Posts Tagged: email

Zero Configuration Email Delivery for Cloud-Hosted Customers

4 minute read time · Updated February 27, 2026 · First published February 24, 2026
Zero Configuration Email Delivery

The ability to send email is essential for any booking system.

From booking confirmations and reminders, to invoices, notifications, and password resets, booking and scheduling systems rely on email.

MIDAS naturally supports the sending of email, but we’ve made some exciting and significant improvements to email sending for our cloud-hosted customers for v4.42.

But first, let’s look at the existing ways in which MIDAS can send email.

Until now, the sending of email by MIDAS has been through a choice between “Sendmail” or “SMTP”.

What is Sendmail?

Available on Linux-based servers, Sendmail is a built-in server application for sending email directly from the server itself. Read more about Sendmail.

What is SMTP?

SMTP (or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the standard language used by computers to send emails across the internet. Read more about SMTP.

Sendmail vs SMTP

Both Sendmail and SMTP options have been available in both our cloud-hosted and self-hosted editions.

“Sendmail” has long been the default ‘out of the box’ email transport setting for cloud-hosted customers. However, we’ve always encouraged customers to move over to SMTP as soon as possible.

That’s because generally email deliverability rates are substantially higher when MIDAS is configured to send email through a customer’s own SMTP server, than if instead sent directly through our own servers.

Whilst Sendmail is configured to work ‘out of the box’ for cloud-hosted customers, SMTP requires a little more configuration.

To configure MIDAS to send email via SMTP, you will need:

  • The address of your SMTP server
  • The correct port number
  • The SMTP username and password
  • The correct SSL, TLS, or STARTTLS encryption method setting

You will also need to ensure that your SMTP server accepts connections from your cloud-hosted MIDAS system. In addition, your organization’s domain must be configured to allow MIDAS to send email on behalf of your domain.

This requires significant configuration and setup. We want to simplify this for our cloud-hosted customers. That’s why we’re introducing cloud email sending.

Introducing “Cloud Sending”

New Zero Configuration Email Sending Option
New Zero Configuration Email Sending Option

For MIDAS v4.42, we’ve introduced a new “Cloud” option for sending email. This new option is available to all cloud-hosted customers, and replaces the previous “Sendmail” option. (Sendmail continues to remain an option for self-hosted customers).

With the new cloud email option selected, you won’t need to specify an SMTP host, or enter credentials or specify ports – MIDAS will take care of all of that!

We have partnered with a dedicated transactional email provider specializing in high-deliverability email delivery services, to provide efficient and reliable email delivery for cloud-hosted customers who select the “Cloud” email sending option.

Zero Configuration Email Sending

To complement our new “cloud” email offering, we’ve also included a “Zero Configuration” option.

With this option enabled, MIDAS and Mailgun will seamlessly handle email delivery for your MIDAS system. You won’t need to configure an outgoing email address, nor will you need to update your organization’s domain’s SPF (Send Policy Framework) DNS record – email will just ‘work’ right out of the box.

Of course, if you wish to customize the “send from” or “reply to” addresses, you can untick the “Zero Configuration” option and change those settings.

But in its simplest form, our new “cloud” email sending and “Zero Configuration” options mean that brand new cloud-hosted email systems can now reliably send email right from the outset.

Migrating from Sendmail to Cloud email sending

For our existing cloud-hosted customers, if you’re currently using the “Sendmail” option in your MIDAS system, you’ll be automatically migrated to “cloud” sending soon after we update you to v4.42.

If you do not wish to use the new “Cloud” sending option, you should update your MIDAS settings to instead send email via SMTP.

You can change your MIDAS email settings via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Email.

If your cloud-hosted MIDAS system is currently configured to send email via SMTP, this setting will be unaffected when we update your booking system to v4.42. Of course, you can then always change over to use the cloud email sending option at any time.

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Better support for “shared” email addresses

4 minute read time · Updated February 14, 2025 · First published August 21, 2024

One of the features of our software is that it can allow visitors to your website to check room availability. They can then make an online booking (or booking request) for use of your facilities.

As this can be done without requiring a login or a user account. When making a “public” booking/request, the person simply needs to enter their details. This will typically include their name and contact email address.

When a public web booking/request is made, MIDAS checks the email address that’s been entered against its existing client database.

If a single matching client with the same email address already exists in the client database, MIDAS will associate the booking/request with that existing client.

This negates the need for a person to have to re-enter all their information (i.e. address, phone number, etc) each time they make a web booking or request.

MIDAS can also be configured to allow individuals to update their information each time they make a web booking or request.

Multiple clients with the same email address

Shared Email Address

But what if there is more than one existing client with the same email address as the person making the web booking / request?

In these instances, MIDAS will not only compare the email address given, but also the client and organization names provided.

If there is a single exact match based on this additional information, MIDAS will associated the booking/request with the one matching client.

Again, MIDAS can be configured to update the existing client record at time of web booking / request with new details supplied by the individual.

The problem

There is however an “edge case” where the above options don’t quite go far enough.

Take for example an individual who uses their personal email address to make web bookings or requests for multiple different organizations they’re associated with.

