional add-on. They solve different problems, and they also work nicely together.

At a glance

If you just want people to see what’s on

Sometimes you don’t need visitors to book anything online at all. You simply want to show them what’s already happening, or whether a particular space is free, right there on your own website. That’s what the Web Calendars add-on is for.

Web Calendars generates a tidy daily or monthly calendar of your bookings that you can embed directly into a page on your website using an IFRAME, or simply link to. You control exactly which venues and booking types appear, and how much detail is shown. With a little custom styling, you can even reduce a calendar down to a simple “available or booked” display for a particular room.

Web Calendars is our most popular add-on, but it is an optional paid extra rather than a standard feature. You can add it to your system at any time via mid.as/upgrade, or include it from the outset when you first purchase.

If you want people to request a booking

If you’d like visitors to be able to ask to book a space, but you want the final say before anything is confirmed, use Public Booking Requests. This feature lets non-users check your availability and submit a booking request, which lands in your system awaiting approval. A request only becomes a confirmed booking once a venue manager approves it.

This is ideal when you need to vet bookings, for example to check details, confirm payment separately, or simply make sure the request is appropriate before it goes in the diary. You can also restrict requests to particular email domains, and even set certain request types to be approved automatically.

If you want people to book and pay instantly

If you’d rather let visitors book a space there and then, with no approval step, use Public Web Bookings. This works much like Public Booking Requests, but instead of creating a request, it creates a confirmed booking straight away, including an online payment step so the visitor pays at the point of booking.

To accept payments for Public Web Bookings, you’ll first need to enable Stripe or PayPal in your system.

Both Public Booking Requests and Public Web Bookings are disabled by default, and need to be switched on by an administrator via MIDAS Admin Options → Public before they can be used.

The best of both: display and book together

Here’s where it all comes together. Web Calendars isn’t only for display. You can configure a calendar so that when a visitor clicks a date, they’re taken straight to your Public Booking Request or Public Web Booking screen, with that date already selected for them.

That means you can show an attractive calendar of what’s on directly on your own website, and let visitors click through to request or book an available slot in a couple of taps. It’s a great way to combine a polished public-facing display with the booking features already built into your MIDAS system.

Which should you choose?

• Want to show your schedule or availability on your website? Use Web Calendars.
• Want visitors to request a booking that you approve? Use Public Booking Requests.
• Want visitors to book and pay instantly? Use Public Web Bookings.
• Want to display and let them book in one journey? Use Web Calendars linked to either of the public booking features.

Whichever route suits you, you can find full setup details in our help documentation for Public Booking Requests, Public Web Bookings, and the Web Calendars add-on. If you’re not sure which is the best fit for your organization, just get in touch and we’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.

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Every organization runs its bookings a little differently. Out of the box, MIDAS captures the essentials with each booking – the date and time, the venue, who it’s for, the type of booking, the number of attendees, any resources, and a notes field. For your clients, it records names, organizations, contact details, and addresses.

But what if you need to capture something specific to your operation? Perhaps a a signed waiver, a purchase order number, or a link to a room layout. That’s exactly what custom fields are for. They let you add your own booking fields and client fields on top of the standard ones, so MIDAS records precisely the information you need.

In this post we’ll look at the types of custom field available, and share some real-world ideas for putting them to work.

The building blocks

You can add custom fields to either bookings or client records, and each field can be one of the following types:

• Text – a single-line text field, ideal for short pieces of information such as a reference or order number.
• Text Area – a multi-line field for longer notes. You can set how many rows it shows by default, and make it resizable so users can drag it larger when they need to.
• Number – accepts numerical input only.
• Checkbox – a simple tick box, perfect for yes/no questions.
• List (Single Select) – a drop-down from which one predefined item can be chosen.
• List (Multi Select) – a drop-down from which several items can be chosen at once.
• Range – a slider control for picking a numeric value between a minimum and maximum you define.
• URL – a clickable web link to an external resource.
• File – lets users upload and attach files or documents directly to a booking or client record. (Available in self-hosted editions of MIDAS – see why file fields aren’t available on cloud-hosted systems.)

