MIDAS v4: A Fresh New Look

2 minute read time · Updated March 8, 2024

If you’ve been following our recent blog posts, you’ll know we have an exciting update coming to MIDAS! You may also have noticed from early screenshots we’ve already posted from this update that the default visual “theme” has also gone through some changes…..

The previous “Default” theme: (MIDAS v3)

MIDAS v3 Default Theme

The new “Default” theme: (MIDAS v4)

MIDAS v4 Default Theme

The new “Metro” inspired default theme that will ship with MIDAS v4 will feature slightly larger icons than previous themes – the reasons behind this are two-fold;

1) Larger Screen Resolutions

Firstly, screen resolutions are generally getting larger – for many years the most common screen resolution was 1024 x 768 pixels. A recent study found that currently the most common screen resolution in use is 1366 x 768. As people choose screens with higher and higher resolutions, graphical items appear comparatively “smaller” on screen.

2) Touch Screens

Secondly, touch screen devices (such as tablets and iPads) are now common place, and with the eagerly anticipated release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system later this year (which is very much geared towards touch screen devices), we expect the number of touch-enabled devices to increase dramatically.

If you’re familiar with touch screen devices, you’ll know it can sometimes be frustrating trying to accurately “tap” a very small target area on screen.

Microsoft have conducted extensive research on fingers and touch screens. They discovered that the average width of a human finger is 11mm. As targets for tapping get larger, the percentage of accidental missed taps drops off quickly. Therefore, ideally, a tap target should be at least 11mm (about 40px) in size.

MIDAS v3 IconMIDAS v4 Icon
“Add Bookings” icon (MIDAS v3)
30 x 30 pixels		“Add Bookings” icon (MIDAS v4)
40 x 40 pixels

In the previous “default” theme for MIDAS, the main toolbar icons were 30 x 30 pixels in size. In the new “default” theme, toolbar icons are now 40 x 40 pixels in size.

Notifications have also been made more prominent on toolbar icons for MIDAS v4:

MIDAS v4 Toolbar Notifications
MIDAS v3 ButtonsMIDAS v4 Buttons
Buttons in MIDAS v3Buttons in MIDAS v4

We’ve also increased the size of other buttons and some text elements – all in an effort to make MIDAS more accessible to tablet, iPad, and other touch screen users, and those using higher resolution screens!

We hope you’ll like the new look for MIDAS v4, but if you don’t, no problem! – There will be a version of the previous MIDAS v3 default theme available for v4 as well!

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New “History” panel shows full history for each booking

1 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023

History tab of Booking Information PanelWe’re making improvements to the “Booking Information” panel for MIDAS v4 with the addition of a new “History” tab.

Prior to v4, only two pieces of history information were saved for each booking. These were the original booking creation date/time and the user who created the booking, and the date, time and user who last modified the booking.

The new history tab improves on this, as it will now display a complete history trail for each new booking.

Every update that is made to a booking will be logged, together with the user who made the update and the date and time the update occurred.

The history panel will also log details if a booking is deleted, an invoice is generated for a booking, and indicate whether the booking resulted from a booking request!

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Do more direct from the Booking Grid!

2 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023

In MIDAS v4 we’re making the process of moving/rescheduling bookings incredibly simple!!

Until now, if you needed to move a booking to a different venue, or perhaps postpone it until the following week, you’d have to click on the booking in the grid, select “Modify Booking”, then manually change the venue/dates/times on the “Modify Booking Form”. After that you’d have to proceed through the “Booking Availability” check before the booking is finally rescheduled – all in all requiring half a dozen or more mouse clicks and at least a couple of minutes as you went through the various steps.

In MIDAS v4 you can reschedule bookings in seconds…
…simply “drag and drop” the existing booking to a new venue/time slot!

Drag and Drop Bookings to Reschedule

Display pending/provisional and deleted bookings in the grid!

Moving bookings is not all you can do from the improved booking grid in v4! You can now also show pending booking requests as well as recently deleted bookings in the booking grid too!

Pending booking requests can then be approved/queried/modified/rejected/locked direct from the booking grid with just a click:

Approve Provisional Booking Requests from the Grid

..and deleted bookings can be restored in the same way too:

Recover Deleted Bookings

Generate Invoices directly from the grid!

Generate Invoice

Don’t want to generate an invoice when making a booking? No problem! In MIDAS v4 you can click a booking in the grid and instantly generate an invoice for that booking!

These exciting new improvements to the booking grid in MIDAS v4 will undoubtedly improve your productivity by streamlining the process of rescheduling bookings, approving requests, and recovering erroneously deleted bookings!

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Improvements To Booking Requests

2 minute read time · Updated January 17, 2024

We’ve been busy developing a major new update to our scheduling software, MIDAS.

This update packed full of new and improved features, many of which have originated from ideas and suggestions from our existing users.

An often requested feature is to have the ability to “route” booking requests to different users, depending upon the venue being requested.

Currently, all booking requests received by your MIDAS system go into a central “pool”. From this pool, any user with the “Can Process Web Requests” permission can view, approve, query, modify, reject, or lock the requests.

In MIDAS v4 however, Booking Requests can be routed to different users based upon the venue that’s been requested!

You can essentially configure which requests go to which administrators. In an educational setting this would, for example, allow sports staff to manage requests for your sporting facilities. At the same time, office staff could separately manage incoming requests for your meeting rooms.

How it works…

In MIDAS v4, you’ll find a new “Managers” tab on the “Manage Venues” screen.

From this tab, you can assign one or more existing users to “manage” booking requests for the selected venue:

Assigning Managers to Venues in MIDAS
Assigning Venue Managers in MIDAS

Then, when a member of the public then makes a booking request for that venue, “managers” of that venue are sent an automated email notification by MIDAS. This informs them that a new pending booking request requires attention. These email notifications may be turned on/off at any time through the manager’s “Pending Booking Requests” screen.

The manager can then log in to MIDAS and go to their Pending Booking Requests screen. From here, they’ll see outstanding requests for all the venues they manage. Booking requests can be approved with a click of the mouse.

The Booking Request screen also offers additional functions. Requests can be modified – for instance, they can be moved to a different time, date, venue, etc. Requests can also be rejected, queried with the original requester, or locked. Locking a request prevents any other manager from processing the booking request whilst you’re dealing with it. For example, you may need to query something with the client before approving their request and don’t want another user approving their request in the interim.

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