NW Scheduler/Publisher - Updates, Support, and Suggestions

[Gary P]

Without a doubt this update has been a disaster. I believe that the QA and testing from the developers is sadly missing. I’ve managed software projects for years and while not a programmer myself know the time and effort required to make major changes to an existing program.  When it became obvious that extent of the problems they should have ceased and pulled the update and rolled back to the last “stable” version. Ad hoc fixes are just rubber bands repairing specific problems but don’t address the systemic issues. One of our remaining problems is that all scheduling of duties from today forward are no longer in NWS but show in NWP.  Anyone seen this one and a possible solution other than now entering the data from NWP which seems completely redundant. My interaction with the developers has been testy. I find the responses are really non responsive and come across as aloof to the angst that we are experiencing.  

[More4me2do]

1 hour ago, carlos said:

 

James, thank you for sharing your experience. We feel your pain as many of us have faced similar issues.

But you understand that there isn't anything we can do about it other than listening, right? It would be a good idea to send those screenshots and explanations to the developers so that they can fix whatever is not working well.

Thanks for your empathy. I searched yesterday how to contact the developers with this problem and found mo way to report my experience with them. There can be found plenty regarding offering help from within NWS and on their website but no email or other method to share these screenshots and experience. I don't need a brother in my area to help me with the program as I made my living in the IT world. Please DM/PM me if you have any contact details of the DEVs.

 

This has added to my frustration. I can understand that since this product has a global distribution that the DEVs will run into problems in different parts of the world because of the EDV/GDPR Electronic Data Protection but I am on a North American server and thanks to the 9/11 event all privacy was given away and no such Data protection laws exist in the US. However it is complicated to decide where in the program to implement a sending of specific data and where not.

 

I understand the dilemma the DEVs are in and we as the users are the buffer because no multi national corporation with mega funds nor the organization will jump into this project as this is slowly migrating into the scale of a business venture.

Edited 12 hours ago by More4me2do

[Matt S]

7 minutes ago, More4me2do said:

Thanks for your empathy. I searched yesterday how to contact the developers with this problem and found mo way to report my experience with them. There can be found plenty regarding offering help from within NWS and on their website but no email or other method to share these screenshots and experience. I don't need a brother in my area to help me with the program as I made my living in the IT world. Please DM/PM me if you have any contact details of the DEVs.

 

This has added to my frustration. I can understand that since this product has a global distribution that the DEVs will run into problems in different parts of the world because of the EDV/GDPR Electronic Data Protection but I am on a North American server and thanks to the 9/11 event all privacy was given away and no such Data protection laws exist in the US. However it is complicated to decide where in the program to implement a sending of specific data and where not.

 

I understand the dilemma the DEVs are in and we as the users are the buffer because no multi national corporation with mega funds nor the organization will jump into this project as this is slowly migrating into a business venture.

Hi James,

 

It's very simple to contact them: https://nwscheduler.com/support-contact-us/ and they actually request screenshots. You should be able to pretty much copy and paste most of what you've prepared here into the form on their website.

 

Or go to their website and select Help & Support at the top of the website, then Contact Us from that menu, then select the relevant category. e.g. Problem

 

[Matt S]

They also posted this for BETA testing of NWS mobile:

They actually request brothers to submit problems, so they can fix them.

[Cruzer]

18 minutes ago, More4me2do said:

Thanks for your empathy. I searched yesterday how to contact the developers with this problem and found mo way to report my experience with them. There can be found plenty regarding offering help from within NWS and on their website but no email or other method to share these screenshots and experience. I don't need a brother in my area to help me with the program as I made my living in the IT world. Please DM/PM me if you have any contact details of the DEVs.

 

This has added to my frustration. I can understand that since this product has a global distribution that the DEVs will run into problems in different parts of the world because of the EDV/GDPR Electronic Data Protection but I am on a North American server and thanks to the 9/11 event all privacy was given away and no such Data protection laws exist in the US. However it is complicated to decide where in the program to implement a sending of specific data and where not.

 

I understand the dilemma the DEVs are in and we as the users are the buffer because no multi national corporation with mega funds nor the organization will jump into this project as this is slowly migrating into the scale of a business venture.

 

There's no way to contact them directly, you'll have to use their 'Contact Us' link under the Help & Support section, then go through their prompts to send them screenshots. Only 10 attachments can be sent.

[Matt S]

1 hour ago, Gary P said:

Without a doubt this update has been a disaster. I believe that the QA and testing from the developers is sadly missing. I’ve managed software projects for years and while not a programmer myself know the time and effort required to make major changes to an existing program.  When it became obvious that extent of the problems they should have ceased and pulled the update and rolled back to the last “stable” version. Ad hoc fixes are just rubber bands repairing specific problems but don’t address the systemic issues. One of our remaining problems is that all scheduling of duties from today forward are no longer in NWS but show in NWP.  Anyone seen this one and a possible solution other than now entering the data from NWP which seems completely redundant. My interaction with the developers has been testy. I find the responses are really non responsive and come across as aloof to the angst that we are experiencing.  

 

Gary, try restoring your missing duties from backup.

