One question we’re often asked is some variation of “how can people see our availability, or book with us, directly from our own website?” It’s a great question, and MIDAS gives you a few different ways to do exactly that. In this post we’ll walk through the options and help you pick the right one.
There are three features to know about. Two of them, Public Booking Requests and Public Web Bookings, are included as standard in every MIDAS system. The third, Web Calendars, is an optional add-on. They solve different problems, and they also work nicely together.
At a glance
| Feature | What it does | Included or add-on? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web Calendars | Embeds a calendar of your bookings into your own website, so visitors can see what’s on. | Optional add-on | Displaying your schedule or availability on your site. |
| Public Booking Requests | Lets visitors check availability and submit a booking request, which you approve before it becomes confirmed. | Included as standard | Taking enquiries you want to review before confirming. |
| Public Web Bookings | Lets visitors make and pay for a confirmed booking directly, with no approval step. | Included as standard | Instant, self-service bookings with online payment. |
If you just want people to see what’s on
Sometimes you don’t need visitors to book anything online at all. You simply want to show them what’s already happening, or whether a particular space is free, right there on your own website. That’s what the Web Calendars add-on is for.
Web Calendars generates a tidy daily or monthly calendar of your bookings that you can embed directly into a page on your website using an IFRAME, or simply link to. You control exactly which venues and booking types appear, and how much detail is shown. With a little custom styling, you can even reduce a calendar down to a simple “available or booked” display for a particular room.
Web Calendars is our most popular add-on, but it is an optional paid extra rather than a standard feature. You can add it to your system at any time via mid.as/upgrade, or include it from the outset when you first purchase.
If you want people to request a booking
If you’d like visitors to be able to ask to book a space, but you want the final say before anything is confirmed, use Public Booking Requests. This feature lets non-users check your availability and submit a booking request, which lands in your system awaiting approval. A request only becomes a confirmed booking once a venue manager approves it.
This is ideal when you need to vet bookings, for example to check details, confirm payment separately, or simply make sure the request is appropriate before it goes in the diary. You can also restrict requests to particular email domains, and even set certain request types to be approved automatically.
If you want people to book and pay instantly
If you’d rather let visitors book a space there and then, with no approval step, use Public Web Bookings. This works much like Public Booking Requests, but instead of creating a request, it creates a confirmed booking straight away, including an online payment step so the visitor pays at the point of booking.
To accept payments for Public Web Bookings, you’ll first need to enable Stripe or PayPal in your system.
Both Public Booking Requests and Public Web Bookings are disabled by default, and need to be switched on by an administrator via MIDAS Admin Options → Public before they can be used.
The best of both: display and book together
Here’s where it all comes together. Web Calendars isn’t only for display. You can configure a calendar so that when a visitor clicks a date, they’re taken straight to your Public Booking Request or Public Web Booking screen, with that date already selected for them.
That means you can show an attractive calendar of what’s on directly on your own website, and let visitors click through to request or book an available slot in a couple of taps. It’s a great way to combine a polished public-facing display with the booking features already built into your MIDAS system.
Which should you choose?
- Want to show your schedule or availability on your website? Use Web Calendars.
- Want visitors to request a booking that you approve? Use Public Booking Requests.
- Want visitors to book and pay instantly? Use Public Web Bookings.
- Want to display and let them book in one journey? Use Web Calendars linked to either of the public booking features.
Whichever route suits you, you can find full setup details in our help documentation for Public Booking Requests, Public Web Bookings, and the Web Calendars add-on. If you’re not sure which is the best fit for your organization, just get in touch and we’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.
