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What Are Guide Assignments?

Guide assignments connect your independent guides to specific runs. When you assign a guide to a run, you’re letting them know about an upcoming tour and giving them the information they need to prepare. The guide receives a notification, reviews the details, and decides whether to accept or decline based on their availability. This system recognizes that guides are independent contractors who work with multiple agencies. You don’t control their schedule—instead, you make requests, and guides respond based on their own availability and preferences. Assignments apply at the run level, meaning one guide assignment covers all the events (customer bookings) within that departure. Once a guide accepts an assignment, they gain access to all the run details they need: passenger information, pickup locations, special requests, and any operational notes you’ve added. The assignment also syncs to their personal calendar so they can see the tour alongside their other commitments.

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How Guide Assignment Works

The assignment workflow follows a natural progression from initial request through tour completion.
1

You assign a guide to the run

Select a guide from your roster and create the assignment. The guide receives an immediate notification with tour details: experience type, date, location, passenger count, and any special notes you included.
2

Guide reviews the assignment

The guide receives the notification and reviews the tour details. They see who made the assignment and can access a direct link to view full run information based on your privacy settings.
3

Guide responds to the request

If they’re available and interested, the guide accepts the assignment. If they can’t make it or the tour doesn’t match their skills, they decline.
4

Assignment status updates

The system automatically updates the assignment status based on the guide’s response. You see the current state in your dashboard and can take any necessary next steps.
5

Calendar syncs for accepted assignments

When a guide accepts, the tour is automatically added to their synced calendar. They gain full access to run details and receive preparation reminders as the date approaches.
6

Tour completes

After the tour happens and is marked complete, the assignment status updates automatically. This creates a record of the guide’s work and closes out the assignment lifecycle.

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Creating Assignments

To assign a guide to a run, select from your active roster. You can filter guides by location, skills, languages, and availability to find the right match for each tour. When you make an assignment, you can include operational notes that will be visible to the guide. Use this space to communicate special requests, accessibility needs, dietary restrictions, or other details the guide should know before accepting. These notes appear in the assignment notification and remain accessible throughout the run.
You can assign multiple guides to the same run if your tours require more than one guide. Each guide receives their own assignment and notification, and they accept or decline independently.
The system prevents duplicate assignments—you can’t assign the same guide to the same run more than once. If you need to reassign a guide after removing them, use the reinvite workflow instead.

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Understanding Assignment Status

Assignment status tells you where each guide stands in the assignment lifecycle and what action to take next.

Pending

The guide has been notified but hasn’t responded yet. Pending assignments remain active until the guide accepts, declines, or you remove the assignment manually. What happens next: Wait for the guide to respond, or remove and reassign if time is critical.

Accepted

The guide has committed to leading the tour. The tour is added to their calendar, they have full access to run details, and they’ll receive preparation reminders. What happens next: The guide prepares for the tour and shows up on the scheduled date.

Rejected

The guide declined the assignment. They no longer receive notifications about the run and are removed from the active assignment list. What happens next: Find another guide for that run or try reassigning.

Canceled

You manually removed the guide assignment. This happens when you assigned the wrong guide, the tour is canceled, or you need to reassign for any reason. What happens next: The guide stops receiving notifications. You can create a new assignment if needed.

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Notifications and Guide Communication

Guides receive notifications at key points in the assignment lifecycle to keep them informed and help them prepare.
The first notification arrives immediately when you create the assignment—typically within one minute. This notification includes everything the guide needs to make a decision:
  • Event name and date
  • Tour type and experience details
  • Passenger count
  • Who made the assignment
  • Any operational notes you included
  • Direct link to view full run details
Guides use this information to decide whether to accept or decline based on their availability and skills. To learn more about notifications, see the Notifications documentation.
All assignment notifications are sent individually, not batched. Each assignment triggers its own immediate notification so guides can respond quickly.

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Reassigning and Reinviting Guides

Sometimes you need to bring a guide back after removing their assignment, or you want to try assigning the same guide again after they declined. The reinvite workflow handles these situations. To reinvite a guide, you create a new assignment for the same guide who previously had an assignment on that run. The system tracks this as a reinvite rather than a new assignment, which helps you understand the assignment history when reviewing activity logs. Reinvites work the same way as initial assignments: the guide receives a notification, reviews the details, and accepts or declines. The difference is that reinvites are marked specially in the activity history so you can see this isn’t the first time you’ve tried to assign this guide to this run.
You cannot reinvite a guide who currently has an active or pending assignment on the run. You must first remove their existing assignment, then create the reinvite.