Each field can be shown or hidden, made optional or required, restricted to certain users, and given a short description that appears above it to guide whoever is filling it in.

Ideas for custom booking fields

A waiver or terms checkbox – with a link

A field’s description accepts simple HTML, which opens up some neat possibilities. Add a Checkbox field named something like “I have read and accept the Terms & Conditions of Hire”, and in its description include a link to your waiver or terms document. Mark the field as Required, and a booking can’t be saved until the box is ticked – giving you a simple record that the waiver was acknowledged for every booking.

A link to supporting documents

A URL field is a tidy way to associate an external document with a booking without storing the file itself – useful on any edition, including cloud-hosted. You might link to a shared document, a SharePoint page, a risk assessment, or an event running order held elsewhere. Whoever opens the booking can jump straight to the relevant document with a click.

A purchase order or cost code

A simple Text field captures a PO number or internal cost code against each booking, ready to appear on the resulting invoice. You can even apply input validation to a text field using a regular expression, so MIDAS only accepts entries that match the format your finance team expects.

An expected-numbers slider

While MIDAS already records attendees, a Range slider can be handy for capturing a softer estimate – for instance a “Confidence in numbers” or “Setup complexity” scale – giving your team a quick visual cue when they open the booking.

Ideas for custom client fields

A salutation or title

A List (Single Select) client field with items like Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, and Rev means your emails and letters can address clients correctly, drawing on the field automatically through your templates.

Insurance certificates and contracts

On self-hosted systems, a File client field lets you attach an insurance certificate, signed contract, or accreditation document straight to a client’s record – so it’s always to hand when you need it, rather than buried in someone’s inbox.

Membership or account numbers

A Text or Number client field is the natural home for a membership ID, account reference, or loyalty number, keeping it alongside the rest of the client’s details.

Putting your fields to work in templates

Custom fields aren’t just for the booking screen. Each one becomes available as a template variable, so you can include its value in booking confirmation emails, invoices, and print outs. Rename or remove a custom field, and MIDAS automatically updates the corresponding variable references in your templates for you.

Getting started

Custom fields are managed via MIDAS Admin Options → Fields, where you can switch between your booking fields and client fields and add as many of your own as you need. For the full details, see our Manage Fields help documentation.

However you run your bookings, custom fields let you shape MIDAS around your process rather than the other way around. If you come up with a clever use of your own, we’d love to hear about it!

The post Capture exactly what you need: getting creative with custom fields appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

MIDAS v4.42 brings several important security enhancements. Here’s what’s changed and why it matters.

Argon2id now the preferred method of password hashing

For many years MIDAS has utilized “bcrypt” to store password hashes. While “bcrypt” is still accepted industry practice, newer encryption methods like “Argon2id” offer improved protection.

“bcrypt” is computationally expensive. This means it takes a significant amount of processing time to compute each password hash. bcrypt also includes a configurable “work factor” controlling how “computationally expensive” each calculation is.

Back in 2017, a “work factor” of 10 was widely considered by security experts to be sufficient at the time, and this is the factor we used in MIDAS.

By 2020, computing power had evolved and so “best practice” was to upgrade to a “work factor” of 12, which we transparently rolled out to MIDAS for our v4.25 update that year.

Now in 2026, we’re firmly in the quantum computing and AI age. While bcrypt is still considered secure, it is only “computationally expensive” from a processing (CPU) perspective.

Newer methods, like “Argon2id”, are both processor-intensive and memory-intensive, and so offer an even greater line of defense against brute-forcing password hashes.

We’ve implemented Argon2id for MIDAS v4.42. End users won’t see any difference, but password hashes stored in each MIDAS system’s database are now more secure than ever, and will be automatically updated the first time a user signs in to v4.42.

