NW Scheduler/Publisher - Updates, Support, and Suggestions

[DarinS]

Yes - similar to John - we had to kind of 'come to an agreement' as BOE

 

had a new secretary wanted to counsel/possibly remove Pioneer for only getting 600 of the required 840

 

comments section he had (decreased to match the max 'carry-over')

so if they had 50-preaching + 40LDC  - he only noted 20 - which met the 'total needed for the month'

 

however the pioneer was reporting quite a bit more those months

after we saw 8-9 months of huge 'credits' we weren't that worried about "only 600 hours preaching"

they maybe had 600 for the preaching but had another 600 in LDC/AH/Schools

 

the CO had us back up and look at the whole picture - he mentioned that even though it says to add the credits up to a certain level(currently monthly requirement +5) .... there was nothing wrong with having the extra hours listed under comments - to help us make reasonable decisions when we review Pioneer info 

 

your issue seems to be more app usage and math (thus our SEC request  to add it twice)

 

imagine if you still had to annotate everyones hours.....man that used to take hours and hours every month

 

[howudodat]

The directions are clear on what to do with extra hours.  The total should be noted and the elders should take that into consideration, but only up to 55 can be actually counted.  I myself cant count all of my hours (can only count roughly 1/3 of my total credit hours).  My concern isn't with those instructions, nor with what to do with someone who is a little (or even a lot) short.

 

It's more to do with how the hours are entered.  I find that I have to regularly go back and "fix" credit hours.  The S-4 has no "credit" box, only comments which is where the directions state to enter credit hours.  This allows the secretary / service committee the opportunity to look at those hours before crediting them.  IMO "credit" in NWP should be a read-only field

[More4me2do]

Excellent Good News, with the latest update of NWS the Satellite view of territories is working again. The best map service is the MapBox Satellite as the other map service ThinkGeo Satellite is not as clear and sharp, plus my first quick check shows in one territory finished homes in an undeveloped area. So, it looks like that an update for the ThinkGeo Satellite map service is needed.

 

Thanks to the Devs for getting such a quick fix for the territory module.

[ResilientSoul]

On 2/26/2025 at 8:29 PM, -Chris- said:

 

Just catching up on this thread. I don't use dark mode either. I've tried, both on the phone and on the computer. However, over the years I've come to understand that people love to configure their personal computing devices in all kinds of ways and I've come to appreciate dark mode availability for two concrete reasons:

Modern displays are reaching the point where brightness levels can be uncomfortable, especially on displays where no attempt at adjustment or calibration has been made (I usually wind up with brightness set to a comfortable level and contrast adjusted to best see the full range of gamma). Brightness nits are another feature to be listed and compared. 

 

Some neurodivergent people have issues with bright lights. I don't understand it, I don't know all the conditions and ways that a bright screen can affect them but I don't need to, just knowing that they feel better with a dark screen is enough for me.

 

Hi Chris!

 

Thank you for your good attitude in relation to neurodivergent people despite not understanding things in relation to us. There's not too many people who accept without first understanding so, that's very commendable on your part.

 

As a neurodivergent person myself, I'm happy to explain the reason for our sensitivity to light and screens if you would like to know. These are issues that many of us NDs have to contend with often! 

 

Thank you for reading this reply and I hope it finds you feeling happy and doing well dear brother. 

[LeolaRootStew]

My congregation just got the link to use NW Publisher FOR THE FIRST TIME - I'm very excited! 💜

Edited August 1 by LeolaRootStew

[Pastore72]

Good morning, dear brothers, I hope you're all well. I was wondering if there's a way to enable the ability to skip a talk when you have a commitment on NW. This is because not everyone files absences, and the brother who manages the talks is having trouble. Thank you.

[Indapipe]

14 hours ago, LeolaRootStew said:

My congregation just got the link to use NW Publisher FOR THE FIRST TIME - I'm very excited! 💜

You and your Congregation will love it! 😁 

[DarinS]

4 hours ago, Pastore72 said:

Good morning, dear brothers, I hope you're all well. I was wondering if there's a way to enable the ability to skip a talk when you have a commitment on NW. This is because not everyone files absences, and the brother who manages the talks is having trouble. Thank you.

usually you would address this by marking yourself unavailable....ie ... im away or on vacation in the app

 

but if you are already scheduled...then you need to go to the CLAMM and let him know

[dljbsp]

Ran into an issue with NWS:

Trying to get ready to use it for territory. about a month ago, I was prompted that only 500 addresses were allowed per territory. Service Overseer agreed we could break territory up.

Today was prompted with, no more that 300 addresses per territory.

Is this a system limitation? Is there some other option? Am I missing direction that a territory is only allowed 300 addresses. or 500?

YB

Dave

[orodriguez]

51 minutes ago, dljbsp said:

Ran into an issue with NWS:

Trying to get ready to use it for territory. about a month ago, I was prompted that only 500 addresses were allowed per territory. Service Overseer agreed we could break territory up.

Today was prompted with, no more that 300 addresses per territory.

Is this a system limitation? Is there some other option? Am I missing direction that a territory is only allowed 300 addresses. or 500?

YB

Dave

There is a technical limit.  