 

I feel this forum thread can be a bit like looking at a Google review of a resturant or hotel. Those who had a bad experience are much more likely to post a bad review, while only a small number of those that enjoyed it take the time to post a positive review. Almost all of the congregations I know of that are using NWS and NWP had no issues, or very few issues, with the recent updates. So it was definitely not a disaster for everyone, and probably not even for most. From this forum its obvious some have did have problems, but that doesn't mean everyone did.

 

I've been in 3 different congregations using NWS over the last fews years and we've rarely needed to contact them, but when we have, they've always replied within a day or so. Pretty good when they are only charging $39 for a gold level license. If your cong averages 10-15 elders and MS, that's 20-30 cents each per month! Not to mention the 100-150 publishers using NWP for free.

[trs]

Has anyone found a reliable solution yet for the problem with “Unknown” appearing in assignments in the app (Desktop 8.1 #1451, Publisher 4.0.6)?

 

When I assign a person (not a publisher) to a task in “Duties”, they are not displayed correctly. As soon as the person receives the status “publisher”, their name is shown correctly.

 

Edited 11 hours ago by trs

[On the huh]

They need a forum.  Users could report problems, and help out each other with questions and queries. 

[Tortuga]

New updates for NWP and NWS Desktop today. 

[molnarj]

And NWS Mobile is also available. 

[Tortuga]

On 4/27/2026 at 6:55 AM, Tortuga said:

Now the Cleaning Duties assignment shows as a date range instead of a single date.

This problem hasn't gone away yet, but it isn't causing any problems. I'm sure a future update(s) will fix it.

[More4me2do]

6 hours ago, Cruzer said:

 

There's no way to contact them directly, you'll have to use their 'Contact Us' link under the Help & Support section, then go through their prompts to send them screenshots. Only 10 attachments can be sent.

Are you sure there are prompts on the Help & Support / Contact Us part of the site? It seems that I can ONLY find suggestions, videos and contacting nearby individuals that are willing to help. I am in need to report genuine problems to those that hold the keys to the code NOT some help with setup or admin.

 

This is what I get either from the Help icon in NWS or the Help & Support /Contact Us part of their website:

https://nwscheduler.com/support-contact-us/

 

To me it is a closed loop that circles back to where I started. I find this strange especially since there was a request for Beta testing of the mobile version. Learning from this experience, in our congregation NO mobile version will be activated or used until the leading & bleeding edge has past. 

 

If there are links on the Help & Support / Contact Us site that allows for problem reporting with attachments then please either post them here or DM/PM them to me. Your experience might have been from the past or you have privileged access.

 

I am convinced that the developers are monitoring this forum closely as the problem with the disappearing of publishers names in the territory section has been resolved and since these disappeared entries were from the past, the last few releases that wiped them out must have been OOPs releases 

Thanks

Edited 6 hours ago by More4me2do

[Indapipe]

34 minutes ago, More4me2do said:

If there are links on the Help & Support / Contact Us site that allows for problem reporting with attachments then please either post them here or DM/PM them to me

support@nwscheduler.com

 

I've had direct communication with them in the past through this email address. I don't see any other way to contact them directly with problems anymore on their website. They appear to have removed that section.

[Matt S]

51 minutes ago, More4me2do said:

Are you sure there are prompts on the Help & Support / Contact Us part of the site? It seems that I can ONLY find suggestions, videos and contacting nearby individuals that are willing to help. I am in need to report genuine problems to those that hold the keys to the code NOT some help with setup or admin.

 

This is what I get either from the Help icon in NWS or the Help & Support /Contact Us part of their website:

https://nwscheduler.com/support-contact-us/

 

To me it is a closed loop that circles back to where I started. I find this strange especially since there was a request for Beta testing of the mobile version. Learning from this experience, in our congregation NO mobile version will be activated or used until the leading & bleeding edge has past. 

 

If there are links on the Help & Support / Contact Us site that allows for problem reporting with attachments then please either post them here or DM/PM them to me. Your experience might have been from the past or you have privileged access.

 

I am convinced that the developers are monitoring this forum closely as the problem with the disappearing of publishers names in the territory section has been resolved and since these disappeared entries were from the past, the last few releases that wiped them out must have been OOPs releases 

Thanks

 

 

It's still there, same place as I posted a screenshot above. You do need to read each section as you go. If you try to just skim over things, you might loop yourself back. There is no way to "log in" to the website so there are no different levels of access. It's just a website form.

 

Good to hear your problem was fixed. Probably others had the same problem and submitted it to them to be fixed.

 

[More4me2do]

7 hours ago, Matt S said:

Hi James,

 

It's very simple to contact them: https://nwscheduler.com/support-contact-us/ and they actually request screenshots. You should be able to pretty much copy and paste most of what you've prepared here into the form on their website.

 

Or go to their website and select Help & Support at the top of the website, then Contact Us from that menu, then select the relevant category. e.g. Problem

 

 

Thanks for the tip on how to proceed. I was at that point in the help & support section, read the version comments, yep understood that, but it is not very intuitive having to select YES or NO to the question Has your congregation enabled NWS Mobile BETA? before you get to the part of reporting problems with the NWS or NWP app, thus me not finding the place were to report problems with just released versions of those two apps as the mobile part is of no interest atm for us.