That’s no problem if there are existing client records for the client for each of their organizations. But it becomes an issue if this is a brand new client. It’s also an issue if this is a person with just a single existing client record under one of their organizations.

Here’s an example to illustrate:

Let’s say Jeff is associated with two organizations – let’s call them “A” and “B”.

Let’s also assume that Jeff is a brand new client. There is therefore currently no client record with the same email address existing in your MIDAS system.

Jeff makes a booking request using his personal email address on behalf of organization “A”. A new client record is created for Jeff using this information.

A short while later, Jeff makes another booking request. He uses his personal email address again, but this time he’d like to make a request for organization “B”.

When Jeff makes his second request, MIDAS will see that there is already a single client in its database matching Jeff’s email address. One of two things will then happen, depending whether the “Allow client record updates” setting has been enabled in MIDAS.

If the “Allow client record updates” option is disabled, MIDAS will reuse Jeff’s original details (i.e. organization “A”). This will result in both his booking requests being for organization A.

If the “Allow client record updates” option is enabled, MIDAS will update Jeff’s original details (i.e. to become organization “B”). This will result in both his booking requests being for organization B.

…but that’s not what we want! We want his first request to be for organization A, and his second for organization B.

The solution

Instances of someone making web bookings / requests on behalf of multiple organizations using the same email address are uncommon. But we still wanted to better accommodate this scenario.

So for MIDAS v4.37 we’ve introduced a new “Account for multiple clients/organizations sharing the same email address” setting.

Account for multiple clients/organizations sharing the same email address
NEW: “Account for multiple clients/organizations sharing the same email address” setting

Enabling this setting will automatically create additional client records for each client/organization variant using the same email address.

The result – in our illustrative example above – would be that Jeff can make booking requests for either organization A or B (or even a future organization C) using his personal email address without issue.

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How to send invoices as PDF attachments

3 minute read time · Updated February 11, 2025 · First published November 30, 2022
Physical Printed Invoice

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.

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Ensuring Email Compatibility With Older Mail Clients

3 minute read time · Updated February 11, 2025 · First published March 30, 2022
Email Client Software Compatibility

In MIDAS v4.30 we’ve introduced a new “Send invoices in compatibility” setting.

In this post, we’ll look at why such an option was needed…

Now, back in MIDAS v4.26 we made some changes to improve the way that invoices were rendered.

This involved updating some of the HTML code that MIDAS uses to display invoices to user newer standards.

Prior to v4.26, invoices were laid out using HTML “tables”. Using tables allowed data to be set out in columns and rows. This allowed a dedicated “row” for each item on an invoice, and dedicated columns for its description, quantity, rate, etc.

Since v4.26, MIDAS has instead used a more modern CSS “grid” layout. This allowed invoices to better adapt to fit different screen widths.

However, whilst all the browsers we support also support CSS “grid” layouts, sadly not all email clients do!

To our surprise, some editions of Outlook and Gmail don’t support CSS grid layouts. Instead, they actually modify any emails they receive so that when they are displayed any CSS grid layout information is “stripped” from them!

There is really no logic to this, or indeed consistancy!

For instance, Gmail’s “desktop” webmail strips out CSS grid information, but their “mobile” webmail doesnt!

Another example if Outlook; if you view an email using the Windows Outlook client, the CSS grid information is removed. If you view the same email using the MacOS Outlook client, the CSS grid information is retained!

Other popular email clients, including Thunderbrid and Apple Mail support CSS grid layouts without issue.

You can find a current list of which email clients support (or otherwise) CSS grid layouts here.

The result is that if you view an emailed invoice from MIDAS, how that invoice is presented depends very much on the recipient’s email client.

To illustrate, take a look at the following invoice….

A MIDAS invoice emailed to a client as viewed in Thunderbird
A MIDAS invoice emailed to a client as viewed in Thunderbird
A MIDAS invoice emailed to a client as viewed in Outlook
A MIDAS invoice emailed to a client as viewed in Outlook

Above is the exact same invoice viewed by two different mail clients. The first (and correctly displayed) uses Thunderbird to view the invoice. The second views the same invoice via outlook.com.

As you can see, because outlook.com strips out any CSS grid information from the HTML email, the result is that the email doesn’t display as intended. Rather than Description, Quantity, Rate, Tax, and Amount all being in separate columns, Outlook’s removal of the important CSS grid information causes these items to be displayed on separate rows instead!

We are at a loss to explain why certain email clients decide to “strip” out and remove CSS grid layouts, especially when CSS Grid Layouts are an official W3C specification, and supported by all modern browsers.

However, to work around this issue, we’ve now introduced a “Send invoices in compatibility” option. You’ll find this setting via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Email → Advanced.

With this option enabled, MIDAS will revert to using HTML “tables”, rather than a CSS grid layout for invoices emailed through the system.

So if you have clients who aren’t able to view invoices you send them correctly, then enabling this setting should help.

We hope going forward that popular email clients – including Outlook and Gmail – will review their stance on not supporting modern layout standards – such as CSS grid. There’s really no reason not to support CSS grid. This is especially true for web-based email clients, where the client’s own browser support’s CSS grid, but the email client forcibly removes this information from emails.

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