Crew Scheduling: Send Crew Change Notifications by Email or Text

Helm CONNECT automatically sends crew change notifications to your crews whenever your crew dispatchers publish or modify a crew change. These emails list the asset a person is assigned to, the position they're working, and the date and time they need to arrive at the asset. For a complete list of our email notifications, check out this article.

The crew change notifications have two very handy features:

• Crew change notification emails contain 'Acknowledge' and 'Decline' buttons so your crews can confirm their schedule with one click.
• You can send crew change notifications by text message. These messages also contain 'Acknowledge' and 'Decline links, so your crews can confirm their schedule with one touch.

How to send crew change notifications

Send notifications by email

Helm CONNECT sends crew change notification emails whenever a crew change is published or changed. For each person who wants to receive the notification by email, you'll need to enter a valid email address in the Email field on the Details sub tab in Management > People > People, and confirm that the Crew Change Notification field is set to Email. No additional setup is required.

Send notifications by text message (SMS)

For each person who wants to receive the crew change notification by text message, you'll need to enter a valid cell phone number in the Cell Phone field on the Details sub tab in Management > People > People. This number must contain the country code and area code.

To send crew change notifications by text message, we use a webhook in Helm CONNECT. This webhook sends data to a communication provider so text messages are sent in real time. Our webhook is designed to work with Twilio, a leading SMS provider. Please see this article this to learn how to set up the integration between Twilio and Helm CONNECT.

How to reply to crew change notifications

When you receive a crew change notification email or text message, you'll see the following response options:

• Email: You'll see two buttons: Acknowledge and Decline.
• Text message: You'll see two links: Acknowledge and Decline.

When you click one of the buttons in the email or one of the links in the text message, you'll be taken a web page that confirms your response. You don't need to log into or have access to Helm CONNECT to reply. Once you've replied by email or text, you can't change your response. If you need to change your response, please contact your crew dispatcher.

How to view and edit crew responses

You can view each crew person's response to crew change notifications on the Planned Changes card on the Crew Changes tab under Personnel > Schedule. Here's what the icons mean:

• A green thumb up means a person acknowledged the crew change.
• A red thumb down means a person declined the crew change.
• A gray thumb up means a person hasn't responded.

When you hover over the red and green thumbs, you'll see a tool tip with the date and time of the response.

To edit a response, click the Edit button on the Planned Changes card to see the detail view. You can edit a person's response by clicking on the thumb icons. For example, if a person replied to the crew change notification with 'Acknowledge,' you will see a green thumb on their record, but now they've told you that they can't work as scheduled. To change their response in Helm CONNECT, do the following:

1. Click the green thumb icon to undo the 'Acknowledge' response. Two gray thumbs will appear.
2. Click the gray thumb down icon to make the red thumb appear. This records a 'Decline' response.