Booking and scheduling should be quick. Yet checking whether a room is free, adding a booking, or pulling up next week’s schedule still usually means logging in, clicking through menus, and filling in forms. What if you could simply ask?

We are pleased to announce the new MIDAS MCP Server add-on, which lets you connect your MIDAS room and resource booking system directly to the AI assistant of your choice, including Claude, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini. Once connected, you can check availability, add and amend bookings, look up clients, manage resources, and even raise invoices, all through natural conversation.

What is an MCP server?

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol. It is an open standard that lets AI assistants connect securely to other software and data sources. On its own, an AI assistant has no way to look things up in your systems or carry out actions in them. An MCP server bridges that gap. It exposes a defined set of “tools” that an AI assistant is allowed to use, so the assistant can read information from a connected system and, where permitted, make changes to it too.

Because MCP is an open standard, any AI platform that supports it can connect to a compatible MCP server. That means the MIDAS MCP Server is not tied to a single AI provider. You choose the assistant you already use and prefer, and connect it to MIDAS.

Book and manage rooms using plain English

Once the MIDAS MCP Server is enabled and connected to your AI assistant, everyday booking tasks become as simple as asking a question. For example, you could say:

• “Is the Boardroom free tomorrow afternoon?”
• “Book Studio 1 from 2pm to 4pm on Friday for a client meeting.”
• “Show me all bookings for Meeting Room 3 next week.”
• “Which rooms are available on Thursday morning for 20 people?”
• “Generate an invoice for last month’s confirmed bookings for Acme Ltd.”
• “Who is the client with the email address jane@example.com?”

Your AI assistant translates each request into the appropriate action, sends it to MIDAS, and replies in plain English. There are no menus to navigate and no forms to complete for these routine tasks.

A booking and scheduling system that works with your AI agent

If you have been searching for a booking, scheduling, or calendar system that integrates with your chosen AI agent or platform, the MIDAS MCP Server is designed for exactly that. It turns MIDAS into a fully AI-accessible booking system, without locking you into any one AI provider.

This opens the door to more than just chat. Because any MCP-compatible AI assistant or agent can connect, you can build assistants and automations around your booking data. Think of a front-of-house assistant that answers availability enquiries, or an agent that drafts invoices from the week’s confirmed bookings. If a platform supports MCP, it can work with MIDAS.

Availability

The MIDAS MCP Server is an optional add-on available from MIDAS v4.43 (or later). It’s available for both cloud-hosted an self-hosted editions of our booking system.

Existing customers (running MIDAS v4.43 or later) can add the MCP Server add-on to their system via mid.as/upgrade.

New customers can obtain MIDAS with the optional MCP Server add-on via mid.as/pricing.

Which AI platforms are supported?

The MIDAS MCP Server works with any AI assistant or platform that supports the Model Context Protocol, including:

• Claude (Anthropic), via both Claude Desktop and the Claude web and mobile apps.
• ChatGPT (OpenAI), via its Connectors feature.
• Google Gemini, via the Gemini CLI.
• Other MCP-compatible platforms, including a growing range of AI-powered tools and agent platforms.

Support for MCP is expanding quickly across the AI industry, so the list of compatible platforms continues to grow.

Built with security and control in mind

Giving an AI assistant access to your booking system is a significant step, so our MIDAS MCP Server puts you firmly in control:

• Read-only mode – Start by allowing enquiries and availability checks only. The AI can look things up but cannot change anything. Enable write access later, when you are ready.
• Secure by default – Connections require HTTPS and are protected by a confidential MCP key that you generate and can revoke at any time.
• IP restrictions – Optionally limit access to specific IP addresses.
• Your existing rules still apply – Every action taken through the MCP server respects the same permissions and business rules that already govern your MIDAS system. You can even configure the MCP to inherit the permissions of a specific user account.
• A clear activity trail – Actions taken through the MCP server can be recorded in your MIDAS Recent Activity log, so you can see what was done.

