Helm is evolving.

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.