Manage Venues

You can manage venues via the icon and selecting "Manage Venues".

"Manage Venues" allows you to Add, Remove, or Modify "venues" (rooms/bookable spaces, etc) within your scheduling system.

You can set the maximum occupancy level (capacity) for each venue, as well as specify its "Operating Hours" and hire rates. You can also place venues within "Groups", which can be "filtered" in the booking grid to restrict certain groups of venues to certain users.

From the Manage Venues screen you can also set up venue blocking rules, venue alternatives, assign venue managers and more...

Add a new Venue

Click / tap the "New Venue" button and proceed to enter the name of the new venue.

Setting the Maximum Occupancy Level

In the "Capacity" field, enter the maximum number of people your venue can (or is licensed) to hold at any one time. When making bookings for this venue, MIDAS will warn and prevent you from exceeding this capacity.

Colorizing the Venue

The "Colorize" option allows you to highlight the venue in a chosen color in the booking grid. If you have many venues in your booking system, this may aid in easier identification of similar venues.

Making the Venue available for public booking/requesting

If you have Public Booking Requests or Public Web Booking enabled, and have assigned one or more Managers to the venue, then you'll be able to select the "Public" option, to allow members of the public to check the availability of this venue, and make booking requests or bookings for it.

Setting Venue Hours

By default, MIDAS will assume that the venue will be available for booking 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If this is not the case and you wish to restrict booking when you're closed, then you can define your "Operating Hours" for each day of the week, and / or any periods when your venue is closed completely via the "Hours" tab.

Setting daily operating hours

The "Hours of Operation" tab in the "Hours" panel is a grid of 24 x 7 squares, each representing a 1 hour time slot during the week. A fully green square means the venue is "open" during that particular hour. A fully red square indicates the venue is "closed" during that hour. Left-clicking a square will toggle its open/closed state. Right-clicking a square instead will allow you to "close" the venue in 15 minute portions of that hour.

Close Venues over a number of days

The "Closed Between" tab in the "Hours" panel allows you to close venues entirely between two dates (i.e. if your venue is closed for maintenance, refurbishment, public holidays, etc) by defining a series of "Closed From" and "Closed Until" Date.

Click the icon in the lower right corner to add a new Closed From/Closed Until date range, and then use the calendar to the left to populate each date.

You can modify an existing Closed From/Until date by selecting it and then picking a new date from the calendar.

You can remove a Closed From/Until date by clicking its adjacent icon.

If only one date is specified in a Closed From/Until date pair, i.e. a "Closed Until" date is set but no "Closed From" date, then no bookings can be made for this venue prior to this date. This may be useful if you have new facilities being built that aren't coming "on-line" for several months - you can add them to MIDAS now, but not take bookings before its opening!

Setting Venue Rates

MIDAS allows you to define hire charges for each of your venues via the "Rates" tab.

On this tab, you can quickly set your rates to apply to every day of the week.

Venues can be charged "per booking", "per person", "per hour" or "per day".

You can furthermore specify different rates based on the length of a booking. For example, you could charge a room at $100/hour for bookings lasting up to 4 hours long, and then only charge $60/hour for bookings lasting longer than 4 hours.

Rates are specified exclusive of tax, with the Tax field being used to denote a percentage of tax to be applied to the selected venue's rates.

By clicking "Show Advanced", there are further options available to allow you to set different rates depending upon the day of the week (by unticking the "All Days" box), and different rates at different times of the day (by unticking the "All Times" box).

Defining Venue "Managers"

The "Managers" tab lists all users who have been granted the "Can Process Web Requests" permission. Selecting one or more such users from this list will make them "Managers" of that venue - this means that they are authorized to approve/reject booking requests for that venue.

Blocking other Venues

The "Blocking" tab allows you to set up a list of venues that will automatically be made "Unavailable" when a booking is taking place in the currently selected venue.

For example, let's assume you have a large Hall that can be booked in its entirety or as two halves. You could add this to MIDAS as three individual venues; "Hall" (representing the entire hall space), and "Half Hall A" and "Half Hall B" each representing the two individual halves of the hall. "Hall A" and "Hall B" could both have bookings running concurrently, but "Hall" and "Half Hall A", for instance, couldn't. So, you can use venue "Blocking" rules to set "Half Hall A" and "Half Hall B" to both become "Unavailable" when "Hall" is booked, and "Hall" to become "Unavailable" whenever either "Half Hall A" or "Half Hall B" are booked.

Specifying Alternative Venues

The "Alternatives" tab allows you to select other suitable venues to be offered to users in the event that the selected venue is "Unavailable" when checking its availability.

Adding a Venue Description

The "Description" tab allows you to enter additional details/a description of the venue. This description is shown in a tooltip when a user hovers over the venue name in the booking grid, or over a venue in the public booking request form. HTML is allowed in this description, meaning that you can include photos/images of your venue too!

Once you've finished making changes to a venue, click / tap the "Save Changes" button to save the venue.

Modify an existing Venue

Select the venue you wish to modify from the "All Venues" list, and details for the selected venue will appear to the right.

Rename, change the capacity, Operating Hours, rates, groups, or managers of the venue, and click / tap "Save Changes" once complete.

If you rename a venue, all existing bookings for that venue will be updated to reflect the new venue name.

Modifying multiple Venues

If you select more than one venue from the "All Venues" list, you'll be able to "bulk modify" all selected venues in one action.

The "Save Changes" button will indicate the number of venues you currently have selected, and when clicked, you'll be asked to confirm which particular venue settings (i.e. rates, hours of operation, etc) you wish to apply to all the selected venues.

Removing Venues

Select the venue (or venues) you wish to remove from the "All Venues" list, then click / tap the "Remove" button. After confirmation, the selected venue(s) will be removed from MIDAS, along with any bookings they contained.

Re-ordering Venues

MIDAS allows you to change the order in which your venues appear within the software.
Select a venue and then use the arrow buttons alongside the venue list to move the selected venue up or down in the list.
Once you are happy with the order of your venues, click / tap the "Save Changes" button to save the new order.

"Grouping" venues

In MIDAS you can "group" similar venues together and filter them in the main window to only display venues in the selected group. Venues can appear in multiple groups. You can also restrict access to certain "groups" on a per user basis.

Creating a new "Group" of venues

Select the "Groups" tab, and then click/tab the "New Group" button. You will then be prompted to enter a name for your new group. Once created, you can then assign your venues to the group.

Adding/removing venues to/from a "Group"

Select a venue from the "All Venues" list.
Select the "Groups" tab and hi-light all the venue groups in which the selected venue should appear.
Click / tap "Save Changes" when done.

Renaming an existing "Group"

From the "Groups" tab, select the group you wish to rename "Groups" tab, and then click / tap "Rename Group". You will then be prompted to enter a new name for the group.

Adding a Floormap / Map to a "Group"

See Floorplan / Map Editor.

Deleting a "Group"

From the "Groups" tab, select the group you wish to remove, and click / tap "Remove Group".