Posts Tagged: addons

Geolocation and Geofencing

We’re excited to announce Geolocation and Geofencing support for our MIDAS room and resource scheduling software.

What is Geolocation?

Geolocation support in MIDAS room booking systems

Geolocation is the process of determining the geographic location of a user’s device. It is used in a variety of applications, such as mapping, navigation, and weather forecasting. A device’s location can be determined using a variety of methods, including GPS, cell tower triangulation, and IP address location.

IP address geolocation is a method of determining the position in the world of an IP address. This can be done by using a variety of methods, including:

  • Reverse DNS lookup: This method involves looking up the IP address in a DNS database to determine the name of the domain that is associated with the IP address. The domain name can then be used to determine the geographic location of the server that hosts the domain.
  • Geolocation databases: These databases contain information about the geographic location of IP addresses. This information is typically collected from a variety of sources, such as ISPs and network operators.

It is important to note that IP address geolocation is not always accurate. The accuracy of IP address geolocation depends on a variety of factors. These include the quality of the geolocation database and the method that is used to determine the geographic location of the IP address.

What is Geofencing?

Geofencing is an extension of geolocation. Once a device’s geographic location can be determined through geolocation, “Geofencing” can be used by a website or application to ensure that devices outside of an authorized area are denied access.

IP geofencing works by creating a virtual radius at a set distance around a fixed point on the globe. By comparing the latitude and longitude coordinates of a user’s device, with this fixed point, the distance between them can be calculated. This calculation will determine whether the user’s device falls within the set virtual radius.

Access form any device which falls outside of a set radius of the central fixed location can then be blocked.

Geolocation applications within MIDAS

Initially, there are two main areas within our booking software where geolocation information can be shown.

First, is the Recent Activity Log. This audit log in MIDAS records all user activity and actions taking place in your booking system. Each entry in the log is time-stamped, and shows the user account and IP address which performed the action.

From MIDAS v4.33, the optional Geolocation addon can be configured to allow location information to be shown for IP addresses in the Recent Activity Log. This location information includes the city, region, and country that the IP address resides in.

The second application for geolocation in MIDAS accompanies the unfamiliar login notifications feature.

The unfamiliar login notifications feature alerts users when their account is signed in to from a new device or location.

These notifications typically include details of the user’s device / browser and their IP address.

Geolocation support now means that you can optionally configure these notifications to now also include the city, region, and country that the login occurred from.

Geofencing applications within MIDAS

Building on the new geolocation support, Geofencing can be used to further enhance the security of your MIDAS system.

It can be used to restrict account logins to certain countries. For example, if your organization only has offices within the United States and the United Kingdom, your colleagues are typically likely to only need to login to MIDAS from within either the US or the UK. You can use geofencing to block any login attempts originating from countries other than the US or the UK.

Restrict MIDAS logins to certain countries
Restrict MIDAS logins to certain countries

Geofencing can additionally (or alternatively) also restrict account logins to within a certain distance from your location. For example, if you run a radio station in Manchester, UK, you could restrict logins to your MIDAS system to within say a 10 mile radius of Manchester.

Restrict MIDAS logins to within a radius of a set geographic location
Restrict MIDAS logins to within a radius of a set geographic location

How to enable Geolocation or Geofencing in MIDAS

The new Geolocation and Geofencing features are available for MIDAS v4.33 (or later) via our optional Geolocation addon.

Existing customers with active subscriptions can obtain this addon via mid.as/upgrade.

If you’re new to MIDAS, you can subscribe with the Geolocation addon via mid.as/pricing.

Geolocation data accuracy

The accuracy of IP geolocation data depends on a number of factors, including the quality and freshness of the geolocation database, the method that is used to determine the geographic location of the IP address, and the type of IP address.

The IP geolocation data we use in the Geolocation addon for MIDAS is never more than 30 days old.

In general, IP geolocation data is most accurate for large geographic areas, such as countries or states. It can become less accurate for smaller geographic areas, such as cities or neighborhoods.

That’s why if you use the distance based geofence features of the Geolocation addon, you should always set a larger liberal distance than necessary, rather than a very small strict distance from your location. The Geolocation addon does include an instant IP lookup test tool, so you can check IP distances before you apply them.

The Geolocation addon also includes “fallback” options for both country / distance geofence enforcement. For IP addresses where a country and/or latitude and longitude coordinates cannot be determined, you can configure MIDAS to either block or allow these connections.

It’s also worth noting that the accuracy of IP geolocation data can be affected by the use of proxy servers and VPNs. Proxy servers and VPNs can mask the true IP address of a device, making it difficult to determine the device’s geographic location.