Self-Hosted customers: You’ll need to install the Perl module “Crypt::Argon2” if you wish to take advantage of this security enhancement. If this module isn’t available on your server, MIDAS will fall back to using bcrypt.

Option to sign out a user everywhere when maximum number of failed sign-in attempts reached

One of the existing security features in MIDAS is the ability for the software to automatically ‘lock’ accounts after a configurable number of failed sign-in attempts. Account access can then be quickly restored by an administrative user, or via a link that MIDAS will email to you if your account becomes locked in this way.

An account becoming ‘locked’ due to a high number of failed sign-in attempts prevents further sign-in attempts being made on that account. Until now, any existing active sessions that the user may have were allowed to continue unaffected.

For MIDAS v4.42, we’ve introduced a new security setting (found under MIDAS Admin Options → Security) that, if enabled and a user account becomes automatically ‘locked’ due to a high number of failed sign-in attempts, all active sessions for that account will be automatically terminated as well.

Suspending a user account instantly expires all active sessions for the user

If an administrator manually suspends a user account, MIDAS will now also expire all active sessions for that user. Previously, if an account was manually suspended, it wouldn’t affect any currently active sessions — now it does.

Security Fixes

We’ve also addressed a handful of security and account-related bugs for v4.42 which were discovered by our team…

Fixed: Possible to bypass forced password expiry

One of the “legacy” settings in MIDAS is the ability for administrators to routinely force users to change their password. Enabling this option isn’t something that we recommend. Indeed, this is considered bad practice, as forcing users to regularly change their passwords actually harms rather than improves security.

Despite that, some organizations still insist on routine password change policies, and therefore, we’ve had to retain this option in MIDAS.

MIDAS v4.42 fixes a small issue related to this, whereby since v4.39, if a user is forced to change their password due to it having expired, the user could easily bypass this requirement by simply hitting reload/refresh in their browser when prompted to set a new password. We’ve resolved this for v4.42.

Fixed: Weak passwords were allowed when passwords were reset

MIDAS includes a visual strength indicator when entering a new password. Very Weak, Weak, and Common passwords are blocked and aren’t allowed. However, a small bug existed that could allow a weak password to be chosen during a password reset. This has been resolved for v4.42.

Fixed: Not possible to add new user accounts in suspended state

Administrators have extensive control over the permissions that can be assigned to each individual user account. Individual user accounts can also be quickly ‘Suspended’ by an administrator. Until now, however, a small bug prevented new user accounts from being added in an initial ‘suspended’ state. This has now been resolved for v4.42.

3rd Party Deprecations and Updates

MIDAS includes a small number of 3rd party components, and it’s important to us that we use the latest versions of these wherever possible.

To that end, for MIDAS v4.42 we’ve updated jQuery to v4.00 and jQuery-Autocomplete to v1.5.0.

We’ve also deprecated qTip2, as this is no longer maintained by the developer. qTip2 was used in MIDAS for dynamic tooltips, like those you see when you ‘hover’ over the name of a venue in the booking grid.

Instead, we’ve built our own dynamic tooltip system from the ground up for v4.42.

The post Security Enhancements in MIDAS v4.42 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

If your MIDAS booking system is currently configured to send emails via Microsoft’s SMTP servers, it’s time to take action.

Microsoft has announced that it will be retiring support for SMTP AUTH (also known as “Basic Authentication” for SMTP) in 2026. Once this change takes effect, any application which is configured to use Microsoft SMTP endpoints for outgoing mail will no longer be able to send emails.

For MIDAS, if you’re using Microsoft’s SMTP servers, this means that booking confirmations, reminder emails, and other automated notifications sent from MIDAS would silently fail – potentially disrupting your organization’s scheduling and communications.

Here’s what you need to know, and what steps to take before the deadline.

What Is SMTP AUTH and Basic Authentication?

SMTP AUTH is a method that allows applications to authenticate with a mail server using a username and password in order to send outgoing email. It has been widely used for decades.

Why is Microsoft removing Basic Authentication and SMTP AUTH?

