It’s summer here in Victoria, British Columbia and time to roll out another release! If you missed what happened in our last release, you can read about it here. This release comes at a time of celebration for Helm. This summer we’re not only celebrating our 20th anniversary as a company, it’s also been almost exactly one year since we released Helm CONNECT Personnel! Happy first birthday, Personnel!
Born in Version 1.9, Helm CONNECT Personnel has now gone through six major updates and as we celebrate its birthday Helm CONNECT Personnel is looking ready to take off. This release (Helm CONNECT 1.15) sees some big changes coming to Helm CONNECT Personnel based on your feedback and our vision for Helm CONNECT going forward.
Plan your crew schedules
Planned crew schedule changes now appear on the Schedule tab so you can easily plan schedules well out into the future if you need to. If you want to plan crew changes before you know which crew members will be available to fill each position, no problem. We display an ‘Unassigned’ link above each unfilled position. Anytime, you can click the link to jump to the Crew Changes tab and assign an available crew member to that position. We also added a warning icon to so you can quickly tell if the unassigned position comes from an unfilled manning requirement. To learn more about this feature, check out this article.
Forecast your payroll
Want to estimate your payroll in the future? Now you can. Helm CONNECT used to calculate payroll from approved crew changes only. Now, to help you plan your upcoming payroll, we’ve expanded Helm CONNECT to calculate forecasted payroll based on planned or pending crew changes. On the Payroll Details tab, we added two buttons above the payroll grid so you can just display your actual payroll or include your forecasted payroll as well. To learn more about this feature, check out this article.
Record crew utilization
We made two big changes to how you record work in Helm CONNECT.
- We linked work periods together in our Crew Scheduling module. Before, each work period—typically a day—in a multi-day schedule was separate and you had to apply a change to each work period individually. Now the schedule moves together. When you make a change to one work period it’s applied to all the linked work periods. You’ll notice the linked work periods on the Schedule tab and you’ll see a difference in the Work Periods report.
- For crew members, you can now record multiple types of work in a single work period. Use the new Split icon on the Onboard > Personnel > Timesheets tab to record the date and time when you change your work. And because work periods are now linked together, you can enter the change once and have it apply to a group of days. You don’t have to edit each day separately unless you need to. If you subscribe to our Crew Scheduling module, you can also record the earning code, payroll class, or cost center associated with this work. This button simplifies the previous workflow where you had to crew off and on to record work you did in different positions.
To learn more about this feature, check out this article.
Include extra charges with your cancellation billing
Although we’re talking a lot about Helm CONNECT Personnel in Version 1.15, we’re also releasing something for our Helm CONNECT Jobs customers. We know you often have additional charges and surcharges associated with your cancellation billing, such as fuel surcharges. Previously, you weren’t able to add these charges to an invoice after a trip or job was cancelled. Now you can. When you set up a contract or tariff, you can easily decide which rules should apply to canceled items.
Check out our release notes to see all the details. And please mark your calendars because Helm Conference 2019 will be in Nashville from October 7th to 9th. For more information and to register, head over to www.helmconference.com. You don’t want to miss out!
Please keep giving us feedback so we can build the stuff you need. To learn more about what’s coming in Helm CONNECT 1.16, check out this post, and to see what’s new in Helm CONNECT Personnel, click here.
Happy Helm-ing!
