Posts Tagged: addons

Emergency Access Addon Unlike the vast majority of our competitors, we offer two editions of our MIDAS web based room booking and resource scheduling software to meet the particular needs of all our customers.

Some customers prefer to download, install, and run MIDAS from their own server/infrastructure, so that they have complete control over their MIDAS system – we call this our “self hosted” edition.

Other customers prefer a completely managed system hosted in the “cloud” so they don’t have to worry about installation and updates – we call this our “remotely hosted” edition, and you can compare the difference between these two editions here.

We know that for our “remotely hosted” customers, maintaining 24/7/365 access to their booking information is crucial to the smooth running of their business operations. We therefore strive to make every reasonable effort within our control to ensure 100% uptime of our cloud servers and infrastructure.

However, as with any IT infrastructure, in the unlikely event that unforeseen circumstances arise which are beyond our control, 100% uptime can never be guaranteed. We are, for instance, reliant on external data centers and ISPs to provide us with infrastructure and services to then allow us to provide hosted MIDAS services to our customer. Our ISPs guarantee us 99.9% uptime of their infrastructure and services.

We actively monitor this to ensure that these high standards are met, and over the course of last year (2014) the combined total downtime for our hosted customers for the entire year was less than 10 hours.

That’s not a lot, and exceeds the 99.9% uptime guarantee we’re given. However, we fully appreciate that if any downtime were to occur at a crucial time of the day for our hosted customers, however brief, that this can cause implications for the day-to-day running of their operations.

That’s why, ever since we first launched MIDAS back in 2006, we’ve also offered all our hosted customers an optional “Emergency Access” addon.

Secondary Emergency Access URL With this optional addon, our hosted customers are provided with a secondary “Emergency URL” in addition to the primary URL used to access their hosted MIDAS system. At this secondary “Emergency URL”, a completely separate MIDAS system runs on a separate server, in a different data center, though a different ISP. Each day, the customer’s “live” system is automatically backed up to their “Emergency URL” to ensure that data in their backup system is never more than 24 hours behind their live system.

This means that should there ever be any issues affecting our customer’s ability to access to their primary scheduling system, with this addon, they’ll still be able to access all their booking and scheduling information via their secondary “Emergency URL”.

Over the weekend, we’ve now improved our Emergency Access addon in the following ways:

  1. Data is now backed up in “real-time” from customer’s “live” systems to their secondary Emergency Access URL (with their global MIDAS settings backed up every hour). Previously, data and settings were only backed up once per day.
  2. We’ve invested heavily in new infrastructure for our hosted customer’s Emergency Access backup systems. This means significantly faster server performance, should customers ever need to access their Emergency Access systems.

The price for this Emergency Access addon is only £89/year GBP ($139/year USD, $179/year AUD, $169/year CAD, €129/year EUR*) and certainly worth it for the piece of mind it provides knowing you’ll still be able to access your data in the event of any issues affecting our primary servers/infrastructure.

What’s more, for a limited time**, we’re offering 10% off our Emergency Access addon to all existing customers with remotely hosted MIDAS system who don’t already have it! To take advantage of this limited time offer, please upgrade your MIDAS system today!

If maintaining 24/7/365 access to your room booking and resource scheduling information is paramount to your operations, you should certainly consider this optional add-on for your remotely hosted MIDAS system!

New customers can add the Emergency Access addon to their “remotely hosted” MIDAS system at time of purchase, or at a later date.


* Prices correct at time of writing, but may vary slightly day-to-day due to fluctuations in global currency exchange rates. Current pricing may be viewed here for existing customers, or here for new customers

** Offer ends 23:59 UTC on Sunday 5th April 2015EXTENDED UNTIL 30th APRIL!!


Digital Signage Addon Improved!

Digital Signage The Digital Signage addon for our room booking and resource scheduling software is a feature-rich signage solution offering real-time display of your room bookings on TV screens around your site! Whether you’d like to display today’s bookings to visitors in your reception area, or have an individual screen outside each room just showing what’s currently taking place in that one room, our optional Digital Signage addon is for you! Find out how it works in this Video Tutorial.

Digital Signage Booking System

Today we’ve released an update to the Digital Signage addon.

The v1.09 update features better handling of server connection errors. Our Digital Signage addon has always allowed you to configure on a per-screen basis how often data on the screen should refresh. The default interval is every 5 minutes. This means every 5 minutes the addon needs to connect to your MIDAS server to retrieve the most up-to-date information to display on your screens.