It’s worth noting that Microsoft’s decision to retire SMTP AUTH is driven by their own platform strategy around modern authentication – it doesn’t mean that sending email via SMTP is inherently insecure. Under the hood, SMTP works the same way it always has, and the username/password authentication used by SMTP hasn’t fundamentally changed. What Microsoft is retiring is the ability to authenticate to their mail servers this way, as they push users towards OAuth-based access within their ecosystem. MIDAS does not currently support OAuth, but this is not a concern — there are plenty of reliable, independent SMTP providers that continue to support standard SMTP authentication without any issues.

Are You Affected?

You may be affected if your MIDAS booking system’s outgoing email settings are currently configured to use any of the following SMTP servers:

• smtp-mail.outlook.com — used by personal Outlook.com/Hotmail accounts
• smtp.live.com — an older endpoint also associated with Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live accounts
• smtp-legacy.office365.com — a temporary fallback endpoint for Microsoft customers that stilled relied on SMTP AUTH after the initial Basic Auth deprecation push.
• smtp.office365.com — An Exchange Online endpoint used by Microsoft 365 services.
• outlook.office365.com — another Exchange Online endpoint sometimes used in place of smtp.office365.com

You can check your current email sending settings via MIDAS Admin Options > Email.

The good news is that the fix is straightforward, and we’ve made it as easy as possible for MIDAS customers.

For Cloud-Hosted MIDAS Customers

If you’re on our cloud-hosted platform, we have the simplest possible solution for you: switch to MIDAS’s built-in Zero-Configuration Email Delivery.

This option requires no SMTP credentials, no third-party accounts, and no technical configuration on your part. MIDAS handles email delivery on your behalf, so you don’t need to worry about SMTP servers at all. You can find full details on how to enable this feature in our dedicated guide:

👉 Zero-Configuration Email Delivery for MIDAS

We strongly recommend all cloud-hosted customers make this switch at their earliest convenience – and certainly before Microsoft’s 2026 deadline.

For Self-Hosted MIDAS Customers

If you run MIDAS on your own server or hosting environment, you’ll need to update your outgoing mail settings to use an alternative SMTP provider. Fortunately, there are several excellent options available, many of which offer generous free tiers that would suit most MIDAS installations.

We recommend the following providers:

SMTP2GO

SMTP2GO is a reliable, cloud-based email delivery service with a free tier that allows up to 1,000 emails per month. It’s straightforward to set up and works seamlessly with MIDAS’s outgoing mail settings. Simply create a free account, verify your sending domain, and update your MIDAS SMTP settings with the credentials provided.

Mailgun

Mailgun is another popular transactional email service offering a free tier for low-volume sending. It provides robust deliverability, detailed sending logs, and is well-suited for automated system emails like those generated by MIDAS. After signing up and verifying your domain, update your MIDAS SMTP configuration with your Mailgun credentials.

To update your SMTP settings in MIDAS, navigate to MIDAS Admin Options > Email and enter the new SMTP server details provided by your chosen transactional email delivery service.

Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late

According to Microsoft, their revised SMTP AUTH Basic Authentication Deprecation Timeline is as follows:

• Now to December 2026: SMTP AUTH Basic Authentication behavior remains unchanged.
• End of December 2026: SMTP AUTH Basic Authentication will be disabled by default for existing tenants. Administrators will still be able to enable it if needed.
• New tenants created after December 2026: SMTP AUTH Basic Authentication will be unavailable by default. OAuth will be the supported authentication method.
• Second half of 2027: Microsoft will announce the final removal date for SMTP AUTH Basic Authentication.

While Microsoft’s deadline is the end of December 2026, we recommend customers make this change sooner rather than later.

Email is a critical part of how MIDAS keeps your staff and visitors informed – from booking confirmations to reminders and notifications. A disruption to outgoing mail can go unnoticed until someone realizes they never received a confirmation, which can cause real-world scheduling problems.

