Posts Tagged: attachments

Send invoices as PDF attachments

We first introduced invoicing capabilities to our MIDAS room booking software way back in 2009.

Since then, it’s fair to say that invoicing has been the area that we receive the most suggestions from our customers for new features and capabilities.

That’s why over the years we’ve been constantly expanding and improving the invoicing capabilities in MIDAS.

In the past 12 months alone, we’ve allowed customers to set even more flexible venue rates. We’ve also added Zoho Invoice to the growing list of 3rd party platforms you can export MIDAS invoices to. Additionally, we also added a couple of handy invoice tools too.

Now, the ability to be able to directly email an invoice to a client from within MIDAS is something that’s not new. In fact, it’s been available in our software ever since invoicing was first introduced.

This feature allowed a user to send an email to a client, with a copy of their invoice included in the body of the email.

For many of our customers this has worked well for many years, and continues to do so.

However, as the web continues to evolve, sadly many email clients haven’t kept up with more modern formatting and layout standards. This prompted us to recently introduce an new “Email Compatibility” setting. This setting helps ensure that invoices sent via email to your customers display correctly in the body of the email when it’s viewed.

Whilst this means that everyone can view a correctly formatted invoice contained within an email sent from a MIDAS system, we know that some customers would still prefer to send an invoice as a PDF file to their clients.

Until now, in order to send an invoice from a MIDAS system to a client in PDF format, a user would need to “save” the invoice to a PDF file. This file would then need to be attached and sent via an external email program.

Let’s be honest, this isn’t ideal! It would be far simpler if you could send PDF versions of invoices to clients directly from within MIDAS.

Generate PDF Invoices

That’s why starting from MIDAS v4.32, you’ll now have the option to be able to send invoices to your clients as PDF attachments, rather than “inline”.

Send PDF versions of invoices as email attachments
Send PDF versions of invoices as email attachments

To enable this option, cloud hosted customers can go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Email → Advanced. On this screen, tick the “Send invoices as PDF attachments” option and save changes.

For self-hosted customers, you’ll need to be running at least MIDAS v4.32. In order to enable this functionality, there’s also a couple of additional prerequisets you’ll need to install on your server first.

We’re also providing you with controls over the page size and orientation of generated PDFs. You can also control page margins too.


New File Uploads and Attachments

The next substantial update to our popular web based room booking and resource scheduling software is just around the corner. So over the next few weeks we’ll be outlining some of the new features and improvements you can expect in the upcoming v4.07 release here on our blog.

We really do listen to and value all customer feedback here at MIDAS HQ! One of the most requested features you’ve told us you’d like to see in our software is the ability to be able to attach files/documents to your bookings. This would allow users to be able to store room layout plans, signed booking contracts, programs & itineraries, and other relevant documents to each booking.

Attach files and documents to bookings
So we’re giving you just that by adding a new “file” custom field type in v4.07! We already allow you to add your own custom text, number, list, and URL (link) fields to your booking screen. With the addition of the new “file” type you’ll also be able to add file upload fields to your booking screens.

 

Select File To AttachThe custom “file” field will allow users to click a “Select File” button. They can then locate a file from their computer to attach to the booking.

 

Booking AttachmentAttachments are uploaded to MIDAS and linked to for easy accessed via the booking information panel, and through the “Modify Booking” screen where they can also be removed.

 

Uploading of the following file types is supported: .csv, .doc, .docx, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .pdf, .png, .ppt, .pptx, .rar, .txt, .xls, .xlsx, .zip

Administrators can also limit the maximum size of file that can be uploaded and attached to bookings. The default is 5MB.

PLEASE NOTE: The ability to upload/attach files and documents to bookings will only be available in “self hosted” editions of MIDAS v4.07. If your MIDAS is “cloud hosted” by us, this functionality will not be available to you.

If your MIDAS is hosted by us and you’d like to be able to attach documents to bookings, you’d need to first upload your files elsewhere (i.e. your own web server), and then use a custom URL field in MIDAS to link your bookings to your uploaded files.

Alternatively, you can migrate your cloud hosted system to a self hosted edition at any time.

For more information, please see: Why aren’t file upload fields available in “cloud hosted” editions of MIDAS?