16 Jun 2020
Peter Rowand
Marketing and Business Development

Meet the Release: Helm CONNECT 1.19

After an unusual few months of working from home, homeschooling our children, and learning some unexpected new skills (did anyone else try to make sourdough bread from scratch?), I’m proud to introduce our latest release, Helm CONNECT 1.19. If you missed what happened in our last release, you can read about it here.

Helm CONNECT Maintenance and Helm CONNECT Compliance

First, let’s take a look at some of the changes to Helm CONNECT Maintenance and Helm CONNECT Compliance.

Improvements to the Omit feature for overdue items

Your maintenance and compliance managers will be happy to hear that they can now omit up to 100 unfinished overdue checklist or form items at one time if they’re not needed and still have a record of each item in history.

Improvements to the Omit feature for overdue items

See how long your maintenance and compliance items are open

It used to be hard to see when your teams had started important maintenance or compliance work—such as tasks or corrective actions—and even harder to see how long it took them to complete that work. In this release, we added two pieces of information—Opened Date and Days Open—to help you see when your teams start and finish these items in the system. Check out this article for all the details.

View asset certifications onboard

During an inspection, one of the last things your crew needs is to have trouble looking up the details about their asset’s certifications. Now they can view these details easily on the Onboard > Overview > Tracking tab, including any notes or attachments.

Maintenance checklists scheduled by cumulative readings now due at correct interval

Sometimes, your maintenance checklists don’t get finished in Helm CONNECT at the same time your crew completes the actual work. Previously, we used the date you finished a checklist to estimate when the next checklist was due which meant that, for checklists scheduled using cumulative readings, the estimate wasn’t as accurate as it could be. We now use the inspected date to calculate when the next checklist is due because it reflects when the work was actually done. As a result, your maintenance checklists will be due at the correct interval.

Configuration options for cumulative readings 

We made it easier to control how cumulative reading values are entered in maintenance checklists. Next time you create or edit a maintenance template with cumulative reading items, you’ll notice some new options:

  • Restrict the Add or Total entry fields: You can now control which fields can be used for entering cumulative readings: the Add field or the Total field. You can also choose not to have any restrictions, which means users can enter values in either field, as they did in previous versions of Helm CONNECT.
  • Set daily ranges: You now have the option to set minimum and maximum daily values for each cumulative reading type. If someone tries to enter a value outside this range, it must be confirmed by a user who has the new “Can record cumulative readings outside range limit” permission.

 

Configuration options for cumulative readings Check out this article for all the details.

 

Helm CONNECT Personnel

If you ever wanted to know which payroll rule generated a particular transaction line or bank record, then this one’s for you! On the Personnel > Payroll > Payroll Details tab, when you hover over a transaction line or bank record, the tooltip now includes the name of the payroll scheme, the rule number, and the section the rule is from.

Payroll Tooltip

Also, when you click a transaction line to display the Pay Lines window, you’ll now see a new Payroll Rule Details section that shows the name of the related payroll scheme and rule number, and the section of the payroll scheme the rule is from.

Payroll Pay Lines

And finally, under Banks, we added two new columns called Payroll Scheme and Rule that show you the name of the related payroll scheme and the rule number.

New Payroll Scheme Column

Note: Transaction lines or bank records that you generated in Version 1.18 or earlier won’t display this new information unless you regenerate them.

 

Change logs for Helm CONNECT Jobs and the Platform

We know how important it is to be able to see a list of what changes were made in Helm CONNECT and by whom. In this release, we added a new change log for our Helm CONNECT Jobs customers and enhanced an existing one. We also added a new change log to our Platform, which will apply to all our customers.

New change logs for tariffs

On the Jobs > Tariffs > Tariffs tab, we added a Change Log tab on the right side of the screen that allows you to view changes made to your tariffs. The tracked changes include the details in the tariff header, such as the name, division, or area, as well as any rule numbers that were added, modified, or deleted.

Enhanced change log for contracts

We enhanced the existing change log for contracts on the Jobs > Contracts > Contracts tab. When you click the Change Log tab on the right side of the screen, you can now also see any rule numbers that were added, modified, or deleted. This is in addition to changes made to the details in the contract header, such as the name, area, or effective date.

New change log for users

On the Setup > Users > Users tab, in both the detail and edit views, we added a Change Log tab on the right side of the screen that allows you to view changes made on this tab. The tracked changes include modifications to the person’s profile, such as their name, division, and email address, as well as changes to their user settings, such as login details, assigned roles, and API keys.

Our API

And last but definitely not least, we rolled out several new API endpoints this release: Components, Contract, Requests, Ship Types, and Tariff. We also continued to enhance our existing endpoints by adding new parameters. For more details, check out our API documentation.

We’re deprecating IE 11 in Version 1.21

One more important thing before I go: in Version 1.21 (slated for release in December 2020 or January 2021), we’ll stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) and begin supporting Microsoft Edge. If you’re currently using IE 11, we recommend that you start transitioning to one of our supported browsers (latest released versions of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge) to avoid any disruption to your use of Helm CONNECT.

 

That’s it for now. Be sure to check out our release notes for more details about Version 1.19 and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest Helm news.

Happy Helm-ing!