Taking a few minutes now to update your settings will ensure uninterrupted email delivery well into the future. If you have any questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team – we’re happy to help.

The post Microsoft SMTP AUTH Deprecation in 2026: What You Need to Know appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

March 2026 marks 20 years since the very first public release of MIDAS. We first unveiled Version 1.00 of our room booking and resource scheduling software to the world on 11th March 2006.

Where it all began

Work actually began on MIDAS a few months earlier. In December 2005, Mark Harrington, the creator of MIDAS, was working in a brand new Performing Arts College – the first of its kind in Greater Manchester, UK.

This new school for students aged 11-16 boasted impressive state-of-the-art facilities. These included sports facilities, dance studio, 300-seat community theatre, outdoor stage, recording studios and rehearsal space.

All these spaces were available for internal use during the school day and for hire by external clients and community groups in the evenings, weekends, and school holidays.

Soon after the new school opened, the school appointed a Community Facilities Manager, Miriam. Her role was to oversee bookings and the smooth operation of the exciting new facilities. Demand from the local community was immediately high.

It soon became obvious that the software the school had been using for handling their room bookings was not up to scratch. It was simply not meeting the increasing demands on the busy new facilities.

The (now defunct) software named “VenueBooker”, was slow, cumbersome, buggy, and not very user-friendly.

After much discussion, frustration, and plenty of “wouldn’t it be great if we had a system that could…?” conversations, they soon realized that no existing alternatives did everything they wanted from an ideal room scheduling system.

The Problem That Sparked an Idea

Mark had a strong programming background. He was confident he could build something that covered everything a Community Facilities Manager would need — facilities, clients, and bookings.

So Mark sat down with Miriam and the two of them brainstormed how she wanted the software to ideally function.

Dozens of sheets of paper later, covered with all kinds of scribbled notes, arrows, and flow charts, Mark had something to go away and work on!

A few days later, Mark had a working prototype: MIDAS v0.01.

Mark named the software “MIDAS”, although to this day he has never confirmed whether that’s an acronym that stands for “Mark’s Infrastructure Daily Allocation System“, or “Miriam’s Infrastructure Daily Allocation System“(!)

Over the Christmas holidays of 2005, Mark worked diligently to develop and improve MIDAS, ready to deploy it at the school in the new year.

He even spent New Year’s Eve sitting in front of his computer at the stroke of midnight, coding away!

Within the first few weeks of 2006, MIDAS went “live” at the school for the first time. It transformed the way staff and external clients booked rooms.

Now for the first time, staff could check room availability themselves using just their web browser. The booking process was simpler, more efficient, and streamlined. Bookings increased substantially, revenue rose accordingly, and double-bookings were finally a thing of the past.

Going Public

Mark quickly realised MIDAS could help other schools and organisations facing the same challenges. Just a few months after the first internal prototype, he publicly released MIDAS v1.00 on 11th March 2006.

What began as a solution for one school has since grown into a trusted booking system that organisations across the world rely on.

Fast forward to 2026

For twenty years, MIDAS has evolved alongside changing technologies, shifting user expectations, and an increasingly competitive software landscape.

In that time, we’ve helped thousands of users in dozens of countries manage millions of bookings.

Our resource scheduling software remains in active development and we remain true to our original ethos of helping organizations of all shapes and sizes better manage their facilities and resource bookings.

Through browser revolutions, mobile adoption, cloud computing, and changing security standards, MIDAS has continuously adapted without losing its core mission.

New feature-rich updates are released at least three times a year, and many loyal customers stay with us for years.

Celebrating our 20th Anniversary

To coincide with our 20th anniversary, today we’re releasing the latest update to our MIDAS software, v4.42. Read about the new features in MIDAS v4.42.

Also to mark the 20th anniversary of our MIDAS room booking software, for a limited time – until 31st March 2026 – new customers get 20% off with Promo Code MIDAS20.

The Future

We’re tremendously proud to have been here for the past 20 years.

