Work is nearing completion on the next update to our MIDAS web based room booking and resource scheduling software, anticipated to be released next month.
In our previous blog post, we introduced the new setup/breakdown time features in v4.23. In this post, we’re highlighting one of the improvements we’re making in this next update to bulk modifying/deleting “similar” bookings.
The “modify similar bookings” feature allows you to select an existing booking, and then quickly locate other similar bookings for bulk modification. The “delete similar bookings” feature allows you to select an existing booking and then quickly locate other similar bookings for bulk deletion.
These features allow you to narrow down the search for “similar” bookings to those which fall within a certain date range, and/or which take place in a particular room/venue, and/or which are of a certain type.
Following customer feedback, we’re improving these options in v4.23. They’ll now also include the ability to restrict booking results to those which take place on particular days of the week.
Limit similar booking search results to specific days of the week
So now, if you want to modify all similar bookings over a date range, but only include those bookings which fall on say a Tuesday, you can!
Previously, you could still do this, but you’d have to list all relevant bookings in the date range, and then painstakingly mark each of those which fell on the specific day(s) you were interested in. In MIDAS v4.23 we’re making this process far less laborious!
We’re excited about these new features and we’re sure they’ll be of great benefit to our customers! Remember, we love feedback and feature requests from our customers, so do vote and let us know what you’d like to see in future updates to our software.
Work is nearly complete on the next update to our MIDAS web based room booking and resource scheduling software.
So we wanted to share some of the exciting new and improved features in this forthcoming release…
A commonly requested feature we’re asked for is the ability to add setup and breakdown times to bookings.
As MIDAS allows users to add custom booking fields, some customers add their own bespoke setup/breakdown fields to their MIDAS system to record how long is needed to setup/changeover. However, using custom booking fields in this way didn’t alter the actual start/finish times of the bookings themselves. Consequently, they could only be used to denote periods within the confines of the actual start/finish times of bookings.
We’ve listened to customer usage cases. As a result, we are delighted to announce that MIDAS v4.23 will now include full support for specifying setup/breakdown times for bookings!
Setup, build, load in, rig.. you decide
If these features are enabled, the standard Add/Modify Bookings screen will include two additional fields. By default theses are named “Setup” and “Breakdown” but the good news is that these names are customizable!. These fields allow specifying a setup period before the start, and a breakdown period at the end of each booking:
New Setup/Breakdown Fields in MIDAS v4.23
In the above screenshot, a booking is to be added from 8am – 10am. The booking has a 30 minute setup period before hand, and 15 minute breakdown period afterwards. The resulting booking would render in the booking grid as follows:
A booking indicating a 30 minute setup time before the start of the booking, and a 15 minute breakdown period at the end
As you’ve come to expect from our software, we provide loads of control over settings. The new setup/breakdown time options are no different!
Firstly, the names “Setup” and “Breakdown” may not be the most applicable to your business or operational needs. So you can choose from a list of alternatives, for “Setup” these include; “Arrival”, “Build”, “Fit up”, “Get in” “Load in”, and “Rig”. For “Breakdown” these include; “Departure”, “Derig”, “Get out”, “Load out”, “Reset”, and “Strike”. If none of those are suitable, you can even enter your own bespoke labels for these pre/post booking fields. Furthermore, you can set a default value for each field. Like other booking fields, choose whether they appear on printouts, and precisely control which users these fields are presented to:
Customize the pre/booking time fields with bespoke names and default values
Flexible functionality
In addition to be able to control the appearance/visibility of these new fields, we’re also giving you control over their functionality, with a host of new settings:
Control how the new setup/breakdown fields function
Choose whether the times shown on the Booking Availability screen should include setup/breakdown times, you can choose whether setup and/or breakdown times for bookings are allowed to overlap with other bookings, and also whether setup/breakdown times are allowed to overlap for resources.
What’s more, you can also control how setup/breakdown times are handled with respect to invoicing:
Invoicing options for setup/breakdown periods
You can include/exclude setup/breakdown times from being invoices, or indeed appearing on your invoices.
We’re excited about these new features and we’re sure they’ll be of great benefit to our customers! Remember, we love feedback and feature requests from our customers, so do vote and let us know what you’d like to see in future updates to our software.
We’re excited to announce the release today of v4.22 of our MIDAS room booking system, which includes the often requested feature of “custom client fields”.
Similar to the existing “custom booking fields” feature we first introduced back in 2010, which allows administrators to add further bespoke booking fields to their MIDAS booking system in addition of the standard booking fields, the new custom client fields feature provides similar functionality now to your client records.
What’s more, customers running self-hosted MIDAS booking systems can now also attach documents (for instance insurance certificates, signed contracts, etc) directly to client records through the use of custom client fields.
Improved: Initial page title now indicates friendly database name if only a single database is defined
Improved: The MIDAS updater now also automatically updates any installed addons
Improved: Logging for IPv6 and IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses
Improved: Custom Logo shown when logged in (in bottom left) now auto hides if booking information panel would cover it
Update: Stripe for SCA regulation (3D Secure support)
Fixed: Cumulative roll-up of various fixes for issues discovered since v4.21
How To Get MIDAS v4.22…
New To MIDAS?