Everything you can do

The MIDAS MCP Server provides a comprehensive set of tools covering the full range of day-to-day booking and administration tasks, including:

• Checking venue and resource availability
• Adding, amending, deleting, and restoring bookings
• Approving and rejecting pending booking requests
• Looking up and managing clients
• Managing venues, venue groups, and bookable resources
• Checking consumable stock levels
• Raising, amending, and generating invoices
• Sending notifications and emailing clients

Read-only tools retrieve information only, while write tools can create and change data. If you run the server in read-only mode, only the read-only tools will be available.

Getting started

Setting up the MIDAS MCP Server takes just a few minutes:

1. Get the MCP Server addon (mid.as/upgrade for existing customers, mid.as/pricing for new customers)
2. Enable the MCP Server addon and connect your AI assistant (here’s how)
3. Start asking your AI assistant about your bookings.

Full instructions for each supported platform, including Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, are available in our documentation.

Read the MIDAS MCP Server documentation and get started »

The future of booking is conversational

AI assistants are quickly becoming part of everyday working life. With the MIDAS MCP Server, your booking and scheduling system is ready to be part of that shift. Whether you want to check availability at a glance, speed up routine admin, or build richer automations around your booking data, the MIDAS MCP Server connects MIDAS to the AI tools you already use.

Existing MIDAS customers can find out more and get set up today on our MIDAS MCP Server pages. New to MIDAS? Discover why MIDAS is the flexible, affordable choice for room and resource booking, now with AI built in.

The post Introducing the MIDAS MCP Server: Manage Your Bookings With Any AI Assistant appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

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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Our optional “Discord” addon joins our existing range of addons which allow events occurring in your MIDAS booking system to be posted to your organization’s communication channels.

We already have addons that support popular communication platforms Slack and Microsoft Teams. Now we’re adding Discord to this list.

Discord is a popular free communication platform that allows users to interact through text, voice, and video. Users can join or create servers, which are essentially chat rooms organized around a specific topic.

Setting up this new MIDAS addon is as simple as obtaining a Discord WebHook URL, and selecting which MIDAS user’s Watch notifications should be sent to your Discord server.

To learn more about Watch notifications in MIDAS, watch our short “How to setup watch notifications” tutorial.

To find out more about the new Discord addon, head over to mid.as/discord.

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Our optional “Zoom Meetings” addon adds a “Create Zoom Meeting” option to the Booking Availability screen.

If this option is selected when a booking is added, a corresponding Zoom meeting will also be automatically scheduled for the same time (an active Zoom account is required).

You can also configure the addon to automatically send a link to the Zoom meeting to the client via email, and for that link to be stored in a custom field for the booking, allowing users easy access to it.

A number of other settings are available too, which can be used to customize the Zoom meetings that this addon can automatically schedule…

..and there’s also an email template you can customize for the Zoom meeting invite links that can be automatically sent to your clients…

Expanding possibilities

Not only does the new Zoom Meetings addon make it simple to schedule Zoom meetings which correspond to your bookings, but it also opens up new possibilities!

Until now, MIDAS could primarily be used to book and schedule ‘physical’ spaces and resources.

But with the addition of the Zoom Meetings addon, MIDAS can now be used to schedule “virtual” spaces and meetings with your clients.

This opens up MIDAS to new business sectors who use Zoom as a primary tool for client communications, such as…

• Online Counselling
• Consulting and Coaching – Business consultants, life, career, or executive coaches, marketing consultants.
• Education and Training – Tutors and educators, corporate trainers, language tutors.
• Financial and Legal Services – Financial planners, accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers and legal consultants.
• Health and Wellness (non-counseling) – Personal trainers and fitness coaches, dietitians and nutritionists, meditation or yoga instructors.

To learn more about the new Zoom Meetings addon, visit mid.as/zoom-meetings.