In that time, hundreds of competitors have appeared, many of whom were short-lived and have since vanished. MIDAS has stood the test of time.

To all our customers, whether you’ve been with us for the past 20 years, or just the past month – we appreciate you choosing MIDAS and sincerely thank you for your support! – You’ve committed to us, and we in turn continue to be fully committed to you.

New to MIDAS?

If you’ve never come across MIDAS before today (where have you been for the last twenty years?!) we appreciate that there’s a vast array of options out there today when it comes to choosing a room booking system.

Maybe you’re currently considering a change and are evaluating a number of different scheduling software solutions.

Whether you’re looking for a cloud booking or self-hosted booking system, a subscription or a perpetual license – we’ve got the facility management software for you!

When evaluating potential booking solutions, make sure you take into account 3 key factors:

• How long a product has been established?
• How frequently are updates released?
• How responsive and reliable is customer support?

With MIDAS, you get a solid product from a trusted booking software provider with a proven track record. You get a stable system that’s in active development with unrivalled support to back it up!

Did you know that we even offer a no-obligation free 30-day trial today? Get yours today and experience the reliability that has defined MIDAS for two decades.

Twenty years ago, MIDAS began as a solution to a single school’s challenge. Today, it stands as a proven, stable, and continually evolving room booking solution trusted by organizations worldwide.

If you’re searching for a system built not just for today, but for the long term, now is the perfect time to experience MIDAS for yourself.

Don’t forget – use code MIDAS20 at checkout for 20% off your first purchase or subscription. Offer ends 31st March 2026.^*

* Promotional Code valid until 31st March 2026 and is valid for initial MIDAS purchases or subscriptions only. We reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time.

The post MIDAS at 20: Celebrating Two Decades of Room Booking Innovation appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

Over the past week, a significant and fast-moving controversy has unfolded in the AI industry – one that has caused us, along with many others, to take a hard look at which AI companies we choose to support and partner with.

We’ve decided to switch. From today, MIDAS is moving away from OpenAI and over to Claude, the AI assistant developed by Anthropic.

Here’s why.

What Happened

If you haven’t been following the news, here’s a quick summary. The US Department of Defense had been using Anthropic’s Claude AI on its classified networks – the first AI to be deployed in that context. As the contract came up for renegotiation, the Pentagon demanded that Anthropic remove two key restrictions from the agreement: a prohibition on using Claude to power fully autonomous weapons systems, and a prohibition on using it for mass domestic surveillance of American citizens.

Anthropic refused. Their CEO, Dario Amodei, was unequivocal: current AI models are simply not reliable enough to be trusted with lethal autonomous targeting decisions, and mass surveillance of citizens is incompatible with democratic values. The company had tried for months to reach a workable agreement, but the Pentagon’s position was that it required the ability to use AI for “all lawful purposes” without restriction – a standard that, as legal experts have noted, is far broader than it sounds.

The fallout was swift. President Trump ordered every federal agency to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Anthropic would be designated a national security supply chain risk. Hours later, OpenAI – having apparently been in talks throughout – announced it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to fill the gap.

Many of OpenAI’s own employees were furious. A number of them, along with other prominent tech figures, signed an open letter opposing the government’s retaliation against Anthropic. Sam Altman himself had written in an internal memo just days earlier that OpenAI shared Anthropic’s “red lines” – before going on to sign a deal that critics said those red lines were far less robustly protected.

The contrast in the two companies’ behaviour was stark and, for us, clarifying.

Why This Matters to Us

We’re a small UK software company. We make room booking software. We’re not in the defence industry, and the intricacies of US military contracting aren’t something we’d normally have strong opinions about.

But this issue isn’t really about US military contracts. It’s about what kind of company you’re doing business with – what they stand for, and what they’re willing to sacrifice to stay in favour with those in power.

Anthropic chose to walk away from a government contract worth up to $200 million rather than remove safeguards they believed were ethically essential. OpenAI, in the same week its CEO had privately affirmed those same values to his own staff, made the opposite choice.

