Summer’s finally here in Helm Country! That doesn’t just mean hotter weather, it also means we’ve got another batch of cool new features and improvements ready for you in Helm CONNECT 1.10. If you missed what happened in our last release, you can read about it here. In every update, we build great features based on your requests, and this update is no different. It’s packed with items that went straight from your feedback and suggestions into our product. Here’s just a taste of what you’ll find in our latest update.
Meet Payroll
It’s finally here! One of our most powerful modules from our previous platform (Helm Marine Operations or “V6”) has been reborn—better, stronger, and faster—in Helm CONNECT 1.10. Now, with Payroll as part of Helm CONNECT Personnel, you can:
- Manage all your pay rates and pay classes in a central system
- Use our powerful payroll engine to trigger pay rates according to your company’s rules, including regular, overtime and holiday pay
- Forecast payroll based on your approved schedules
- Automatically generate payroll once crew schedules are approved
- Automatically top up to a full paycheck using accumulated time off
- View total days and dollars paid for your entire crew
Working seamlessly with Crew Scheduling, our new Payroll module is one of the most powerful tools we’ve released yet, and we can’t wait for you to use it. For more information, please contact your account manager!
Details of an individual employee’s pay and banks.
Seamless AIS integration
Thanks to our exciting new partnership with ShipTracks, you can now track your assets right from Helm CONNECT. Just click an asset’s IMO number or icon to find its location on the map in ShipTracks. For Helm CONNECT Jobs subscribers, this feature is also available for resources. Check out this article for more.
Select vessel tracking to view an AIS map of your vessel.
View your vessel through our Shiptracks integration.
Better workflows for overdue checklists and forms
We admit it. Knowing when scheduled work was due was a little confusing in Helm CONNECT. That’s why we worked so hard in this update to simplify the way we handle due dates and put you in control of your overdue items. Now in Helm CONNECT 1.10 when you schedule a maintenance routine, inspection, inventory count, or form, the system starts tracking overdue items based on whichever effective date you select. And there’s more. Let’s say you have to miss some regular maintenance because of a dry dock or some downtime. Now, you can simply omit those overdue records. Of course, to keep you in compliance, each omitted item stays in the asset’s history along with the reason it wasn’t completed. Check out this article for more.
Omit a checklist when your vessel is in dry dock or has downtime.
Role-based approvals on forms
For even more flexibility and control over your approval process, you can now restrict the approval sections on your forms so they must be completed by users with specific roles. For example, you could include an approval section that can only be completed by a captain. Check out this article for more.
Approve your forms by users with specific roles.
The Now button!
This neat little feature was one of the most requested items for Helm CONNECT Jobs and Event Logs. You wanted a button that could quickly enter the current date and time…and we built one! You’ll see this new option on the calendar when you add a new event or activity, and in the dispatch and billing screens throughout Helm CONNECT Jobs. Just hover over the top of the calendar to see the new button then click the clock!
Hover over the calendar to set time to now.
Of course that’s not all. As always, this update is packed with other new features and improvements. Check out the release notes for all the details.
And there’s more good news. We’ve got so many new features in development right now that we’ve got two more releases coming this year. Excited to see more? Your account manager would be happy to give you a sneak peek at what’s coming on our product road map.
To see what’s happening in Helm CONNECT 1.11, check out this post. Happy Helm-ing, and I hope to see you all at Helm Conference in September!
