Helm is evolving.

We shipped two big things this release: a full WooCommerce integration to bring your bookings into Helm automatically, and a bunch of calendar improvements to make your day-to-day smoother.

WooCommerce Integration

Helm now connects directly to your WooCommerce store. The integration works with both vanilla WooCommerce and YITH Booking & Appointment products out of the box — and with the Workflow Studio, you can map virtually any WordPress setup to Helm.

We built a dedicated WordPress plugin for this. You can grab it and find setup instructions on our WooCommerce integration docs. Need help getting your specific config working? Just ping us.

Coming soon: custom webhooks and additional data sources.

Calendar Improvements

Agenda grid. We redesigned the grouped agenda view into a clean grid layout so you can compare schedules across multiple days at a glance. Groups stick to the left column and day headers stay fixed as you scroll. Groups are now sorted by number of assigned events so the busiest ones surface first.

Inline notifications. Notifications now show up directly in your calendar. Unread alerts get a blue indicator with specific icons for mentions vs. updates. Selecting an event auto-marks its notifications as read and shows a banner with the alert context. Real-time toasts make sure nothing slips through.

As of today, Helm is open to everyone. No waitlist, no invite codes, no "request access" forms. If you want to try Helm, you can — starting now.

We've been building Helm for the past months with a simple belief: tour operators deserve software that actually works the way they do. Not clunky legacy systems held together by spreadsheets and workarounds. Real software, built by people who've lived the problem.

That's not a tagline — it's literally how we've been building. Helm has been running real tours, with real guides, real passengers, and real stakes, since day one. Every feature shipped because we needed it. Every bug fixed because it bit us first. By the time you're reading this, hundreds of runs have already gone through the platform without a hitch.

Public beta means the doors are open, but we're not calling this a launch. There's more coming — a lot more. This is the beginning of something we're proud of, and we're excited to build the rest of it with you.

Come see what we've been working on.

Say Hello to @Usernames & Profile Photos

You can now choose a unique @username and add a profile picture — so it’s easier to recognize teammates and keep conversations moving quickly. Your @handle shows up across the app, making collaboration feel more personal and reducing the “wait, which Alex is this?” moments.

Alongside this, search and mentions have gotten smoother. You can find teammates by their @username in addition to name or email, and @mentions now support handles too.

To get started, head to your profile settings to claim your @username and upload a photo. If you work with a larger team, encourage everyone to set theirs up as it makes search, mentions, and day-to-day coordination noticeably faster.

Stay Organized with Color‑Coded Tags

You can now organize your schedule at a glance with color-coded tags for Experiences — so it’s easier to find what matters, faster. Whether you’re juggling multiple clients, projects, or event types, tags help you bring order to busy calendars without adding extra clutter.

Create tags, assign them to Experiences, and then use the new Tags filter in all Calendar views to instantly narrow in on the events you want to focus on — like “On-site,” “Pending,” “VIP,” or anything that matches how you work. It’s a simple way to stay aligned and move through your day with more confidence.

To get started with tags, head to an Experience, add a tag, and try filtering your Calendar to see your schedule snap into focus.

Agency-Facing Notifications & Availability

We made a lot of improvements and upgrades to our notifications system. You can now stay better aligned with your guides when things change last minute. When third-parties syncs updates to scheduled runs—like date or time changes, or passenger count adjustments within 48 hours—both you and your guides receive notifications at the same time, so everyone stays on the same page without delays or confusion.

Notification titles across the Inbox are now clearer and easier to scan. Instead of generic labels, you'll see exactly what changed—”Event time changed,” “Passenger count changed,” “Pickup location updated”—along with the event date, time, and title right in the notification list. You can triage updates faster without opening every notification to figure out who, when and what happened.

When inviting guides to events, you can now see richer availability context — if your guides have opted in. Instead of just “available” or “busy,” Helm can show signals like “Available from 2:30pm” when a guide's prior commitment ends shortly before your tour, or “Busy until 5:00pm” when they have an overlapping event.

This is part of our new tiered Availability System. By default, guides share free/busy status only. Guides can upgrade to Enriched availability from their roster settings, or agencies can request it — giving you more context without exposing event details, just when they become free.

We're already working on the next level. More on that soon.

This is all just the beginning. We're shipping fast and we have a lot more planned — if you have feedback, ideas, or just want to say hi, we're listening. Thanks for being here early.

Read more about Helm’s mission on our new Company page.

This week marks an important moment for Helm. It is our first official release, shipped right in the middle of peak season, alongside our very first customer.

Over the past weeks, Helm has been used daily to handle real staffing operations under pressure. Schedules were tight, volumes were high, and expectations were real. This release reflects that reality. It is not about polishing a demo product, but about supporting teams when things get intense.

Standing by our first customer during peak season

Peak season exposed real weaknesses in existing tooling across the ecosystem. During this period, several agencies experienced reliability issues with external calendar synchronization, including Bokun to Google Calendar flows. While no official incident report has been published, similar issues were reported by multiple operators at the same time.