We think that matters. The companies whose technology we choose to use reflect, in a small way, on us. And we’d rather reflect the values of a company that held its ground.

What We’ve Changed

We used OpenAI’s models primarily in two places within our products and workflows:

Miriam, our virtual assistant. When no live support agents are available, visitors to our website can get help from Miriam, our AI-powered chatbot. Miriam was previously powered by OpenAI. She’s now powered by Claude.

Code optimisation. As we written about previously, we’ve been using AI assistance to help our human developers optimise MIDAS source code – identifying opportunities to make our software run faster and more efficiently. We’ve switched that workflow from ChatGPT to Claude as well.

In both cases, the transition has been smooth. Claude is a highly capable model, and we’re pleased with the results so far.

We’re Not Alone

Claude surged to number one on the Apple App Store in the days following the controversy. Thousands of individuals and organisations made the same decision we did – not because Anthropic asked them to, but because the situation made the choice feel important.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t simply about picking a “winner” in a commercial rivalry. We genuinely hope the situation with Anthropic and the US government is resolved fairly and without further retaliation. Anthropic has, by all accounts, been one of the most thoughtful voices in AI development when it comes to safety and responsible deployment. The idea of that voice being sidelined – or punished for speaking up – should concern anyone who cares about where this technology is heading.

A Note on AI in MIDAS

As we’ve said before, AI is not taking over the development of MIDAS. Our software is, and will remain, built and maintained by our human team. But AI tools have become a genuinely useful part of how we work – and it matters to us that we use them thoughtfully, including being selective about whose tools we use and why.

If you have any questions about these changes, or about how AI is used in our products, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

The post Why We’ve Switched from OpenAI to Claude appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

If you follow our blog, you’ll already know about some of the new and improved features in v4.42. One example is the expansion of administrative permissions.

Administrative Area Improvements

The old “Manage MIDAS” screen has been split into separate sections, each now controlled by its own dedicated permission and accompanied by a unique icon.

Changes have also been made within each administrative area. We’ve moved the previous “Save Changes” button from underneath the settings to being fixed in the top-right corner. This eliminates the need to scroll through lengthy settings pages to save changes.

We’ve also refined the way changes are saved within administrative screens.

Improved Save and Change Indicators

The addition of a new “Unsaved Changes” indicator alongside the new save button draws user’s attention to changes they’ve made to settings which have yet to be saved.

In addition to the UI and UX improvements in the administrative area, we’ve also improved the “Quick Tour” in MIDAS v4.42.

Enhanced Quick Tour Experience

The “Quick Tour” is shown to new users by default upon their initial sign in. It provides a brief overview of the user interface and controls.

We have replaced outdated third-party code previously used to generate dynamic tooltips. In its place we’ve written new code for generating these tooltips. This has allowed us to make improvements, one of which is better highlighting of elements in the “Quick Tour”.

These updates reflect our ongoing commitment to making MIDAS both powerful and easy to use. By continually refining the interface and enhancing usability, we help administrators and end users work more efficiently every day.

If you’re new to MIDAS, start your free trial today and experience the improvements firsthand.

The post User Interface Improvements in MIDAS v4.42 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

MIDAS allows you to import bookings and data from a range of applications, and we’re always looking to extend this support.

In our last update, v4.41, we introduced better support for importing bookings from Skedda. This included support for “multi-room” bookings, as well as additional date and time formats.

In v4.42, we’ve introduced several additional improvements to make data imports even smoother.

Automatic Field Detection and Mapping

When importing data MIDAS needs to understand how fields in your source data correspond to fields in your MIDAS system. This process is known as field mapping.

After selecting a file to import, MIDAS offers a preview of your data in a table view. At the top of each column is a drop-down selector. This is used to inform MIDAS of the type of data contained in each column.

For example, if you’re importing bookings, one column in your source data will contain the room or space name. Setting that column’s drop-down selector to “Venue” ensures the data is imported correctly.

