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Getting started

Helios is deliberately fast to stand up: no servers to run, no consultants, no onboarding calls. The path is signup, create a client, install an agent. Most MSPs see their first device reporting within minutes.

1. Create your account

Sign up at heliosmsp.io/signup. The 14-day trial needs no credit card and includes every feature, because there is no feature gating between plans. Your account is a private tenant: your clients, devices and settings are isolated from every other MSP on the platform.

Want to explore before enrolling real machines? Load the built-in sample data from the Getting Started screen. It creates realistic clients, devices, tickets and alerts, all tagged as sample so one click removes them cleanly later.

2. Add your first client

Everything in Helios belongs to a client. Create one under Clients with just a name; contacts, SLA settings and branding can come later. Each client gets its own enrolment link, alert profile, patch schedule and, if you want it, a branded portal.

3. Install the agent

The agent download box on each client shows a per-client install command. Agents exist for Windows, Windows Server, macOS and Linux, and every build is produced by CI, never hand-built. Once installed, the agent enrols with a per-device secret token and starts reporting inventory, metrics, patches, antivirus state and backup status.

• Windows: one PowerShell command, runs as a service.
• macOS: installer package with a LaunchDaemon.
• Linux: shell installer with systemd unit.

Devices are auto-classified as server or workstation from their OS (you can override it), which drives how seriously an offline event is treated: a server going dark is critical, a laptop shutting for the night is not.

Setting up a Mac, step by step

Monitoring on macOS works the moment the agent installs. Full remote control needs a few one-time permission grants on the Mac itself, because Apple gates screen viewing and input behind separate switches. Do these once per Mac and they stick (though a major macOS upgrade can silently reset them, so re-check after one).

1. Install the agent. Run the macOS install command from the client's agent box in Terminal. It needs an admin user (it installs a system service).
2. Approve the unsigned binaries if asked. If macOS reports an app from an unidentified developer, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway.
3. Enable remote access. In Helios, open the device and click Enable. This installs the relay and the screen capturer (macVNC) automatically.
4. Grant Screen Recording. On the Mac: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording → enable macVNC. Without this you get a black or blank screen when connecting.
5. Grant Accessibility. On the Mac: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable macVNC. This is the one everyone misses: without it you can see the screen but clicks and keystrokes do nothing. If it already looks enabled but input is dead, toggle it off and on.

4. What happens next

Out of the box every client gets a sensible alert profile, so the moment devices report you have working thresholds for CPU, memory, disk, offline detection, pending reboots, missing antivirus and stale backups. From there most teams do three things:

1. Connect the client's Microsoft 365 tenant for licence, MFA and mailbox visibility.
2. Set a patch schedule so updates apply themselves.
3. Invite technicians under Users. Admin accounts must enrol 2FA on first login; see the security model.