The following settings control the public "Web Request" and "Web Booking" interfaces for your MIDAS, allowing non-MIDAS users to check your room availability and make booking "requests" or actual bookings online.
You can specify which of your venues are publicly requestable/bookable through the
Manage Venues screen
Tip: You can customize and add text/graphics, etc to your public "Web Request" and "Web Booking" screens through the use of
templates
Public Booking Requests
Enable Public Booking Requests
Turns the public "Web Request" interface on or off.
Bulk Approval Order
MIDAS allows administrative users to quickly approve all approvable booking requests. This setting controls the order in which booking requests are approved in such instances, as the order in which requests are approved may subsequently affect the availability of other booking requests.
Options are:
- Earliest Requested First - Booking requests will be approved in the order in which they were received, with the earliest received approved first
- Latest Requested First - Booking requests will be approved in the reverse order in which they were received, with the most recent received approved first
- Earliest Commencing First - Booking requests will be approved in the order in which the requested booking would start, with requests for the nearest start times approved first
- Latest Commencing First - Booking requests will be approved in the reverse order in which the requested booking would start, with requests for the furthest away start times approved first
Auto-Approve Booking Requests
If this option is selected, all booking requests are automatically approved by MIDAS (availability permitting) as soon as they are received - they do not require approval by an administrator first.
Public Web Booking
Enable Public Web Booking
Turns the public "Web Booking" interface on or off.
Payments must be completed within
Before an individual can complete their web booking, they need to pay for their booking. Prior to the payment stage, a temporary "tentative" booking is added for the individual, which is converted to a "confirmed" booking once payment has been made. If payment has not made within the specified time frame (determined by this setting), then the tentative booking will be removed from the system and the individual would need to re-book.
Automatically create invoices and mark them as paid
With this setting enabled, whenever an individual makes a web booking and associated payment, an invoice is automatically created and marked as paid for their payment.
Shared Public Settings
The following settings affect both Public Requests and Public Bookings...
Venue selection
This setting controls how individuals select a venue (or venues) to request/book.
Options are:
- Individual/Manual - The individual selects from a list of individually publicly accessible venues
- Automatic/From Group - The individual selects from a venue group, MIDAS then automatically selects a suitable publicly accessible venue from within the selected group
Auto Venue Selection
(Only with Automatic/From Group venue selection)
This setting controls how MIDAS should select a suitable venue when automatic venue selection is in use.
Options are:
- Random – MIDAS will attempt to select an available venue at random from the all public venues within the selected venue group
- Venue Order – MIDAS will attempt to select the next available venue from the all public venues within the selected venue group, based on the order your venues are configured to appear within MIDAS
- Least Used (Number of Bookings) – MIDAS will attempt to select an available public venue from the selected venue group with the least number of existing bookings in it
- Least Used (Venue Utilization) – MIDAS will attempt to select an available public venue from the selected venue group with the most free time in it (i.e. the least utilized venue)
Requests/Bookings must be made at least X days in advance
Prevent users from making last minute booking requests or public bookings by insisting that all requests/bookings are made in advance by a minimum number of days you specify.
Requests/Bookings may not be made more than X days in advance
Prevent users from requesting/booking too far in advance by restricting the number of days ahead you will accept booking requests or public bookings for.
Requests/Bookings cannot be made past
Specify an absolute date past which booking requests and public bookings will not be allowed.
Show on blocks
(Only with Individual/Manual venue selection)
When checking venue availability, if you don't want public to see who's already booked, set "Show on blocks" to "Unavailable". Public will then only see that a venue is unavailable, but won't see who's actually booked it. Alternatively, you may wish to display the name of the client, organization, or type of booking instead.
Block color
(Only with Individual/Manual venue selection)
Change the appearance of booking blocks when public check your venue's availability.
Show Hours of Operation
(Only with Individual/Manual venue selection)
If selected, a visual indication of each selected venues hours of operation will also be shown on the Web Request screen.
NOTE: Requests will still not be permitted outside of a venue's operating hours regardless of this setting. This setting only controls whether hours of operation are indicated to requesters or not
Show Venue Capacities
(Only with Individual/Manual venue selection)
If selected, the maximum capacity (occupancy level) for each venue will be indicated when selecting venues on the Web Request screen.
Only allow public requests/bookings from these email domains
This option allows you to restrict public booking requests and public bookings to individuals with certain email addresses. For example, if you were to enter "yourdomain.com" in this field, public booking requests and/or public bookings can only be made by persons entering a "@yourdomain.com" email address. So, if you only wish to accept booking requests and/or public bookings from people within your own organization, this setting can be used to filter out any third party requests/bookings.
You can specify multiple allowed domains here in the form of a comma separated list. For instance, to only allow public requests/bookings from your own organization and hotmail accounts, you would enter "yourdomain.com,hotmail.com"