Development is nearing completion on the next exciting update to our room booking and resource scheduling software, MIDAS, and over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing a “first look” at some of the new and improved features coming in v4.13.
One of the new features in MIDAS v4.13 is “Desktop Notifications” on web browsers which support such notifications (At time of writing, this includes current versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, with Edge support coming soon!).
Desktop Notifications are small pop-up messages (sometimes called “toasts” due to the way they animate – like toast popping up out of a toaster!) generated by an application. You’ve probably seen similar notifications before – for example in your email client or messenger apps when a new message arrives.
In MIDAS, Desktop Notifications will alert you to new booking requests requiring your approval, as well as new messages from other users, reminders, and watch notifications. Notifications will usually display in the lower left corner of your screen, even if your web browser window is minimized or hiding behind another application – so you’ll never miss another notification!
The notifications will also automatically close after a few seconds, or can be closed manually.
In order to take advantage of Desktop Notifications in MIDAS v4.13, the first time a notification is to be shown, your web browser will prompt you to allow desktop notifications for your MIDAS system. Simply click “Allow” to grant permission to MIDAS to show you notifications (you’ll only need to grant this permission once):
If you decide at a later stage that you wish to turn off your MIDAS Desktop Notifications, you’ll be able to disable them in your browser’s settings.
MIDAS v4.13 is expected to be made available to Beta Testers in the next few weeks, with a general release shortly after. We’re always looking for additional testers to help test and provide feedback/bug reports on pre-release versions of our software, like v4.13. Becoming a tester is free and no experience is required, and what’s more we’ll reward you for your participation! Find out more about becoming a MIDAS Beta Tester here.
If you would like to be notified when v4.13 is fully released, then why not join our Mailing List?
What makes our MIDAS room & resource booking system the fully-featured and comprehensive complete scheduling solution of choice for organizations across the globe? Well, that’s due in no small part to a small group of “beta testers” many of whom are existing customers too!
What is a Beta Tester?
A Beta Tester is someone who tests pre-release versions of our MIDAS scheduling software that aren’t quite ready to be released just yet, and reports any issues/glitches they encounter to us so that we can resolve them before the release becomes publicly available. This also gives our testers a “first look” at new and improved features too and their feedback and comments on these are invaluable to us and often result in changes before a new/improved feature is fully rolled out.
Can anyone become a Beta Tester?
Yes! Regardless of whether you’re an existing MIDAS user or not, anyone can apply to become a BETA Tester. You don’t need any programming experience or knowledge, there’s nothing to download… and it’s completely FREE!
What is required?
A few weeks before each significant new update to MIDAS is due to be released (we currently release significant updates approx 3-4 times a year), we’ll email you inviting you to test it. You’ll be provided with a link and a user account to our online Beta Test Suite, where you’ll be able to login and start testing using just your web browser. The email we’ll send will also include details of what’s new, improved, or changed in the new version we’d like you to test, along with details of anything specific we’d like your help in testing for the new version.
What are the benefits?
To us, the benefits are enormous, as this testing helps us identify and correct potential issues before a new version gets released… in return you’ll get first access to be able to explore new features before anyone else, and have a real input into the direction of our software! …oh, and we’ll also reward you too!…
Beta Rewards
Earlier this year we introduced our “Beta Rewards” program.
We want to recognize, acknowledge, and reward the valuable contribution Beta testers make to the success of our software!
As a Beta Tester, every bug you report in a pre-release “beta” test is assessed for its severity and likelihood and logged.
Once the version you’ve been testing is fully released, then if you’re already a MIDAS customer, we’ll credit* your account with an amount based on the number of bugs you reported, their severity, and likelihood of occurrence. This credit can then be applied to future support subscription renewals and/or upgrades and addons for your MIDAS system. If you’re not yet a customer, the same credit will be available as a discount off your initial MIDAS purchase*.
What’s more if you regularly partake in our beta tests you’ll get an acknowledgment in the software credits too!
Get Involved!
With MIDAS v4.13 fast approaching (more on that coming up in our blog throughout June), now is the perfect time to become a MIDAS Beta Tester!
Apply Now at https://mid.as/betatesters or contact us if you have any questions!
* Credits may only be used against our MIDAS software, subscriptions, addons and upgrades and have no cash equivalent.
As part of our ongoing commitment to security, you may notice that “Security Enhancements” often appears in the changelog when we release new builds.
In this blog post we’ll shed some light on some of the “security enhancements” that were recently introduced in MIDAS v4.11 and v4.12.
IP Change Detection
Starting with MIDAS v4.12, If a logged in user’s IP address changes whilst they are logged in, then the system will automatically log the user account out, forcing the user to log in again.
It’s rare that a user’s IP address would legitimately change mid-session, so this additional security enhancement will not be noticed by the majority of our users.
What it does do however is strengthen user sessions against a “session hijack“. In general terms, a “session hijack” is when a malicious attacker takes over a user account by gaining access to the unique identifying token (or cookie) of an active user session.
With the new IP Change Detection implemented in MIDAS v4.12, should a user fall victim to a session hijack, the session would be immediately invalidated as the originating IP address would suddenly change from the valid user’s IP address, to the IP address of the attacker.
→ Tip: User’s IP addresses are also logged in each MIDAS system’s Recent Activity Log
Shorter Cookie Persistence
We’ve all come across website with “Remember Me” or “Keep Me Logged In” tick boxes on login screens. These mean that you don’t have to remember your username & password for the site each time you come to log in. When you select this box, information is stored in a browser “cookie” and retrieved the next time you visit.
MIDAS has included a “Remember Me” tickbox on the login screen since v4.07 (September 2014). Previously, the cookie saved by your browser would persist until 1st January 2020 – some 4 years in the future!
