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The Loading Dock: November 2023

by | Dec 12, 2023

The Loading Dock: November 2023
12 Dec 2023
Kathy Littkemann
Technical Writing Lead

Welcome to the Loading Dock—our round-up of the latest things we’re building in Helm CONNECT! Here’s what our team was up to in November, as we worked to bring you the best software in the maritime industry with all the tools you need to make your business successful.

Configure the Due fields on Tasks and Corrective Actions

Until now, filling in the due dates and times on tasks and corrective actions has always been optional. To give you more control and help you ensure that all work is properly scheduled and accounted for, we’re making the Due fields configurable. From the Tasks and Corrective Actions tabs under Setup > Field Configurations, you’ll be able to hide or show the Due fields and choose from these three options:

  • Not required: The Due fields won’t prevent users from saving or finishing an item if they haven’t been filled.

  • Always required: The Due fields must be filled to save or finish an item.

  • Only required on completion: The Due fields must be filled to finish an item, but users won’t be prevented from saving if they haven’t been filled.

Include Both Assignees and Vendors on Tasks and Corrective Actions

Another change coming for tasks and corrective actions is the ability to include both an assignee and a vendor on the same item. This will make things easier if you’d like to assign an internal resource to work alongside an external vendor.

Restrict Who Can Change Requisitions After They’ve Been Approved

We’re adding a new permission called Add Line Item After Requisition Approval so you can restrict who changes requisitions after they’ve been approved. Currently, any user can keep adding new line items to approved requisitions and send them for reapproval. By limiting this behavior to specific users, you can promote best practices and require your crew to create new requisitions when necessary instead of adding more items to ones already approved and ordered.

Ever since we added clickable links to forms, you’ve all been asking for them in checklists, too. Well, I have good news; you’ll soon be able to add a URL to any text field in the main body of an inspection, maintenance, or inventory template, and when you publish the template, it will become a clickable link that opens in a new browser window. Anyone using a checklist based on that template will see the clickable links that were added to the template, and they’ll also be able to add URLs anywhere they can type text, which will become clickable once the checklist is submitted, including when it moves to history. This handy feature will let you add a link to a different location within Helm CONNECT or something else, such as an internal or external website.

Increased Character Limit for Observations and Findings in Audits

I have good news for anyone who thought the character limit for observations and findings was a little low. We’re more than doubling the character limit and increasing it from 400 to 1000 characters.
Contact us today and learn more about these exciting new updates or for more information on what’s in development, be sure to check out our blog series, Through the Spyglass!

As always, these are items that we’ve worked on that are subject to change and may or may not be in the next version of Helm CONNECT

That brings this volume of the Loading Dock to a close! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you again next month. Happy Helm-ing!