“Addons” further extend the capabilities of a MIDAS booking system beyond the extensive features that are already included as standard with our software.

Did you know that with one of our optional addons you can actually display a calendar of bookings right on your own public website?

Display a calendar of bookings on your website

The Web Calendars addon allows visitors to your organization’s public website to see what’s on at your venue.

You can embed daily and monthly calendars directly into your public website. You also have precise control which events appear (or are hidden) on these calendars, and how much information is shown for each.

Example of a MIDAS calendar embedded in a public website
Example of a MIDAS calendar embedded in a public website

Plus, if you already make use of the built-in Public Booking Request or Public Web Booking features of MIDAS, you can also configure Web Calendars to allow a visitor to directly book/request a specific date by simply clicking it.

Check our some live examples of embeddable public calendars at https://mid.as/web-calendars/live-examples

Get Web Calendars for your MIDAS system

Web Calendars is by far our most popular addon, with nearly a quarter of all customers choosing to add it to their MIDAS booking system!

You can add the Web Calendars addon to your MIDAS system too, by simply going to mid.as/upgrade.

Also check out our other optional addons to further extend the capabilities of your MIDAS software.


Back in 2020 we released a brand new optional addon for MIDAS room booking systems.

The “Reviews” addon works in conjunction with leading review sites to allow you to collect reviews and feedback from your customers following their use/hire of your facilities.

Initially, the “Reviews” addon supported 4 major independent review platforms:

Collect Reviews
https://collect-reviews.com
Reviews.io
https://reviews.io
Trustpilot
https://trustpilot.com
TrustSpot
https://trustspot.io

We’ve recently update our “Reviews” addon to add support for a new fifth review platform, Psydro…

Psydro

Psydro is a UK based startup with a user-friendly platform that has been meticulously designed to help consumers make informed decisions about the businesses and organizations they interact with.

The platform allows you to collect feedback from real people about your services, which in turn allows other perspective customers to have confidence and trust in what your business offers.

How Our Reviews Addon Works

The optional “Reviews” addon for MIDAS works by automatically notifying an independent review collection platform after a client’s booking has taken place at your facilities. The review platform then in turn sends out a review invitation by email to your client asking them to leave a review or rating of your business on their website.

Here’s how the process works:

  1. A client’s booking in MIDAS takes place.
  2. Shortly thereafter, MIDAS automatically sends the client a post-booking email (the content of which is customizable via a template)
  3. When this email is sent, it is also transparently BCC’d (Blind Carbon Copied) to your chosen review collection platform
  4. The review platform in turn sends your client an invitation to rate/review your business on their independent review platform

What you’ll need

In order to be able to take advantage of the functionality the optional “Reviews” addon offers, you’ll need the following:

Complete documentation for the new Reviews addon is available online.

How to get the “Reviews” addon for MIDAS

If you’ve not yet using our MIDAS room booking system, you can purchase or subscribe to our software, and add the optional “Reviews” addon through our secure site.

Existing customers with valid subscriptions may add the optional “Reviews” addon to their booking system by upgrading online. (You’ll need to be running at least MIDAS v4.30 in order to use Psydro)

Are there any other review platforms you’d like to see included in this addon in the future? Why not let us know!


Domain Alias Addon

In our previous blog post, we introduced our new optional “Custom Branding” addon.

This allows you to re-brand (white label) a MIDAS booking system, removing any references to “MIDAS” and replacing them with your own name and logo.

The “Custom Branding” addon is available to both self-hosted and cloud-hosted customers.

Now, for cloud-hosted customers, if you want to remove references to “MIDAS” from your booking system, you’ll still have the “mid.as” reference in the actual URL for your MIDAS system (i.e. “example.mid.as”).

Our new companion “Domain Alias” addon solves this issue!

It allows you to setup access to cloud hosted MIDAS system via another domain instead. – for instance a sub-domain of your organization’s own website domain.

So for example, if your hosted MIDAS domain was “example.mid.as”, and your organization’s own domain was “example.com”, you could use the optional Domain Alias addon and set say “bookings.example.com” to use as the URL for your hosted MIDAS system instead.

Domain Alias Addon for MIDAS
Domain Alias Addon for MIDAS

Setting up a domain alias is a simple 3-step process:

  1. Enter the domain/sub-domain you wish to “alias” to your hosted MIDAS system.
  2. Make a small DNS change on your organization’s domain using the information provided in the addon
  3. Confirm that you’ve made your DNS change

Once your changes become active, you’ll be able to access your hosted MIDAS system via your chosen domain alias.

For more information about this optional addon for cloud-hosted customers, please visit: https://mid.as/domain-alias