This meant that if you were to log in to MIDAS today, you could come back to the same browser in a few years time, and still log in without needing to remember your credentials.
We felt this was a little too long for your browser to be retaining such data. Therefore, from MIDAS v4.12 the “Remember Me” option will only remember your details for a period of 90 days. If you don’t log in again within this period, you’ll have to manually enter your email address/password again the next time you do.
Why is this better? Well, it ensures that “dormant” user accounts (those not logged into for over 90 days) don’t have lingering login details persisting in client-side cookies.
→ Tip: MIDAS Administrators can choose to disable the “Remember Me” option completely. This may be done via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Security
Improved Session Control
In MIDAS v4.11, we introduced a new security setting to automatically log out any users that have remained logged-in for more than a set number of hours. This setting may be found under MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Security → Session Control.
This is different to existing “inactivity” logout setting, which causes users to be logged off after a period of no activity. The additional “Always force logout after…” setting automatically logs users off after a set period of time, regardless if they are “active” or not.
Why is this useful? Well, browser extensions/addons exist which automatically “reload” a webpage at a recurring interval. This could potentially allow a user account to remain logged-in indefinitely, even if the “Inactivity forces logout after…” setting was set.
For example, if “Inactivity forces logout after…” setting in MIDAS was set to “1 hour”, then usually 1 hour after a user’s last interaction with MIDAS, they will be automatically logged off. However, if an addon/extension were setup to “reload” part of MIDAS every 30 minutes, this would look like “user activity” to MIDAS, and so the account would never be automatically logged out.
To combat this, the new additional “Always force logout after…” setting was introduced for v4.11. If your business usually runs 9am-5pm, you could set this setting to 8 hours. This will mean that no user account can remained logged in for more than 8 hours in total. So if a user was to log in at 9am and use a browser addon/extension to effectively remain logged in all day, they will still be automatically logged out of MIDAS at 5pm.
New Session Manager
MIDAS can be configured to allow concurrent logins to user accounts from multiple browsers/devices. When enabled, this allows a user to be concurrently logged into MIDAS from their laptop, phone, and tablet.
MIDAS v4.11 introduced a new “Session Manager“. This allows users to see other devices they’re currently logged in from. The session manager shows the IP address and browser of each session, and allows you to remotely log out!
Improved Password Change Behavior
MIDAS offers the ability to allow multiple concurrent logins to the same user account. In v4.11 we’ve enhanced this security. We’ve made it so that if a user changes their MIDAS password, all other devices they’re currently logged into from will be automatically logged out. Previously, changing a password from one device wouldn’t take effect on other devices a user was logged into until the next time they logged in.
Cryptographically-secure Random Number Generation
MIDAS stores passwords which are SHA512 hashed and randomly “salted”. The “randomness” of this “salt” has been improved starting with v4.11. Now, if the Perl module “Math::Random::Secure” is available on the server where a MIDAS system resides, MIDAS will utilize it to generate cryptographically-secure random numbers.
During this time we’ve seen many competitors come and go, and numerous customers making the switch to MIDAS. We have a genuine passion for how our software helps make life easier, saving time, money, and effort for venue administrators right across the globe, and we remain extremely customer focused.
With exciting new and improved features being added to MIDAS several times each year, we’re pleased to tell you about our latest update – v4.12 – which has just been released!
Improved: Invoicing screen now shows “quick links” to recently created and recently finalized invoices
Improved: Bulk invoice generation can now be limited by venue/booking type
Change: Booking Request cancellation/notification unsubscribe links now require additional user click to confirm [Why?]
Performance & Security enhancements
Fixed: Cumulative roll-up of various fixes for issues discovered since v4.11 – see https://bugs.mid.as for details
How To Get MIDAS v4.12…
New To MIDAS?
We are committed to keeping our pricing fair and accessible to organizations of all sizes and budgets. Unlike many of our competitors who don’t publish their prices, we’re totally upfront and transparent about our pricing structure and clearly display prices on our website.
You can view pricing, find out more, and purchase MIDAS securely at https://mid.as/pricing
Existing “Self Hosted” Customer?
Self-Hosted customers with ongoing Annual Support Subscriptions may update to v4.12 right now! It only takes a couple of clicks – simply log in to your MIDAS system and go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Update
Existing “Cloud Hosted” Customer?
Cloud-Hosted customers don’t need to do anything! – All our active Cloud-Hosted MIDAS customers were automatically updated over the weekend to this latest version of MIDAS!
Help Improve MIDAS!
We’re able to bring you exciting updates like v4.12 thanks in part to our Beta Testers – many of whom are just every day MIDAS users!
Our Beta Testers get early-access to upcoming releases to explore and provide feedback on, allowing us to make changes and address potential issues before each new version is publicly released.
We also reward Testers for their contributions with discounts against the cost of purchasing MIDAS, or which can be used against upgrades & renewals for an existing MIDAS system!
We’re always on the lookout for additional testers to help shape future versions of MIDAS. It’s free to get involved and you don’t need any previous experience.
Development is nearing completion on the next exciting update to our room booking and resource scheduling software, MIDAS, and over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing a “first look” at some of the new and improved features coming in v4.13.
In order to take advantage of Desktop Notifications in MIDAS v4.13, the first time a notification is to be shown, your web browser will prompt you to allow desktop notifications for your MIDAS system. Simply click “Allow” to grant permission to MIDAS to show you notifications (you’ll only need to grant this permission once):
A Beta Tester is someone who tests pre-release versions of our MIDAS scheduling software that aren’t quite ready to be released just yet, and reports any issues/glitches they encounter to us so that we can resolve them before the release becomes publicly available. This also gives our testers a “first look” at new and improved features too and their feedback and comments on these are invaluable to us and often result in changes before a new/improved feature is fully rolled out.