Posts Tagged: notifications

New Notification Center

For MIDAS v4.28 we’ve overhauled the “My Messages” screen, and renamed it to the “Notification Center”.

All the previous functionality of “My Messages” has been retained, but we’ve given the screen itself a bit of a “facelift” to de-clutter and simplify things.

We’ve even introduced a new “Watch” option… but more on that later.

For users with the “Can use Notification Center” permission, their Notification Center may be accessed via the new “bell” icon in the MIDAS toolbar.

Here’s how the new Notification Center itself looks:

The new "Notification Center" (formally "My Messages") in MIDAS
The new “Notification Center” (formally “My Messages”) in MIDAS

The Notification Center comprises three components:

  • Messages
  • Reminders
  • Watches

The numbers in the upper right corner of these component’s icons denoted the number of notifications currently in each section. Clicking the corresponding icon toggles the display of notifications for that particular section.

In the lower right corner of each icon, there’s a smaller icon that allows you to add/configure each section.

Messages

The “Messages” section displays internal messages you’ve received from other users in your MIDAS system. The “+” icon allows you to leave a message for another user:

Leave a message for another MIDAS user
Leave a message for another user

For more information on messaging another user, please see the Help Documentation.

Reminders

The “Reminders” section displays both booking and custom reminders you’ve set. To set a new booking reminder, simply select a booking in the Booking Grid, and then “Add Reminder”. To set a custom reminder, click the “+” icon near the bottom right of the “Reminders” icon in your Notification Center:

Set yourself custom reminders in MIDAS
Set yourself a custom reminder

For more information on Reminders, please see the Help Documentation.

Watches

The “Watches” section displays watch notifications. These are generated when certain activity that you specify occurs within your MIDAS system. The “cog” icon adjacent to the “Watches” icon is used to configure your Watch notifications.

Configure Watch notifications in a MIDAS booking system
Configure “Watch” notifications

There are three types of Watch notification available:

  • Bookings
  • Consumables
  • Venue Availability

Bookings” allows you to monitor and be alerted to new activity in certain venues, and/or for certain booking types, and/or for certain resources.

Consumables” allows you to monitor levels of your consumable resources.

Venue Availability” allows you to be alerted if and when a currently unavailable time slot for a given venue becomes available again. This is a brand new feature introduced for v4.28, which you can read more about in this post.

For more information on Watch notifications, please see the Help Documentation.

Notification Center Settings

You can adjust your Notification Center settings from within the Notification Center via the “cog” icon in the upper right corner.

MIDAS software notification center
Notification Center Settings

These settings allow you to control how and when you receive notifications from your Notification Center.


Client Notification Improvements

We believe in giving your clients control over the automated email notifications and reminders they may receive from your MIDAS system. To that end, we’re making some improvements in this area for v4.25.

Improved Client Email Notification Settings

Previously, each client in MIDAS could be set to receive the following email notifications:

  • None – Client isn’t sent any automated reminders.
  • Bookings – Client is sent automated reminders about their upcoming bookings.
  • Invoices – Client is sent automated reminders about their upcoming invoices.
  • Bookings + Invoices – Client is sent automated reminders about their upcoming bookings and upcoming invoices.

Automated client email notification from your MIDAS system included an unsubscribe link. This allowed clients to opt out of receiving further automated notifications from your MIDAS system. Effectively, the client’s “E-Mail Reminders” setting reverts back to “None”.

For v4.25, we’re extending the automated client notification email options. These now include:

Improved Client Email Reminder/Notification Options in v4.25
Improved Client Email Reminder/Notification Options in v4.25
  • Bookings (Upcoming) – Client is sent automated reminders about their upcoming bookings.
  • Bookings (Recently Ended) – Client is sent automated follow-up emails after their bookings.
  • Invoices (Upcoming) – Client is sent automated reminders about their upcoming invoices.
  • Invoices (Overdue) – Client is sent automated reminders about their overdue invoices.

Clients can also unsubscribe from each notification type, rather than blanket unsubscribing from all notifications.

Easier For Clients To Unsubscribe From Notifications

MIDAS v4.25 now includes a “List-Unsubscribe” header in automated email notifications to your clients. This can make it even easier for them to opt-out of receiving further automated notifications from your MIDAS system.

Email software which support the “List-Unsubscribe” header may show a bar/banner at the top of emails, which users can click to opt-out of similar emails.


These are just a few of the new and improved features for MIDAS v4.25. Please see this post for details of other new features you’ll find in v4.25.

Reddit You can also ask questions and discuss the new features of v4.25 over on Reddit.


Development is nearing completion on the next update to our room booking and resource scheduling software, MIDAS. So we’re shedding a little light here on our blog on some of the new and improved features coming to v4.13…

When a new booking request or message is received, or a new “watch notification” triggered, MIDAS alerts the user. In the user is logged in, the relevant toolbar icon changes to denote the number of new booking requests or messages requiring their attention. Users can also optionally choose to see a list of these requests/messages each time they login in.

Furthermore, a user can optionally choose to be sent email notifications upon each new booking request, message, or watch notification.

With the upcoming new addition of Desktop Notifications in v4.13, which enables more prominent on-screen alerts to logged in users, we’ve added a useful new option to v4.13.

Suppress New Booking Request Email NotificationsSuppress New Message/Watch Notification Emails
Suppress new Booking Request email notifications whilst logged inSuppress new Message/Watch notification emails whilst logged in

The new settings will allow a user to suppress receiving such notifications in their email inbox whilst they are currently logged in to MIDAS. Email notifications will then only be sent during those times they’re away from their device, and logged out.

We believe these new per-user setting will help to reduce the number of redundant email notifications from your MIDAS system. But of course this setting can easily be toggled on/off by users at any time. If you do still want to receive an email notification on every new request/message – even when you’re logged in – you’ll still be able to do so!


New Desktop Notifications

MIDAS Desktop NotificationsDevelopment is nearing completion on the next exciting update to our room booking and resource scheduling software, MIDAS, and over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing a “first look” at some of the new and improved features coming in v4.13.

One of the new features in MIDAS v4.13 is “Desktop Notifications” on web browsers which support such notifications (At time of writing, this includes current versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, with Edge support coming soon!).

Desktop Notifications are small pop-up messages (sometimes called “toasts” due to the way they animate – like toast popping up out of a toaster!) generated by an application. You’ve probably seen similar notifications before – for example in your email client or messenger apps when a new message arrives.

In MIDAS, Desktop Notifications will alert you to new booking requests requiring your approval, as well as new messages from other users, reminders, and watch notifications. Notifications will usually display in the lower left corner of your screen, even if your web browser window is minimized or hiding behind another application – so you’ll never miss another notification!

The notifications will also automatically close after a few seconds, or can be closed manually.

Enable MIDAS Desktop NotificationsIn order to take advantage of Desktop Notifications in MIDAS v4.13, the first time a notification is to be shown, your web browser will prompt you to allow desktop notifications for your MIDAS system. Simply click “Allow” to grant permission to MIDAS to show you notifications (you’ll only need to grant this permission once):

If you decide at a later stage that you wish to turn off your MIDAS Desktop Notifications, you’ll be able to disable them in your browser’s settings.

MIDAS v4.13 is expected to be made available to Beta Testers in the next few weeks, with a general release shortly after. We’re always looking for additional testers to help test and provide feedback/bug reports on pre-release versions of our software, like v4.13. Becoming a tester is free and no experience is required, and what’s more we’ll reward you for your participation! Find out more about becoming a MIDAS Beta Tester here.

If you would like to be notified when v4.13 is fully released, then why not join our Mailing List?