01Overview
Helm is a live operations dashboard for managers. It brings together ticket activity from Orbit, technician hours from Tempo timesheets, client health and the system monitors in one place. It can also run unattended on a wall monitor, cycling through its tabs on its own.
Access is limited to owners of a designated Microsoft 365 group for your team. Data refreshes every 5 minutes.
Key capabilities
| Feature | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| KPI strip | Open tickets, Urgent / High, Closed this month, Hours this month, New today, SLA on-time, Unassigned and Unbilled hours, always at the top. |
| 👥 Tech Scoreboard | Hours billed this month per technician (from their timesheets), their clients, open and closed tickets, and the 👑 Tech of the Month. |
| 🎫 Open Tickets | Every open ticket in three columns: Urgent, High and Normal. |
| ⏱ Time Activity | Billed hours per technician for any month. |
| ⚠️ Attention | Unassigned tickets, after-hours approvals waiting, stale tickets, longest-waiting clients and recurring work due this week. |
| 🏢 Clients | Every client with open tickets, hours this month, backup status and contract expiry. |
| 📡 System Monitors | Windows backup, directory sync errors, ScreenConnect offline servers and Duo lockouts. |
| 📋 Monthly Report | A printable one-page summary of the month (print or save as PDF). |
| Search and Auto-cycle | Search tickets, clients and time with /, and let the tabs rotate every 20 seconds. |
02Signing in
Helm uses Microsoft single sign-on with your Microsoft 365 account. There is no separate password.
- Open Helm in your browser (for example,
ops.pnw.com). - Click Sign in with Microsoft and, if asked, sign in with your organization's Microsoft 365 account.
- The dashboard loads once your account is confirmed as an owner of the designated team group.
If you see "Access denied", your account is not an owner of the team group. Ask your administrator to add you as an owner.
Signing out
Click Sign out in the header.
Demo accounts
Demo accounts see sample data from a separate demo site, never real clients or tickets.
03Screen layout
| Area | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Header | Clock and date, 📋 Monthly Report, the search box (press /), the Auto-cycle switch and Sign out. |
| KPI strip | Eight summary cards across the top (see below). |
| Tab bar | Tech Scoreboard, Open Tickets, Time Activity, Attention, Clients, System Monitors. The Attention and System Monitors tabs show a red badge when something needs a look. |
KPI strip
| Card | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Open Tickets | Tickets not yet closed. |
| Urgent / High | Open tickets with Urgent or High priority. |
| Closed This Month | Tickets closed so far this month. |
| Hours This Month | Hours logged so far this month. |
| New Today | Tickets created today. |
| SLA On-Time | Share of this month's tickets that got a first response within 4 hours. |
| Unassigned | Open tickets with nobody assigned. |
| Unbilled Hrs | Ticket timer hours on tickets not yet billed or invoiced. |
04Tech Scoreboard
One tile for each team member who has timesheet data this month, sorted by hours billed (highest first). When you add a technician to the team group, their tile appears once they have logged time in Tempo.
| Part of the tile | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Hours and bar | Hours billed this month, with a bar compared to the top technician. |
| Client pills | The clients they worked for this month, with hours for each. |
| Chips | Open tickets, Closed/Mo, ⚠️ Urgent tickets, 🌙 after-hours entries (AH) and days worked. |
| Last entry | Date, client and description of their latest time entry. |
| 👑 Tech of the Month | The technician who closed the most tickets this month. |
The bottom row shows the last 3 tickets received, the last 3 tickets closed and the last 3 time entries.
05Open Tickets
All open tickets in three columns (Urgent, High and Normal), with a count on each. Each row shows the ticket number, title, age, priority, client and who it is assigned to. Click a row to open the ticket window.
06Ticket window
The ticket window shows the ticket's status, priority, assigned technician, client, created date and billing status. Changes you make here are saved straight to the Orbit ticket list.
Change status or reassign
- Click a ticket row to open the ticket window.
- Change the status (Open, In Progress, On Hold, Closed, Cancelled), choose a technician under Reassign, or both.
