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Crew Scheduling: Introduction to Managing Schedules

You manage your crew schedules on the Personnel > Schedule > Schedule tab. The schedule shows each asset you choose as a group of rows on a timeline, with the positions on that asset and the crew filling them.

When you first open the tab, the Schedule Filter window opens so you can choose which assets to show. See "Crew Scheduling: Filter the Schedule View."

The Parts of the Schedule

The Schedule tab with two assets showing, the toolbar across the top and the asset rows down the left

Each asset you choose gets its own group of rows, headed by the asset's name:

  • Safe Manning: Appears when Show Safe Manning is turned on in the general settings. Shows whether the asset has enough qualified crew on board. A green check marks the dates that meet the requirement, and dates that don't meet it show a warning.
  • Job / Crewing Requirement: Shows the crew configuration the asset should have.
  • Crew Changes: Shows a bubble each time crew join or leave the asset.
  • Position groups: A row for each position group in the asset's crewing requirement, such as Wheelhouse Haul. Each one expands to a row for each position, such as Captain or Deckhand. The position rows hold the crew assignments.

Crew at the bottom left opens the Crew view, which shows the timeline from each crew member's point of view. See "Crew Scheduling: Find and Assign Crew in the Crew View."

How a Crew Change Moves from Shore to the Asset

A crew change starts as a plan on shore and ends with the actual on and off times coming back from the asset.

  1. Create the schedule. You draw or automate the planned schedule. New crew changes start unpublished, with gray bubbles.
  2. Publish the crew changes. Once the plan looks right, you publish the crew changes, one at a time or in a batch. The bubbles turn blue.
  3. Notify the crew. Depending on how your tenant has been configured, Helm CONNECT notifies the crew when you publish, or you send the notifications yourself. See "Crew Scheduling: Send Manual Crew Change Notifications."
  4. The crew see the change. Published crew changes appear for the asset in Onboard, and for each crew member in My Helm.
  5. The asset completes the change. When crew come on or go off the asset, someone on board opens the crew change on the Onboard > Personnel > Crew Changes tab and enters the actual date and time for each crew member.
  6. The actual times come back to shore. The actual start and end times appear on the schedules on the Personnel > Schedule > Schedule tab.

The Toolbar

The toolbar runs across the top of the schedule. From left to right, it holds:

  • FILTER: Chooses which assets appear on the timeline.
  • Selection Tool: Lets you draw a box around several schedules to select them at once.
  • CREW GROUPS: Fills the schedules you draw with the crew from the asset's crewing requirement. When it's off, the schedules you draw are unassigned. When you turn it on, you choose the asset and crew group to draw with.
  • AUTOMATE: Builds schedules from your rotations. See "Crew Scheduling: Automate the Schedule."
  • Planned Dates: Chooses which dates the schedules show: Planned Dates, Actual Dates, or Actual Dates (fallback to planned), which shows actual dates where they exist and planned dates otherwise.
  • Paint bucket icon: Changes the color of the schedules you select. Appears when Enable Custom Colors is turned on in the general settings.
  • BULK PUBLISH: Publishes or unpublishes a batch of crew changes. Appears when Enable Bulk Publish is turned on in the general settings. See "Crew Scheduling: Publish Crew Changes."
  • NOTIFY CREW: Sends a message to the crew on the schedules you select. See "Crew Scheduling: Send Manual Crew Change Notifications."

At the top right of the timeline, the Today icon brings you back to the current date, the arrows move the timeline left and right, and the Zoom In (+) and Zoom Out (−) icons change how much time you see, from hours up to months.

At the right end of the toolbar:

  • Requests: Appears when your crew have time off requests waiting for review. Click it to see them. See "Crew Scheduling: Add and Approve Crew Time Off."
  • Warnings: Shows a green check when there are no conflicts or certification warnings on the schedule you're viewing. If there are, it changes to a warning with a count. Click it to see them. See "Crew Scheduling: Review Certification and Safe Manning Warnings."
  • Diary: Opens the Notes panel, where you can keep handover comments and reminders that don't belong on a schedule. See "Crew Scheduling: Keep Notes in the Diary."
  • Settings: Opens the Crew Scheduling settings. See "Crew Scheduling: Introduction to Setup."
  • More actions (⋮): Opens the reports and exports you can run from the schedule. See "Crew Scheduling: Run Reports from the Schedule."

Your changes on the schedule stay pending until you save them. Click SAVE at the top right to keep them, or DISCARD to throw them away.

Day-to-Day Tasks

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