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Removing Guide Assignments

You can remove a guide assignment at any time, regardless of its current status. This might happen because you assigned the wrong guide, the guide is no longer available, the tour is canceled, or you need to reorganize your assignments.
When you remove an assignment, the guide receives an immediate notification and all pending reminders are canceled. If the guide had accepted the assignment and it was synced to their calendar, the calendar event is removed from their personal calendar.
The removal action is recorded in the activity history with a timestamp and your name, creating an audit trail of why and when the assignment was removed. The guide loses access to detailed run information at this point, though they may still see basic information depending on your agency’s privacy settings. Removing an assignment doesn’t affect other guides assigned to the same run. Each assignment is independent, so you can remove one guide while others remain assigned.

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Calendar Integration

When guides connect their Google Calendar to Helm, accepted assignments automatically sync to their personal calendar. This keeps their Helm tours visible alongside all their other commitments. Helm creates a calendar event when a guide accepts an assignment. The event includes tour name, date and time, location, and basic run details. If you change run details after acceptance—like moving the date or updating the time—the calendar event updates automatically. Calendar events created by Helm are read-only. Guides can view them but can’t edit or delete them from their calendar app. Changes must be made in Helm to keep everything synchronized.
Responding to Google Calendar invitations (accept/decline/maybe) doesn’t affect assignment status in Helm. The calendar event is just a visual reminder. Guides must respond to assignments in Helm directly.
When you remove a guide assignment or the guide declines, Helm deletes the calendar event automatically. For setup instructions, privacy details, and troubleshooting, see the Google Calendar integration guide.

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Assignment Activity and Audit Trail

Every action related to guide assignments is tracked in the activity history, creating a complete audit trail of who did what and when.
Action TypeWho Sees ItWhen It Appears
Assignment createdAll team members with run accessImmediately when you assign a guide
Assignment reinvitedAll team members with run accessWhen you reassign a guide who was previously assigned
Guide acceptsAll team members with run accessWhen the guide responds positively
Guide declinesAll team members with run accessWhen the guide responds negatively
Assignment canceledAll team members with run accessWhen you manually remove the assignment
Status overrideAll team members with run accessWhen you or another admin manually changes the status
All of this information appears in the chronological timeline on the run detail page. You can filter the activity history to show only assignment-related actions if you want to focus on guide changes without seeing other run updates.

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Guide Permissions and Visibility

What guides can see and do with their assignments depends on whether they’ve accepted and on your agency’s privacy settings.
When a guide first receives an assignment notification, they can see basic information about the run: the tour name, date and time, location, and any notes you included with the assignment. This gives them enough information to decide whether to accept without exposing sensitive customer details.
Once a guide accepts an assignment, their access expands based on your privacy settings. Most agencies allow accepted guides to see passenger names, contact information, pickup locations, and any special requests or dietary restrictions. This access lets guides prepare properly and contact passengers if needed. Guides cannot modify run details or passenger information. They have read-only access to the information they need to do their job. They can add comments to communicate with your team, but they can’t change tour times, passenger counts, or other operational details.
Your privacy settings control whether guides can see other guides assigned to the same run. Some agencies keep this information visible so guides know who they’re working with. Other agencies restrict this view, showing each guide only their own assignment. You can configure this setting from your organization preferences.
If a guide declines an assignment or you remove their assignment, they lose access to detailed run information. They may still see the run in their past activity or declined assignments list, but they can no longer view passenger details or operational notes.

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Assignments When Merging Runs

When you merge multiple runs into one, guide assignments from all the source runs are preserved and transferred to the target run. This ensures you don’t lose assignment information when consolidating runs. If multiple guides were assigned across the runs being merged, they all become assigned to the merged run. Each guide maintains their individual assignment status—if they had accepted in the original run, they remain accepted in the merged run. Pending assignments stay pending. Guides who had accepted assignments on the merged runs receive notifications about the merge. This lets them know the run details may have changed and gives them a chance to review the updated information. The notification includes the new run details and confirms their assignment is still active. Calendar events are updated to reflect the merged run. If a guide had the tour synced to their calendar, the calendar event updates with the merged run’s details. This keeps their personal schedule accurate without requiring manual updates. All assignment activity history is preserved through the merge. You can still see when each guide was originally assigned, which run they were assigned to, and how the merge affected their assignment. This maintains a complete audit trail even as run organization changes.