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If you’re not familiar with this addon, it allows your business to automatically collect feedback, reviews, and ratings on independent review sites from the customers who hire and book your facilities.

How the Reviews addon works

The “Reviews” addon works by automatically notifying an independent review collection platform after a client’s booking has taken place at your facilities. The review platform then in turn sends out an invitation by email to your client asking them to leave a review or rating of their experience with your business on their website.

Supported Review Platforms

First released in 2020, initially integration was supported for four independent review platforms by our addon. This was further increased to five review platforms in 2022.

As our Reviews addon integrates with independent, third party review and rating services, our addon is reliant on these services remaining active.

Latest updates to our Reviews addon

Recently, the “Psydro” review platform appears to have closed. It’s main website has been timing out and returning errors for a while now. Whilst there’s been no official statement from Psydro, given their website had been inaccessible for some time, we believe this platform is now dead. Consequently, we have now dropped support for Psydro.

There’s also something strange going on with the “collect-reviews” website. Recently, it’s content has changed to a Thai gambling site. Again, there’s been no official statement from the collect-reviews team. It is therefore not known if they’ve sold their domain, or if it’s been hacked. Either way, it’s clear that right now their website is not the review platform it was previously. Consequently, we have now also dropped support for “collect-reviews”.

Finally, “TrustSpot” has recently rebranded to become “RaveCapture”. TrustSpot was one of the review platforms our addon supported from the outset. According to the TrustSpot/RaveCapture team, other than a name and logo change, nothing else has changed. The platform’s functionality remains the same. We’ve therefore updated the name and logo in our Reviews addon to reflect this rebrand.

In addition to RaveCapture/TrustSpot, our addon continues to support the Reviews.io and TrustPilot platforms too!

How to get the Reviews addon

If you’d like to get reviews from users of your facilities on popular review sites like TrustPilot, then the Reviews addon for MIDAS is for you!

This optional addon is available for both cloud hosted and self hosted MIDAS booking systems.

To add this addon to your existing MIDAS system, simply go to mid.as/upgrade.

If you’re not yet using MIDAS to handle your bookings and scheduling, you can get MIDAS today with the Reviews addon.

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What is Geolocation?

Geolocation is the process of determining the geographic location of a user’s device. It is used in a variety of applications, such as mapping, navigation, and weather forecasting. A device’s location can be determined using a variety of methods, including GPS, cell tower triangulation, and IP address location.

IP address geolocation is a method of determining the position in the world of an IP address. This can be done by using a variety of methods, including:

• Reverse DNS lookup: This method involves looking up the IP address in a DNS database to determine the name of the domain that is associated with the IP address. The domain name can then be used to determine the geographic location of the server that hosts the domain.

• Geolocation databases: These databases contain information about the geographic location of IP addresses. This information is typically collected from a variety of sources, such as ISPs and network operators.

It is important to note that IP address geolocation is not always accurate. The accuracy of IP address geolocation depends on a variety of factors. These include the quality of the geolocation database and the method that is used to determine the geographic location of the IP address.

What is Geofencing?

Geofencing is an extension of geolocation. Once a device’s geographic location can be determined through geolocation, “Geofencing” can be used by a website or application to ensure that devices outside of an authorized area are denied access.

IP geofencing works by creating a virtual radius at a set distance around a fixed point on the globe. By comparing the latitude and longitude coordinates of a user’s device, with this fixed point, the distance between them can be calculated. This calculation will determine whether the user’s device falls within the set virtual radius.

Access form any device which falls outside of a set radius of the central fixed location can then be blocked.

Geolocation applications within MIDAS

Initially, there are two main areas within our booking software where geolocation information can be shown.

First, is the Recent Activity Log. This audit log in MIDAS records all user activity and actions taking place in your booking system. Each entry in the log is time-stamped, and shows the user account and IP address which performed the action.

From MIDAS v4.33, the optional Geolocation addon can be configured to allow location information to be shown for IP addresses in the Recent Activity Log. This location information includes the city, region, and country that the IP address resides in.