[foghorn]

1 hour ago, orodriguez said:

I was prompted that only 500 addresses were allowed per territory. Service Overseer agreed we could break territory up.

That is the right thing to do. When the friends are careful to mark the addresses (home, not home, Do Not Call, etc), they tend to work the territory more carefully. It is much easier to track Not Homes and make several attempts. For this reason, they generally keep a territory longer. In my territory, about 100-150 addresses seems to be just right.

[JBee]

5 hours ago, foghorn said:

That is the right thing to do. When the friends are careful to mark the addresses (home, not home, Do Not Call, etc), they tend to work the territory more carefully. It is much easier to track Not Homes and make several attempts. For this reason, they generally keep a territory longer. In my territory, about 100-150 addresses seems to be just right.

I didn't know there was a limitation, as our territories are only, on average, 40 addresses for house to house and 20-30 for letter writing/telephone. I can't imagine working a territory with 300 addresses!

[Marky]

I have never know a congregation that had 300 addresses in their individual territories.  The NWS maximum limit 300 seems more than enough to me.

 

The Branch no longer provides a suggested maximum number of dwellings that should optimally be in each territory.  Territories can be so different in each congregation and even in certain sections of the territory.  Also some congregations have many more regular pioneers than other congregations and they may be able to reasonably cover individual territories with a larger amount of homes than congregations with fewer pioneers.  Because of the many extenuating factors it is left up to each local body of elders to determine how many residences to put in the individual territories.  Each body of elders also determines how many times publishers should attempt to find householders at not-at-homes before considering the territory completed.

Things the elders keep in mind are that publishers are encouraged to make reasonable efforts to contact someone at every residence, to endeavor to cover the territory within 4 months, and it is a strong goal for the congregation to complete all the territories within a year.

Most current references that I am aware of:

sfl 23:2 (I won’t directly quote it since it is confidential.)

 

 od 98-99 pars. 30-34

[Marky]

In my references above, I forgot to include another reference that suggests the possible merits of reducing the size of territories.

Letter to all Bodies of Elders - June 6, 2017 (U.S. Branch)

Re: Improving Territory Coverage

[Tortuga]

Is there a way to use NWS to check the availability of each of the elders when selecting a date to schedule an elders meeting?

 

I know that Congregation Events can be used to schedule an elders meeting but does it use the Away Periods to see which date most of the elders will be available?

[Sooner Guy 89]

14 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

Is there a way to use NWS to check the availability of each of the elders when selecting a date to schedule an elders meeting?

 

I know that Congregation Events can be used to schedule an elders meeting but does it use the Away Periods to see which date most of the elders will be available?

If you switch from Overview you can see the Congregation Calendar. There you can see the calendar of those gone.

Edited Wednesday at 10:18 PM by Sooner Guy 89

[More4me2do]

When I digitized our territories I came across the limitation of 300 addresses however, once I started entering the addresses it allowed me to surpass the threshold of 300 as some of the territories had new homes added and now exceeded 300. We have 3 territories out of 80 that exceed 300 with 310, 345 and 351. It allowed me to enter these as it would be an absolute pain to divide up the subdivision of those territories. I assume that the developers had the foresight to realize what if there are some additional houses in access of 300 to complete an area that is a subdivision let us give them some additional room to finish the digitizing of a specific territory.

 

It is just a guess of mine but each territory most likely has an upper limit of total size including the map image, number of streets entries and this may also be a factor in when you reach the limit because I have reached the limit at 330 but was surprised to be able to get to 351.

 

Finally a word of advice, once you finished the address entries export those address entries as a CSV file because if anything goes wrong in your NWS setup, you just import the CSV file and spare yourself the time consuming entry of addresses.

Edited Wednesday at 11:47 PM by More4me2do

[jayrtom]

We Have our territory in NWS with categories (I find it easier to organize) but on our last visit the CO said that he doesn't want the S-13 report with the territories listed with the categories. Instead of having "E-20; R-1...", he wants all the  territories in sequence and only showing the territory number

Anyone had the same issue?
Any ideas on how to print the S-13 with the sequential numbers while keeping the categories? 

[orodriguez]

1 hour ago, jayrtom said:

We Have our territory in NWS with categories (I find it easier to organize) but on our last visit the CO said that he doesn't want the S-13 report with the territories listed with the categories. Instead of having "E-20; R-1...", he wants all the  territories in sequence and only showing the territory number

Anyone had the same issue?
Any ideas on how to print the S-13 with the sequential numbers while keeping the categories? 

You would use numbers as the category code with it's corresponding name.  For example, if you have 3 categories and 6 territories, it would be.

1-1

1-2

2-1

2-2

3-1

3-2

[foghorn]

On 8/6/2025 at 7:43 PM, More4me2do said:

Finally a word of advice, once you finished the address entries export those address entries as a CSV file because if anything goes wrong in your NWS setup, you just import the CSV file and spare yourself the time consuming entry of addresses.

Great advice! I have had to use my csv files several times when a whole territory (boundary, addresses, assignment record) mysteriously disappears. However, the BETTER way to restore a lost territory is to use the NWS restore function. You can select one or more territories, and you get back EVERYTHING!