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.