 

However, after checking our data it verifies that the releases before 2026/04/25 introduced the errors in the territories as none of the data from before that date is available. Statuses that were changed 2026/04/23 were lost. Not a big deal as people in our territory do not get easily irritated when calling on them accidentally twice a week as we work our territory not to death but to LIFE.

 

ON A SIDE NOTE: Can the admins on this site help those who are many hours ahead of US time zones to make their comments appear in the order of when they replied to existing posts? Answers to my posts appeared hours before them.

Edited 4 hours ago by More4me2do

[Indapipe]

I'm the main admin of NWS for our congregation. The 8.1 update seems to have wiped out the past year's service reports for about 60 of our 87 publishers, it looks like every month of the past year, though I didn't do a forensic audit. 😂 I also noticed that we no longer have the boxes to record the meeting attendance in NWP (4.0.6).

 

Also, every time I open NWS since the update to 8.1 I have had data waiting to be sent, almost always related to public talks. Coincidentally (or not), our PTC (not an admin) was the first to update to 8.1 before I even realized there was a new update. I don't know how carefully he followed the update instructions nor if it is just a coincidence that public talk data has always been waiting to send.

 

All of our shared brothers have updated to 8.1 and most are on #1450, with 2 on #1448. I just updated to #1451 and for the first time after opening there is no longer app data waiting to send as soon as I open the app. So #1451 seems to have resolved that issue. About half of our 109 users have updated NWP to the latest version.

 

I think I will try to restore the missing service reports from a backup prior to the 8.1 update. Unless any think that would be unwise; any other suggestion for that? What about Refresh All App Data on the main NWP App tab in NWS? Though I do remember doing that previously. And what would be the suggested course to get the attendance boxes back in NWP? I have already tried removing that option in NWP App Settings, sending data, restoring the setting, and sending data again.

[More4me2do]

49 minutes ago, Matt S said:

 

 

It's still there, same place as I posted a screenshot above. You do need to read each section as you go. If you try to just skim over things, you might loop yourself back. There is no way to "log in" to the website so there are no different levels of access. It's just a website form.

 

Good to hear your problem was fixed. Probably others had the same problem and submitted it to them to be fixed.

 

 

I got it, I understand it and I only posted a reply so that others who would draw the same conclusion as I did namely HAVING to tick the radial button YES or NO before they see what you posted in this screen shot. That is not intuitive having to answer something that has no relevance to what you are looking for. A simple explanatory sentence on that page would have solved it or use a drop down text box listing the selecting choices instead of a radial button selection. 

 

But it is all good now as we now know how to send our problems and screenshots to the developers.

[Matt S]

1 hour ago, More4me2do said:

ON A SIDE NOTE: Can the admins on this site help those who are many hours ahead of US time zones to make their comments appear in the order of when they replied to existing posts? Answers to my posts appeared hours before them.

Hi James,

I assume you're referring to my posts. The posts are showing in the order they were posted. The thing is when I first post, my post is hidden. As a relatively new user, all my posts are being approved by the admins here, which has been taking anywhere between 20 mins and 7 hours. Once they approve it, it becomes visable as posted at the time when I did make the post. Others may have posted their responses after I posted, but it appears earlier because their posts are not being hidden first until they are approved.

[Lance]

All new members have their comments moderated.We won’t change that.We do have moderators around the world and we do try to approve  posts as quickly as humanly possible.
New members are moderated, long time regular posters are not.Unfortunately when someone is in a panic and comes here for software support, usually it is a new member, it will take awhile for their comments to be approved. We only get paid in new system dollars redeemable on the other side..😇so don’t bust our chops. 

Our mission is basically for theocratic discussion. Not software support for any theocratic program.We have enough issues keeping this site up and running. 
We do have discussion areas that deal with software from various providers and the members usually can assist in whatever way possible. Just be kind and respectful even if your paid or unpaid software is not meeting your standards. Check to see if your software has their own contact system to handle problems.

[Indapipe]

17 minutes ago, Lance said:

All new members have their comments moderated.

I just assumed all comments are moderated. What constitutes a "new" member? I've been a member for almost 2 years and my comments are still moderated! 😂 

[Tortuga]

37 minutes ago, Indapipe said:

I just assumed all comments are moderated. What constitutes a "new" member? I've been a member for almost 2 years and my comments are still moderated! 😂 

Have a chat with the moderators in Confidential and they should be able to fix that for you.

[More4me2do]

2 hours ago, Matt S said:

Hi James,

I assume you're referring to my posts. The posts are showing in the order they were posted. The thing is when I first post, my post is hidden. As a relatively new user, all my posts are being approved by the admins here, which has been taking anywhere between 20 mins and 7 hours. Once they approve it, it becomes visable as posted at the time when I did make the post. Others may have posted their responses after I posted, but it appears earlier because their posts are not being hidden first until they are approved.

 

That explains it, since I value your input and I am sure many others here do to, perhaps a request from some to take you off the limited access limitation would be very welcome.