- Click ✔ Apply Changes.
Close a ticket in one step
Click ✅ Close Ticket. Click Cancel to close the window without making changes.
Closing a ticket records the closing time. Notes, emails to the client and time entries are done in Orbit, not in Helm.
07Time Activity
Billed hours per technician for one month, read from the timesheets technicians save to SharePoint from Tempo.
- Use ◀ Prev and Next ▶ to step through months.
- Or click This Month or Last Month to jump straight there.
08Attention
Items that need a manager:
| Panel | What it lists |
|---|---|
| Unassigned Tickets | Open tickets nobody owns. |
| Awaiting AH Authorization | After-hours work waiting for the client's approval. |
| Stale tickets | Tickets that are assigned but have been idle for 3 or more days. |
| Longest-Waiting Clients | The oldest open ticket for each client. |
| Recurring Due This Week | Recurring tickets coming up. |
The tab badge counts unassigned tickets plus after-hours approvals.
09Clients
Every client is listed with Open Tickets, Hrs This Mo., backup Status and Contract Exp.
| Backup status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ✅ OK | Backups are healthy. |
| ⚠️ Warn | Backups reported a warning. |
| ⚠️ Silent 2+ days | No backup report for 2 or more days. |
| 🔴 Fail | Backups are failing. |
- Type in the search box to filter the list.
- Click a column header to sort.
- Click a client to open Account Details and Recent Tickets.
10System Monitors
Click 📡 System Monitors. The data reloads each time you open the tab, and the tab badge turns red when a monitor needs attention.
Windows Backup
Built from the daily backup report emails. Each client is shown as Healthy, Warning, Failing or Silent (no report for 2 or more days). A Failing or Silent backup also opens an Orbit ticket automatically, and that ticket closes when backups recover.
Sync Errors
Directory sync failure emails from the last 30 days, grouped by client. Click ✓ Mark Resolved to clear a client once the problem is fixed.
ScreenConnect: offline servers
A read-only copy of the Orbit panel listing servers whose ScreenConnect agent is offline. Servers flagged for maintenance show 🔧 Maintenance.
Duo lockouts
Duo lockout events from the past 3 days, with user, client, reason and time. This panel is hidden when there are none.
Live server health cards (disk, backup drive, antivirus, restarts, firewall) are in Orbit, under System Monitors → Agent Monitor.
11Monthly Report
The Monthly Report is a printable summary of the month: tickets opened and closed, hours billed, SLA compliance, average resolution time, open critical tickets, tickets by client, hours by technician, backup status and attention items.
- Open the 📡 System Monitors tab once, so the backup section has data.
- Click 📋 Monthly Report in the header.
- Click 🖨️ Print / Save PDF to print it or keep a copy.
If you skip step 1, the report's backup section will be empty.
12Search, Auto-cycle and refresh
Search
Press / or click the search box to find tickets, clients and time activity. Click a result to jump to it.
Auto-cycle
Turn on the Auto-cycle switch and Helm moves to the next tab every 20 seconds. This is ideal for a wall monitor.
Refresh
All data reloads every 5 minutes. To reload the page now (and pick up a new version of Helm), press Ctrl+Shift+R.
13Troubleshooting
| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Access denied" | Your account is not an owner of the team group. Ask your administrator to add you as an owner. |
| Dashboard shows dashes | Data is still loading. Wait a few seconds; if it stays that way, press Ctrl+Shift+R. |
| "msal is not defined" | Your browser blocked the sign-in script. Turn off content blockers (such as uBlock) for the Helm site and reload. |
| A technician has no tile | Tiles show only technicians with timesheet data this month. Their timesheet must be saved to SharePoint from Tempo. |
| A ticket change fails | Wait for the next refresh (or reload), open the ticket again and retry. |
| Report has no backup data | Open the System Monitors tab first, then make the report. |
For Microsoft 365 account or group access problems, contact your own IT administrator or help desk.
14Getting help
Questions, bug reports or feature requests: email info@taucher.llc. You'll reach the people who wrote the software.