After many months of design, development, and validation with the market, it’s time we introduce the newest Helm CONNECT module that will simplify your vessel logs and centralize your operations—Helm CONNECT Logbook!
Meet Helm CONNECT Logbook
Meet Helm CONNECT Logbook, the easiest way for your crew to log their activities and provide instant transparency between vessel and shore. Logbook is designed to provide a new, central location for your crew—especially your captains—to manage operational logs and action data from throughout Helm CONNECT in a single screen. With Helm CONNECT Logbook, your crew can now quickly log operational tasks and billing information while seeing key information—such as upcoming events, crew onboard, and an overview of tasks—from all four Helm CONNECT products.
Here’s what you can expect from the first release of Logbook, coming in Version 1.22 of Helm CONNECT:
- Easy log entry designed for the crew. Log vessel activities quickly and easily with a product made for minimum clicks.
- Instant transparency between vessel and shore. Track crew onboard, upcoming work, and ongoing activities as they happen all in real-time.
- Print and export logs instantly. Quickly print and export logs for charterers and other stakeholders at any time and in your custom formats.
This is just our initial release of Logbook which is paving the way for a deeper integration to Helm CONNECT Jobs and the expanded barge maintenance and barge dispatch modules on our roadmap. Like the rest of Helm CONNECT, Logbook will continue to evolve as we look to bring in e-signatures, tow diagrams, and a Rose Point integration in future releases.
Why We Built Logbook
All marine companies keep a vessel log. For many of our customers, these logs are kept on paper, in Excel, or in an editable PDF. While all of these options can work, none of these is an ideal solution for capturing operational data from your vessel. Data in these formats is prone to recording errors (including both fat fingering and pencil whipping), isn’t instantly shareable from vessel to shore, and is hard to aggregate and analyze. Log events, however, are critical for both compliance and billing, so the accuracy and timeliness of your logbook data has a direct impact on your bottom line. Data recorded in daily logs is critical to improving your operations, but it can be difficult if you need to share multiple Excel files or worse, manually enter data from paper into Excel in order to get basic data and trend information. Helm CONNECT Logbook is our answer to those challenges. Our vision was to create a simple, responsive tool for logging activities and events that could be easily configured to capture the specific information you need to report for compliance and billing, would be shareable through the Cloud and would be easy enough to use that even the least tech-savvy mariner would feel comfortable using it.
Design and Layout
Logbook’s clean, simple layout was designed with your crew in mind. They can do everything they need with just a few clicks, from logging new entries to reviewing previous logs or downloading and printing reports, all with minimal training. When you first open Logbook, we make it easy to log a new event or activity with two “Log a new entry” buttons: one in the header and one right in the middle of the screen.
The logbook itself is on the left of the screen, a chronological list of the asset’s event and activity logs for each 24-hour period. By default, the list displays just event and activity logs, but the “Show All” filter will show completed items for that period as well, including forms, checklists, tasks, corrective actions, component activate/deactivate records, and crew on/off records. Strikethrough indicates clearly when an entry has been deleted. Calendar tools above the list make it easy to look back at previous entries either one day at a time or by selecting a specific date, and a handy Today button returns you quickly to the current logs.
The Daily Logs feature allows you to configure specific events to appear automatically each day as empty placeholders. These act as reminders to the crew and will move down into the logbook as soon as they’ve been completed so you can see at a glance whether they’ve been addressed.
You can also perform crew changes right from the Logbook tab with the help of the Single Crew Change button in the header.
At any time, shore or the vessel can quickly print a report or export/download a CSV file of the items on the screen. Our Professional Services team would also be happy to talk to you about any custom layouts you need for your reports.
On the right of the screen is the widget pane, representing an exciting new design feature for us. The four widgets provide a quick view of what’s going on in Helm CONNECT:
- Today: Displays the first three items (checklists, forms, tasks, corrective actions, or planned activities) due today. Clicking an item opens it right in the logbook so you can work on it immediately.
- Overview: Displays the asset’s current open items, including the total number of open items (checklists, forms, and tasks), the number of planned versus unplanned tasks, and the number of overdue items (checklists, forms, and tasks). Clicking the Overview widget takes you to the Onboard > Overview tab to see more details.
- Upcoming Jobs: Displays upcoming jobs scheduled within the next 24 hours.
- Current Crew: Displays the names and positions of the first ten crew currently onboard the asset. If you have permission to the Onboard > Personnel > Crew tab, clicking a name in the list will open that crew member’s profile on the Crew tab.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this tour of Helm CONNECT Logbook. If you’re interested in learning more or would like to see a demo of this new product, get in touch with our team – they’d love to help!
Happy Helm-ing!