We are committed to fair and accessible pricing for all organizations regardless of size. We’re totally upfront and transparent about our pricing structure, and you can purchase MIDAS v4.22 securely through our website and be up and running in no time!
“Self Hosted” Customers:
Self-Hosted customers with ongoing Annual Support Subscriptions will shortly be able to update to v4.22. It only takes a couple of clicks – simply log in to your MIDAS system and go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Update.
If no update is available, please check back again in a day or so.
“Cloud Hosted” Customers:
Cloud-Hosted customers don’t need to do anything! – All our active Cloud-Hosted MIDAS customers will be automatically updated to this latest version of MIDAS over the coming weekend!
Thank you for your continued support of our software, and we hope you’ll enjoy the new features and improvements in MIDAS v4.22!
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at SPF and why its important in ensuring email from your MIDAS room booking system is reliably delivered.
SPF stands for “Sender Policy Framework” and its purpose is to prevent unauthorized people from forging your e-mail address and pretending to be you. SPF has been around for a number of years now, but in recent times has been growing in popularity as more and more websites and email providers start enforcing it.
As our MIDAS web based room booking systems are capable of sending email on your behalf, it’s important to understand how SPF works and how it can help solve email delivery issues in MIDAS.
Take for instance the following example Scenario:
Your MIDAS system is running on domain “A” (i.e. your-organization.mid.as)
Your MIDAS system is configured to send emails to appear as though they are sent from an email address belonging to domain “B” (i.e. your-organization.com)
An email is sent from your MIDAS system to a recipient with an email address on domain C
In the above example, the receiving mail server for domain C queries the SPF record on domain B to check whether domain A is authorized to send mail on behalf of domain B. If it isn’t the email is rejected.
An SPF record is simply a TXT record in a given domain’s DNS, and a simple example may look similar to this:
v=spf1 +a +mx ~all
The format of an SPF record begins with a version number; the current SPF version is “v = spf1”. Following the version string, any number of expressions may be included which are evaluated in the order they appear. These consist of an optional “qualifier” (+, -, ~, or ?) and a “mechanism” (all, a, mx, ip4, or include). The first mechanism that is matched in the SPF record determines the result of the entire valuation of the SPF record.
Qualifiers:
Qualifier
Result
Description
+
Pass
Defines an authorized sender (If no qualifier is specified, + is assumed)
–
Fail
Defines an unauthorized sender
~
SoftFail
Defines an unauthorized sender (however it may not notify the sender that their email failed)
?
Neutral
Defines a sender whose legitimacy isn’t determined (In such instances, sending is allowed)
Mechanisms:
Mechanism
Applies if…
all
always
a
An A (or AAAA) record of the polled (or explicitly specified) domain contains the IP address of the sender
mx
An A (or AAAA) record of the polled (or explicitly specified) domain contains the IP address of the sender
ip4
The specified IPv4 address is the IP address of the sender or of the specified IPv4 subnet which contains it
include
An additional SPF request for the domain specified in the include statement contains the IP address of the sender
SPF records cannot be over 255 characters in length and cannot include more than ten “include” statements.
Email delivery will be allowed if it originated from the same domain it was sent (+a).
Email delivery will also be allowed if it originated from the specific IP address 1.2.3.4
Email delivery will be rejected if it originated from the IP address 5.6.7.8.
Email delivery will be allowed if it matches the rules defined in the SPF record on “somedomain.com”
All other email sources will be softly rejected (~all)
Bringing it back to MIDAS…
If you run a cloud-hosted MIDAS system at the domain “your-organization.mid.as”, your organization’s own website is “your-organization.com”, and you wish to allow your MIDAS system to send email on behalf of addresses @your-organization.com, then you should setup/modify an SPF record on your-organization.com.
This SPF record would authorize your hosted MIDAS system to send email on behalf of your organization. Failing to correctly set an SPF record for your domain may mean that emails sent from your MIDAS system may not reach recipients.
For our hosted customers, you can simply include “include:_spf.midas.network” in your-organization.com’s SPF record. Your new/modified SPF record may then look similar to this:
v=spf1 +a +mx include:_spf.midas.network ~all
In the above example:
Email delivery will be allowed if it originated from the same domain it was sent (+a).
Email delivery will be allowed if it originated from the same mail server as it was sent (+mx)
Email delivery will be allowed if it matches the rules defined in the SPF record on “_spf.midas.network”. This will allow your hosted MIDAS system to become an authorized sender of email for your domain.
All other email sources will be softly rejected (~all)
Remember, SPF records are simply TXT records within your domain’s DNS. If you’re not sure how to set/modify DNS records for your own domain, you’ll need to defer to the domain’s administrator, registrar, or hosting provider who should be able to assist in making the necessary adjustments to your domain’s DNS record
