Whether you’re an existing user or totally new to the MIDAS way of online scheduling, we need your help to “test” this new update. This allows us to help identify and fix andy issues before its public release!
Becoming a Beta Tester couldn’t be easier. It’s completely free, there’s nothing to download, and you don’t need any programming experience or knowledge! All you need is your web browser and a bit of spare time! So why not sign up right now!
The more people we have testing this pre-release “beta” version of our popular room scheduling software, the sooner we can release this exciting new update!
As we’ve previously mentioned, in MIDAS v4 you’ll be able to do more directly from the booking grid. One such new improvement will allow you to…
Generate Invoices Directly from the Booking Grid!
Prior to v4, if you wanted MIDAS to generate an invoice for a booking, this had to be generated at time of booking. In v4, whilst that option still remains, you’ll also find a new icon when selecting a booking in the grid, which will allow you to instantly generate an invoice for that booking (provided one hasn’t been previously generated)
One-Click Invoice Generation
We’ve also further improved the invoicing capabilities for MIDAS v4, as it will allow you to…
Retrospectively Generate Invoices for Clients
Retrospective Invoice Generating
In v4, you can select a client, and a date range, and MIDAS will generate a single invoice incorporating all that client’s bookings over the selected date range! …and what’s more, MIDAS will ignore any bookings for which invoices have already been created, meaning that you’ll never invoice for the same booking twice! You can also select the “All Clients” option, and MIDAS will generate a separate invoice for each client with bookings across the date range you select.
This feature will be ideal if you have one person adding bookings, and another looking after the invoicing side, as it will allow them to, for example, generate an invoice for a client one month at a time in arrears!
We’ve also added a couple of new invoicing settings:
Invoice Settings
“Include zero value invoice items?“ – If selected, venues and resources for which there is no charge will still be included on invoices for completeness and/or if you need to denote that the client is getting something free of charge. If this option is not selected, items who’s total charge is zero will not appear on generated invoices.
“Create invoices even if invoice total is zero?“ – If unselected, MIDAS will only generate invoices where the invoice total is greater than zero. If selected, MIDAS will generate invoices regardless of invoice total.
Last week, we posted about ensuring your server is ready for MIDAS v4. In doing so, we unveiled that this major update would utilize a new database system… but why this change?
MIDAS Database Evolution
First came CSV…
When development first started way back in 2005, MIDAS stored data in a series of “flat file” databases. These were essentially character-delimited data files (similar to the popular CSV (comma separated value) file format). As MIDAS developed and grew over the next couple years, this format for storing data become more and more restrictive to what we wanted to do with MIDAS. Consequently, an improved method for storing data was needed.
…followed by XML
A new database format was first introduced with MIDAS v3, in 2010, when we moved the data storage over to an XML based format. This offered a number of improvements, allowed for customizations, and was more “robust” than the previous “flat file” format
However, this XML based format does have some drawbacks. As the storage was still essentially file and disk based, the performance of MIDAS was dependent on the number and size of XML files MIDAS had to read from, process, and write to disk. Now, for the majority of our customers, this has never been an issue. However, for a very small number of customers – those with a very high number of venues/bookings/users, etc, – the file/disk based nature of the XML storage format, could impact on the speed and performance of MIDAS.
…and so that’s the primary reason why starting with MIDAS v4, we’ve moved over to a faster, and “industry-standard”, database format – MySQL.
Introducing MySQL
“If MySQL is so good, why hasn’t this been implemented sooner?” Well, when MIDAS was originally created over 7 years ago, MySQL was in its infancy! At that time, few servers ran MySQL by default, and there were very few web applications around that used it. In those days, if you wanted to add MySQL support to your website hosting account, it would likely be an expensive “add on”. For this reason, we initially took the decision not to rely on MySQL, as we wanted to make MIDAS as widely accessible as possible. This is why, for the last 7 years, you’ve only needed a web server running Perl to host MIDAS.
However, the Internet has come a long way in the last 7 years! These days, MySQL is common place. The vast majority of web servers/web hosting packages now have MySQL available and ready to use “out of the box”, and a very large number of websites and popular website software use MySQL databases.
When MIDAS v4 becomes available this Summer, if you wish to install/run this new version of our scheduling software on your own web server, MySQL 5.1 (or later) must be available. So check your server now, so you don’t miss out!
In summer 2012 we have a major update coming to our web based room scheduling software. Starting with version 4, MIDAS will use a MySQL database for storage. Earlier releases of MIDAS have used different database architectures (which we look at in more depth in this blog post) and as such MySQL has not previously been a System Requirement for a server running MIDAS.
If you wish to run MIDAS v4 on your own web server, MySQL 5.1 (or later) is required.
Why MySQL?
MySQL, the world’s most popular open-source database, can be freely obtained from www.mysql.com
In addition, two Perl modules not previously required for MIDAS will be required for v4. These modules, “DBI” and “DBD::mysql”, may already be present in your Perl installation, but if they’re not, they may be freely obtained from the following links:
DBI – Database independent interface for Perl (Get it here)
DBD::MySQL – A MySQL driver for the Perl5 Database Interface (Get it here)
If you’re unsure whether these Perl modules are already available on your server, our updated Server Readiness Tool will tell you!
If you’re currently running MIDAS v3 on your own server and are unable to use MySQL, you can carry on using version 3. However, v3 will continue to receive critical fixes only. Alternatively, you can have your MIDAS v4 “cloud hosted” by us instead.
If we already “Cloud Host” MIDAS for you, you don’t need to do anything to be ready for MIDAS v4! – Our servers are already prepared for MIDAS v4!
In summer 2012 we have a major update coming to our web based room scheduling software. Starting with version 4, MIDAS will use a