Until now, selecting the correct value from the drop-down selector at the top of each column was a manual process. For v4.42, MIDAS will now try and automatically detect the data in each column and suggest an appropriate value for its drop-down.

Of course, you should still check the drop-down for each column before continuing, but this new ‘auto detection’ feature should make importing data into MIDAS easier.

Support for Importing Split Client Names

In many cases of data import, client names are contained within a single field of data.

For instance, if you’re importing a booking for “Joe Blogs”, it’s likely that there’ll be a single field containing the text “Joe Blogs” in your raw data.

Some booking systems however may split client names across multiple fields when exporting data. There may for example be separate fields for first (given) name and last (surname).

MIDAS typically expects a single field containing the client name, but for v4.42 we’ve added support for instances such as the one described above where names are split across fields.

This improvement makes it easier to migrate to MIDAS from booking systems such as Hallmaster.

Together, these improvements reduce manual setup and make transitioning to MIDAS faster and more efficient.

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We’re now making it easier to apply bulk permission changes across multiple user accounts.

Previous Behavior

In previous versions, when adding or modifying a user account, an “assign permissions from group” drop-down was presented above the various user permissions that could be assigned:

This was a great way to quickly copy the current permissions from a user group to an individual user account.

However, this was a one-time action. MIDAS would snapshot the selected user group’s current permissions and apply them to the individual user account. Any subsequent changes to the group’s permissions would not affect existing user accounts.

Introducing Permission Inheritance

So we have re-worked this for MIDAS v4.42. The “Assign permissions from group” selector has been removed and replaced by a new role-based “Inherit Permissions from” selector.

When a user account is set to inherit permissions from a user group, any subsequent changes to that group’s permissions will automatically apply to all linked user accounts.

This now allows you to bulk modify user account permissions with ease!

When to use manual permissions

If you still want to grant or revoke individual permissions on a per-account basis, you can – simply set the “Inherit Permissions from” option to “[None]”. When you do this, MIDAS will display the complete list of current permissions for that user, allowing you to make individual changes as required.

User accounts set to ‘[None]’ will not be affected by changes to any user group permissions.

While this new feature may not be all that significant for customers with only a handful of user accounts, larger organizations with several hundred users will benefit greatly from the ability to modify user permissions in bulk.

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These allow the creation of anything from fully privileged administrative accounts to ones with very limited “view only” permissions, and everything in between.

To provide administrators with even greater control, we’ve extended the range of available permissions for MIDAS v4.42 to now include 14 additional administrative permissions.

These new permissions replace the previous “Can Manage MIDAS” permission. This generic permission controlled whether a user was able to access the “Manage MIDAS” configuration screens.

Over time the “Manage MIDAS” screens have grown to include a vast array of options and settings. These screens allowed users to change email settings, update templates, configure scheduled tasks, tweak invoice or database settings, and much more.

For v4.42, we have split up the old “Manage MIDAS” screen into separate sections. Access to each section is now controlled by its own dedicated permission. This means, for instance, that you can grant permission to a user to be able to modify your templates, but not allow them to adjust the email settings of your MIDAS system.

The 14 new administrative permissions added in v4.42 are:

• Can Manage Appearance Settings
• Can Manage Booking Settings
• Can Manage Database Settings
• Can Manage Email Settings
• Can Manage Fields
• Can Manage Invoice Settings
• Can Manage Miscellaneous Settings
• Can Manage Print Settings
• Can Manage Public Settings
• Can Manage Safety Settings
• Can Manage Scheduled Tasks
• Can Manage Security Settings
• Can Manage Templates
• Can Update Software (Not applicable in cloud-hosted systems)

When updating from an earlier version to v4.42, any user account which held the “Can Manage MIDAS” permission will automatically be granted all 14 of the new administrative permissions during the update.

Administrators can then refine access for each user account via MIDAS Admin Options → Users.

These changes, together with the ability to make bulk permission changes, provide administrators with significantly greater flexibility and control over who can access specific system settings.

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