Android, iPhone and web · Your data stays in the UK

Family schedule a circus? Meet your Ringmaster.

Forward the school email. Check one card. Everyone's diary updates.

One shared family calendar that fills itself from the emails you already get. It sends ordinary calendar invites, so it never needs access to anyone's diary.

Join the beta See it working

Free during the beta · Nothing to connect · We never read your calendar

Already a member? Log in

One school email, start to finish

Three steps. Your part takes about a minute.

1

Forward it

The school newsletter arrives. You forward it from your phone and carry on with your evening.

To: HelperSkelter19:02

Fwd: St Mary's Primary — Autumn newsletter

…Harvest Festival in the hall on Friday 16th October at 9.15am. Please return the trip form by Friday 23rd October. A reminder that PE kit is needed every week…

2

Check the card

A minute later, the dates it found come back to you to check. Nothing goes anywhere until you say yes.

HelperSkelter
From the email: 1 appointment and 1 to do waiting for you.

From: St Mary's Primary

Harvest Festival
Fri 16 Oct · 09:15–10:00 · For: Ella · Invites: Mum, Dad

To do: Return the trip form · due Fri 23 Oct

Left off: "PE kit every week" — no date to add.
3

Everyone's diary updates

A normal calendar invite lands in your diary and in Dad's work one. If it clashes with something, his calendar tells him, and his no tells you.

Dad's work calendar · Fri 16 OctConflict
09:00
Team stand-up
Harvest FestivalDeclined
Family calendar
Fri 16 Oct · Harvest Festival — Dad declined. Mum accepted.

Then it keeps you ahead, without being asked

Every evening at six: what to do tonight, who's where tomorrow, and anything in the next few days nobody's covering yet. The trip form comes up the night before it's due, not three weeks early. Every morning at seven: the day ahead, in order.

The evening briefing card in the app: an indigo masthead reading Tomorrow, Fri 23 Oct, then To do, Coming up, In the diary with times and who is going, and Gaps in the next 3 days
18:00 · tomorrow, sorted tonight
The morning run sheet card in the app: an amber masthead reading Today, Fri 23 Oct, then today's appointments in time order with who is at each, and what is due today
07:00 · today, in order

You see it first

Nothing from an email reaches a diary until you say yes.

Undo for a day

Anything you add by message can be undone with one tap for 24 hours.

Your calendar checks clashes

Invites land in the diary you already use, so a clash shows up where you'd expect.

Join the beta

Free during the beta · If it gets one wrong, say no and nothing goes out

The whole week, in one place

One family calendar, on your phone or laptop: every appointment with who's going, who's said yes and which child it's for, and anything nobody's covering yet at the top. Forms, payments and kit sit in a to-do list beside it.

The Calendar pane on a phone: a yellow panel at the top lists two days that need attention, then one card per day with a row for each appointment, showing the time, the title, who it's for and the organisation, and the invitees' initials with a green or red dot.
Anything nobody's covering sits at the top until someone takes it.
The Calendar pane scrolled to Friday: Harvest Festival for Ella from St Mary's Primary, with Mum's green dot and Dad's red dot; Leo's birthday party on Saturday with Gran not yet answered; Monday's Football Practice with an amber edge and warning icon because Dad has only said maybe.
Each appointment shows who it's for, where it came from, and who's said yes (green) or no (red).

What else it does

Each of these takes one sentence, or nothing at all.

Who's doing the school run?

Ask, and it tells you. A pickup nobody's covering stays at the top of the calendar until someone takes it.

Who's doing the school run?
Today: Dad is dropping and collecting
Tomorrow: Mum is dropping, Dad is collecting

Nobody is down to collect this Friday.

Just say it

Anything the email didn't know, just type. It's done straight away, and you can undo it.

Ella has swimming every Tuesday at 5 from next week, I'll take her
Done: added Swimming for Ella, every Tuesday 17:00–18:00 from Tue 20 Oct, with Mum.

Forms, kit and money

The things that aren't appointments and still get forgotten. Kept in a to-do list, and brought up the night before they matter.

  • Return the World Book Day costume formDue tomorrow
  • £4.50 for the coach tripDue Friday
  • Wear red on Thursday

Tell it your house rules once

"Swimming is an hour, show it as free, always invite Dad." From then on every swimming session follows that rule. Birthdays can come up ten days ahead, so there's time for a present.

HelperSkelter
New rule: Anything called 'Swimming'
· 1 hour · Invites Dad at work · Shown as free

Join the beta

HelperSkelter is in a private beta on Android, iPhone and the web. It's free while we test it with a few families.

1

Get in touch

Email us to say whether you use Android or iPhone, and which email you use for your phone's app store.

2

We add you

We add you to the test on Google Play or Apple's TestFlight and let you know when you can sign up.

3

Install and set up

Install the app, create your family, and forward your last school email. Your partner can join from an invite, or just get calendar invites.

Email to join the beta

support@helperskelter.cloud

Questions

Does my partner need to sign up?

Not to get invites. Give their email address and they receive normal calendar invites there, work email included, and accept or decline from their own calendar. The same goes for grandparents or a nanny.

An account is for whoever wants to see the whole family calendar, send things in, or say yes to what's waiting. You invite them from the app.

Which calendars does it work with?

Any calendar that accepts an emailed invite: Google, Apple and Outlook all do. HelperSkelter never connects to or reads them. Add as many of your own addresses as you like, personal and work.

How do I send things in?

Forward emails from any address on your account, or type or paste into the app. If you use an AI assistant such as Claude, it can talk to HelperSkelter too, and you choose whether its changes wait for your yes. If a forwarded email doesn't appear, the address it came from usually isn't on your account yet; add it in the app.

Will this fill up my work calendar?

Only with what you're invited to, and you can have a kind of appointment show as free, so swimming doesn't block out your working afternoon.

What if it misreads an email?

Everything from one email comes to you to check before anything goes out, and anything it couldn't read is left off with the reason. Say no and the lot is thrown away. When something you type could mean two things, it asks rather than guesses.

Is our family data private?

What we store: the event details you forward or type, the email addresses, children's names and house rules you set up, and your chat history with HelperSkelter.

How it's read: the emails you send us are read by an AI model to find the dates and deadlines. That content isn't shared with anyone beyond the services that run HelperSkelter, listed in our privacy policy.

How long we keep it: for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, your data is deleted straight away, and from our backups within 30 days.

Who can see it: only you and the family members you've invited. HelperSkelter staff don't access your data except to investigate a bug you've reported.

Calendars: we never connect to or read your Google, Outlook or Apple diary. We only send calendar invites.

AI models: your family's data is never used to train AI models, and is never sold or used for advertising.

Where it lives: your data is kept on servers in the UK, under UK data protection law.