One of these concerns the setting up and modification of venues within the system. Whilst setting up your venues is typically a one-time task, if you’re setting up a large number of venues it can become a little mundane having to set hours of operation, rates, groups, managers, blocking rules, alternative venues, etc for each venue individually – especially if the settings are the same across multiple venues.
That’s why in v4.18, we’ve made it easier to make “bulk” changes to multiple venues at once, which we’re sure will be a real time saver!
Bulk Modify or Remove Venues
On the “Manage Venues” screen, multiple venues can now be selected simultaneously from the “All Venues” list to the left. Any changes then made in the “Venue Details” section to the right will be applied to all selected venues.
Furthermore, you’ll also be able to remove venues in bulk (rather than one at a time)
Click here to continue reading about some of the other new & improved features coming in MIDAS v4.18!
The latest exciting update to our web based room booking and resource scheduling software MIDAS is just around the corner, are we’re really excited to be introducing you to some of the notable new features and improvements you can except in v4.14 right here on our blog…
Now, the ability to “close” individual venues to bookings over a custom date range has long been a staple of MIDAS.
This has allowed users to, for instance, close a particular venue over a holiday period or when a venue is out of action due to a period of scheduled maintenance or refurbishment, etc.
The limitation of this feature has until now been that only one “closed from” and “closed until” date range could be defined for each venue at any given time.
Based upon feedback from our customers – notably including those in educational sectors – in v4.14 we’re improving the ability to close venues between dates, by now allowing multiple “closed” date ranges to be defined for each of your venues:
“Closed” date ranges for each of your venues may be specified in MIDAS v4.14 via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Venues → [select venue] → Hours → Closed Between
From this screen, simply select a date from the calendar as the “Closed From” date, and a second date as the “Closed Until” date. Clicking the small “+” icon in the lower right corner will then allow you to specify additional “Closed From” and “Closed Until” dates.
Dates that fall within these “Closed Between” date ranges will be unavailable to regular users for booking. (Administrative users however who have been specifically granted the special “Can book outside operating hours” permission can still book even when your venue(s) are closed to regular bookings)
Taking the example of a school/college/university – This improvement for v4.14 will now allow staff to enter dates for all the holiday periods throughout their academic year and beyond!
You can read more about some of the other exciting improvements coming in v4.14 here!
We’ve been busy developing a major new update to our scheduling software, MIDAS.
This update packed full of new and improved features, many of which have originated from ideas and suggestions from our existing users.
An often requested feature is to have the ability to “route” booking requests to different users, depending upon the venue being requested.
Currently, all booking requests received by your MIDAS system go into a central “pool”. From this pool, any user with the “Can Process Web Requests” permission can view, approve, query, modify, reject, or lock the requests.
In MIDAS v4 however, Booking Requests can be routed to different users based upon the venue that’s been requested!
You can essentially configure which requests go to which administrators. In an educational setting this would, for example, allow sports staff to manage requests for your sporting facilities. At the same time, office staff could separately manage incoming requests for your meeting rooms.
How it works…
In MIDAS v4, you’ll find a new “Managers” tab on the “Manage Venues” screen.
From this tab, you can assign one or more existing users to “manage” booking requests for the selected venue:
Assigning Venue Managers in MIDAS
Then, when a member of the public then makes a booking request for that venue, “managers” of that venue are sent an automated email notification by MIDAS. This informs them that a new pending booking request requires attention. These email notifications may be turned on/off at any time through the manager’s “Pending Booking Requests” screen.
The manager can then log in to MIDAS and go to their Pending Booking Requests screen. From here, they’ll see outstanding requests for all the venues they manage. Booking requests can be approved with a click of the mouse.
The Booking Request screen also offers additional functions. Requests can be modified – for instance, they can be moved to a different time, date, venue, etc. Requests can also be rejected, queried with the original requester, or locked. Locking a request prevents any other manager from processing the booking request whilst you’re dealing with it. For example, you may need to query something with the client before approving their request and don’t want another user approving their request in the interim.