No more Unable To Connect ScreensIn previous versions, if the addon was unable to connect to your MIDAS server for whatever reason, your signage screens could then display an ugly browser “Web page not available”-type screen. This would then require a subsequent manual refresh in order to display data again.

We’ve massively improved this for v1.09 of the addon! Now, if the addon is unable to connect to your server for any reason, it will simply retain the last known data on screen. At the same time, a small indication in the lower left corner indicating that the connection to the server has been lost will show. MIDAS will then keep attempting to automatically re-establish a connection to your server, and will update your screen(s) once the connection can be re-established.

We’re sure this update with meet with the approval of administrators, especially those running multiple screens around their site. Now there’s no need to manually refresh all screens after a server reboot or loss of internet connection!

The other notable improvement for v1.09 is in the way screen refreshes and transitions occur. Now the current screen will now smoothly “fade out” and then “fade in” the next screen.

You’ll find complete implementation, usage documentation and live examples of our Digital Signage at mid.as/digital-signage

How to Get The Digital Signage Addon For MIDAS:

Our Digital Signage addon v1.09 is available as a FREE update to customers with a previous version of the addon and who have a Support Subscription valid for MIDAS v4.07.

Customers may update their addon via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Addons → Addons Ready To Update

Customers who don’t already have the Digital Signage addon for their MIDAS can add it by upgrading

Customers who don’t yet have MIDAS can purchase MIDAS together with the optional Digital Signage addon here

You might also be interested in:
Case Study: Read how The Livingston Centre in Ontario, Canada use the Digital Signage Addon at their venue..

Version 2 of the MIDAS API is here

Introducing API Version 2…

MIDAS API The MIDAS API is an optional addon for MIDAS, allowing you to interface directly with your MIDAS scheduling system from your own applications.

First introduced just over a year ago, version 1 of the API allowed developers to access and retrieve data from MIDAS.

Version 2 of the API builds on this, and extends the API’s capabilities further by now allowing “bi-directional” access to MIDAS. This means that as well as being able to simply “read” data from MIDAS through the API, developers can now also “write” data to MIDAS, and modify existing data.

Nearly two dozen new API calls have been implemented for API v2, allowing you to:

  • Add, delete or modify bookings, clients, and resources
  • Add, generate, or delete invoices
  • Approve or reject booking requests
  • Email clients
  • Change settings
    …and more!

Full documentation for version 2 of the API is now available online at mid.as/api, and will shortly be available in an offline format too.API v2 will be available to coincide with the upcoming release of MIDAS v4.07, and will a FREE update to existing API users who have an ongoing annual support subscription covering the release of v4.07.

v2 is also backwards compatible with v1 of the API. Existing customers who wish to add the optional API to their MIDAS installation can do so via mid.as/upgrade.

New customers can purchase MIDAS along with the optional API addon via mid.as/pricing.

MIDAS API calls

Last week, we released two brand new addons for MIDAS. Today we take a closer look at some of the benefits that MIDAS, and our Digital Signage solution, are having on one organization in Canada…

The Livingston Centre in Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada
The Livingston Center, Tillsonburg, Ontario

The Livingston Centre, situated in Tillsonburg, Ontario, is a unique “one-stop-shop” service building that houses five partners and twelve associated agencies.

The Livingston Centre have been using MIDAS to handle their scheduling requirements since 2012. Staff, volunteers, committees and members of the public book spaces at the Centre, and at another one of the center’s locations, through the reception team and communication coordinator.

The Digital Signage interface for MIDAS is used in The Livingston Centre with a screen located behind the reception desk. This screen displays all the meetings that are being held on a particular day for both their locations. The screen also includes a welcome message and the Centre’s own logo.

“MIDAS, along with the Digital Signage, has been a real time saver for our reception team!”

MIDAS Digital Signage in action at The Livingston Centre

On the benefits of having a Digital Signage system that directly interfaces with MIDAS, receptionist Debbie Clarke, comments;

“When I turn the TV screen on each morning there is no fussing around with the room booking schedule – it appears on the particular date showing all rooms that are booked, when the meetings are finished and/or have been deleted off of MIDAS they automatically disappear off of the TV screen! People who have booked space can see what room is booked and go to their meeting rooms without asking reception what room they are booked into. Most importantly MIDAS, along with the Digital Signage, has been a real time saver for our reception team!”

– Debbie Clarke, The Livingston Centre

Summing up the new Digital Signage Addon for MIDAS, Debbie simply says:

“It looks awesome!”

Find out how MIDAS can help YOUR organization at https://mid.as, and read more about our Digital Signage Addon at https://mid.as/digital-signage