The second application for geolocation in MIDAS accompanies the unfamiliar login notifications feature.

The unfamiliar login notifications feature alerts users when their account is signed in to from a new device or location.

These notifications typically include details of the user’s device / browser and their IP address.

Geolocation support now means that you can optionally configure these notifications to now also include the city, region, and country that the login occurred from.

Geofencing applications within MIDAS

Building on the new geolocation support, Geofencing can be used to further enhance the security of your MIDAS system.

It can be used to restrict account logins to certain countries. For example, if your organization only has offices within the United States and the United Kingdom, your colleagues are typically likely to only need to login to MIDAS from within either the US or the UK. You can use geofencing to block any login attempts originating from countries other than the US or the UK.

Geofencing can additionally (or alternatively) also restrict account logins to within a certain distance from your location. For example, if you run a radio station in Manchester, UK, you could restrict logins to your MIDAS system to within say a 10 mile radius of Manchester.

How to enable Geolocation or Geofencing in MIDAS

The new Geolocation and Geofencing features are available for MIDAS v4.33 (or later) via our optional Geolocation addon.

Existing customers with active subscriptions can obtain this addon via mid.as/upgrade.

If you’re new to MIDAS, you can subscribe with the Geolocation addon via mid.as/pricing.

Geolocation data accuracy

The accuracy of IP geolocation data depends on a number of factors, including the quality and freshness of the geolocation database, the method that is used to determine the geographic location of the IP address, and the type of IP address.

The IP geolocation data we use in the Geolocation addon for MIDAS is never more than 30 days old.

In general, IP geolocation data is most accurate for large geographic areas, such as countries or states. It can become less accurate for smaller geographic areas, such as cities or neighborhoods.

That’s why if you use the distance based geofence features of the Geolocation addon, you should always set a larger liberal distance than necessary, rather than a very small strict distance from your location. The Geolocation addon does include an instant IP lookup test tool, so you can check IP distances before you apply them.

The Geolocation addon also includes “fallback” options for both country / distance geofence enforcement. For IP addresses where a country and/or latitude and longitude coordinates cannot be determined, you can configure MIDAS to either block or allow these connections.

It’s also worth noting that the accuracy of IP geolocation data can be affected by the use of proxy servers and VPNs. Proxy servers and VPNs can mask the true IP address of a device, making it difficult to determine the device’s geographic location.

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Did you know that with one of our optional addons you can actually display a calendar of bookings right on your own public website?

Display a calendar of bookings on your website

The Web Calendars addon allows visitors to your organization’s public website to see what’s on at your venue.

You can embed daily and monthly calendars directly into your public website. You also have precise control which events appear (or are hidden) on these calendars, and how much information is shown for each.

Plus, if you already make use of the built-in Public Booking Request or Public Web Booking features of MIDAS, you can also configure Web Calendars to allow a visitor to directly book/request a specific date by simply clicking it.

Check our some live examples of embeddable public calendars at https://mid.as/web-calendars/live-examples

Get Web Calendars for your MIDAS system

Web Calendars is by far our most popular addon, with nearly a quarter of all customers choosing to add it to their MIDAS booking system!

You can add the Web Calendars addon to your MIDAS system too, by simply going to mid.as/upgrade.

Also check out our other optional addons to further extend the capabilities of your MIDAS software.

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The “Reviews” addon works in conjunction with leading review sites to allow you to collect reviews and feedback from your customers following their use/hire of your facilities.

Initially, the “Reviews” addon supported 4 major independent review platforms:

UPDATE: August 2024: Collect-Reviews support has now been removed.

We’ve recently update our “Reviews” addon to add support for a new fifth review platform, Psydro…

UPDATE: August 2024: Psydro support has now been removed.

Psydro is a UK based startup with a user-friendly platform that has been meticulously designed to help consumers make informed decisions about the businesses and organizations they interact with.