In that context, Helm played a critical role. Staffing workflows, availability checks, and guide coordination continued to run reliably inside Helm, allowing teams to keep operating despite instability elsewhere. For our first customer, Helm became the source of truth for staffing decisions when other systems were no longer fully dependable.

Stronger collaboration and day to day operations

This week, collaboration inside Helm improved meaningfully. Users can now react to comments and reply directly within threads, making conversations clearer and reducing noise when coordinating on events. Small interactions like these matter a lot when teams are moving fast.

Event workflows are also safer. Helm now warns users when they are about to leave a page with unsaved changes, helping prevent accidental data loss during busy operational moments.

Passenger and contact handling is faster as well. Teams can copy passenger names and main contact details directly from event views, making it easier to coordinate with partners outside Helm.

More reliable staffing and run management

Run handling is now more accurate in complex cases. Runs that include multiple bookings are no longer marked as fully canceled when only one booking is canceled. This prevents incorrect assumptions and avoids unintended downstream effects during planning.

Sign in flows were also improved. Google SSO is now simpler and faster, reducing friction for guides and agencies accessing Helm throughout the day.

A foundation built for real operations

This first release is not just a collection of shipped tickets. It represents a foundation that has been tested in real conditions, with real customers, during the busiest time of the year.

Helm stood by its first customer when it mattered, providing stability, clarity, and confidence in staffing processes when external systems were under strain. That is exactly what we set out to build.

This is our first release—and a meaningful milestone for Helm.

Over the past months, we’ve focused on building a solid foundation—something teams can rely on every day without thinking about it. This update brings together deeper calendar sync, clearer team workflows, and safer event management, all aimed at making Helm feel calmer, more predictable, and easier to operate as things scale.

Calendar Sync, Availability & Invite Control

Helm’s calendar integration is now more flexible and predictable, giving teams full control over how availability is checked and where invitations land.

You can connect Helm to Google Calendar to keep bookings and availability automatically in sync, so schedules stay up to date without extra manual work. In Settings, you can choose exactly which of your connected calendars should affect availability—perfect if you separate personal events from work commitments.

You can also decide which calendar Helm sends event invitations to. During onboarding (and anytime later in Settings), you’ll pick a preferred “invite calendar,” so new events land where you actually want them.

Availability is still checked across all enabled calendars, so choosing an invite calendar never limits scheduling accuracy.

Beyond calendars, team management is now clearer and easier to operate. You’ll see better seat usage and limit warnings to help avoid unexpected shortages, smoother pending invite workflows so rosters stay accurate, and refreshed event cards that surface key details—like passenger breakdowns and time information—at a glance.

The result: fewer surprises, less admin overhead, and calendars that work the way your team actually does.

Your 2025 Recap & In-App Announcements

You can now view your 2025 Recap in Helm—a story-style, visual summary of your year. See your busiest periods, where bookings came from, and how staffing invites played out, all in one place.

To make sure you don’t miss updates like this, we’ve added In-App Announcements. Important launches and events now appear directly in your dashboard, with quick actions and easy dismissal once you’re done.

Meet Notification Inbox Search & Filters

You can now find the right notification in seconds. The notification inbox has been upgraded with built-in search and flexible filters, so you can quickly narrow down what matters—without endless scrolling.

Search across your inbox to jump straight to a specific update, then refine the list with filters like Unread and notification types such as Invites, Reminders, Mentions, and more. When you’re ready to start fresh, Reset Filters clears everything with a single click. Your search and filter selections are reflected in the page link, making it easy to bookmark or share a specific view.

Safer, Clearer Run Merges

You can now merge runs with a lot more confidence. The merge flow is clearer about what you’re choosing, and it helps prevent mistakes by warning you upfront when a merge won’t work—especially when it could push a run over capacity.

When you review merge options, you’ll see richer context for each choice, including main contact details, a passenger breakdown, language, pickup information, and how many runs are eligible to merge. We’ve also added a projected passenger total so it’s easy to understand the impact before you commit.

If a merge isn’t allowed, you’ll get clear warnings and error messages that explain exactly why—so you can quickly adjust your selection and move forward without guesswork.

More Control Over How You Sign In

You can now manage your sign-in options right from Settings → Profile, giving you clearer control over how you access your account. Whether you want to add a password, update an existing one, or connect a Google account, everything is now in one clear place.

From your profile settings, you can link or disconnect your Google sign-in and set or change your password whenever you need. And to help prevent accidental lockouts, if Google is currently your only way to sign in, we’ll guide you to create a password before disconnecting it—so you’re never left without a way back into your account.

We also refreshed the password update experience with clearer, more helpful feedback and convenient show/hide controls, making it easier to review what you’re typing and confidently save changes.

Shipping this feels significant—for us and, we hope, for you too. Helm is built in close conversation with the teams who rely on it, and that won’t change. Thank you for trusting us with your operations. We’re just getting started.