Table of contents

MIDAS Documentation v4.35

Manage Scheduled Tasks

The Scheduled Tasks feature (MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Scheduled Tasks) allows your MIDAS system to automatically send your clients reminders of their upcoming bookings, invoices, and more, based on a schedule you set.

In order for the Scheduled Tasks component of MIDAS to correctly function, you will need to set up a CRON job (or equivalent) on your server to execute the "cron.pl" file in your MIDAS installation once every per hour. The "Last Run" time provides an indication of when Scheduled Task were last run and can be used to verify your CRON job is running correctly.
For more information on setting up your CRON, please refer to our Knowledge Base article, Configuring your server to run Scheduled Tasks

Tip: You can customize the content of these automated reminders/notifications through the use of Templates

Tip: You can control which of these reminders individual clients receive by updating their "e-mail reminders" preference - See: Modifying Clients

Bookings

Before Bookings Commence
To have MIDAS send booking reminders to clients in advance of their bookings taking place, tick the "Send clients reminders of their upcoming bookings around X hours before they start" option, and set X to the number of hours before a booking starts that a reminder should be sent to a client.

For example, if X is set to "6", and a client's booking is due to start at 2.30pm, MIDAS will send them a reminder between 8am-9am the same morning (6 hours earlier).

After Bookings Conclude
To have MIDAS send a post-booking email to your clients after their bookings have taken place (for instance, to thank them for their business or encourage them to visit again), tick the "Send clients a post-booking email around X hours after their bookings finish" option, and set X to the number of hours after a booking finishes that the email should be sent to a client.

For example, if X is set to "24", and a client's booking is due to finish at 2pm on a given day, MIDAS will send them a follow-up email a day later at around 2pm (24 hours later).

Tip: Post-booking emails can be used in conjunction with the optional Reviews Addon, to automatically invite your customers to leave a rating/review on independent review platforms, such as Trustpilot.

Invoices

By default, invoices created within MIDAS are not automatically sent to clients, and must be actioned by a user with sufficient privileges accordingly. However, with the "Send any unsent invoices" option selected on the Scheduled Tasks screen, once per day, MIDAS will check for any invoices that are unsent, and send them automatically to clients.

Once an invoice has been "sent" (by which we mean it has either been printed out/emailed to the client manually, or automatically emailed to the client through a scheduled task), MIDAS can then send an automated invoice reminder to the client prior to the date their invoices are due. To enable such reminders, tick the "Send payment reminders to clients X days before an unpaid invoice is due" option, and set X to the number of days before an unpaid invoice is due that a reminder should be sent to the client.

For example, if X is set to "5", and an unpaid invoice is due on 15 April, MIDAS will send the client a reminder of their unpaid invoice on 10 April.

To have MIDAS send a payment overdue notification to a client if their invoice hasn't been paid within the "Payment Terms" time frame (You'll find this setting on the Invoicing tab of the Manage MIDAS screen), tick the "Send payment overdue notifications to clients X days after an unpaid invoice was due" option, and set X to the number of days after an unpaid invoice was due that a notification should be sent to the client.

For example, if X is set to "5", and full payment for an invoice was due on or before 15 April, MIDAS will send the client a notification of their overdue invoice on 20 April.

Tip: The "Run Daily Tasks Between" setting can be used to control during which hour of the day invoice reminders/overdue notifications should be sent

Security Audit

MIDAS can be set to perform a self-security audit on a recurring schedule if this option is enabled. Simply set the frequency of these audits and the email address to which you would like reports to be sent.

Security Audits can also be manually run at any time via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Security.

MIDAS » Documentation » Manage Scheduled Tasks