The platform allows you to collect feedback from real people about your services, which in turn allows other perspective customers to have confidence and trust in what your business offers.

How Our Reviews Addon Works

The optional “Reviews” addon for MIDAS works by automatically notifying an independent review collection platform after a client’s booking has taken place at your facilities. The review platform then in turn sends out a review invitation by email to your client asking them to leave a review or rating of your business on their website.

Here’s how the process works:

1. A client’s booking in MIDAS takes place.
2. Shortly thereafter, MIDAS automatically sends the client a post-booking email (the content of which is customizable via a template)
3. When this email is sent, it is also transparently BCC’d (Blind Carbon Copied) to your chosen review collection platform
4. The review platform in turn sends your client an invitation to rate/review your business on their independent review platform

What you’ll need

In order to be able to take advantage of the functionality the optional “Reviews” addon offers, you’ll need the following:

• MIDAS v4.24 (or later – you’ll need MIDAS v4.30+ in order to use Psydro)
• A valid account with a supported review platform.
• Your MIDAS booking system correctly configured to send email
• Scheduled Tasks correctly configured to run in MIDAS, and the Post-Booking email notification option enabled.

Complete documentation for the new Reviews addon is available online.

How to get the “Reviews” addon for MIDAS

If you’ve not yet using our MIDAS room booking system, you can purchase or subscribe to our software, and add the optional “Reviews” addon through our secure site.

Existing customers with valid subscriptions may add the optional “Reviews” addon to their booking system by upgrading online. (You’ll need to be running at least MIDAS v4.30 in order to use Psydro)

Are there any other review platforms you’d like to see included in this addon in the future? Why not let us know!

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This allows you to re-brand (white label) a MIDAS booking system, removing any references to “MIDAS” and replacing them with your own name and logo.

The “Custom Branding” addon is available to both self-hosted and cloud-hosted customers.

Now, for cloud-hosted customers, if you want to remove references to “MIDAS” from your booking system, you’ll still have the “mid.as” reference in the actual URL for your MIDAS system (i.e. “example.mid.as”).

Our new companion “Domain Alias” addon solves this issue!

It allows you to setup access to cloud hosted MIDAS system via another domain instead. – for instance a sub-domain of your organization’s own website domain.

So for example, if your hosted MIDAS domain was “example.mid.as”, and your organization’s own domain was “example.com”, you could use the optional Domain Alias addon and set say “bookings.example.com” to use as the URL for your hosted MIDAS system instead.

Setting up a domain alias is a simple 3-step process:

1. Enter the domain/sub-domain you wish to “alias” to your hosted MIDAS system.
2. Make a small DNS change on your organization’s domain using the information provided in the addon
3. Confirm that you’ve made your DNS change

Once your changes become active, you’ll be able to access your hosted MIDAS system via your chosen domain alias.

For more information about this optional addon for cloud-hosted customers, please visit: https://mid.as/domain-alias

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Our new optional “Custom Branding” addon can completely re-brand our software. This allows you to create a “white-label” software edition in which you can apply your own branding.

Visible traces of the word “MIDAS” can be removed, along with the MIDAS logo, links to the MIDAS website, and more. In their place, you can give the booking software your own bespoke name, logo, and icon.

An extensive range of customization options are available through the Custom Branding addon. These provide extended control over your booking system’s appearance:

The new Custom Branding addon also allows easy modification of any of the included “language packs” in MIDAS too. This means that you can completely customize all the wording and phrasing used throughout the software.

Moreover, the Custom Branding addon is available for both self-hosted and cloud-hosted editions of MIDAS.

For more information on this exciting addon, please see our new Custom Branding addon pages.

If you’re a cloud-hosted MIDAS customer, you may also be interested in our new “Domain Alias” addon. This addon compliments our “Custom Branding” addon. The Domain Alias addon allows you to make it appear that your hosted MIDAS system is in fact running on your own domain!

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