NW Scheduler/Publisher - Updates, Support, and Suggestions

[André]

26 minutes ago, Benjamin said:

If you 'grab' the first name and slide it in front of the last name that may work as a default. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't set as default. I have to do it every time 😅

[carlos]

I have had to contact support several times and I hate to say I'm not impressed. Whenever you have an issue and are looking for support they try to make you feel you are an annoyance. Read 200 pages of documentation first. Call a computer-savy brother in your area. Find someone else, we can't be bothered. Then when you finally manage to find the Contact link and send them a ticket, they take several days to answer to send an automatic reply or a one liner which shows they hadn't paid much attention to my explanation.

 

Last time this week: We have a syncing issue I have been struggling with for several weeks. I read all the relevant pages in Help, explained how I had checked every one of the points they mention and all the tests I had done. Their answer?

 

"Thank you for your message and sorry to hear you’re having problems.

This problem has been discussed in Help & Support, please see Help > Congregation Sharing Help > Congregation Sharing Data or Syncing Problems." Then they go on with an automatic response about why it's important not to bother them and read the documentation instead.

 

I understand they are busy and support takes a lot of time, but this is not free software. They sell a product, they need to give better support. Maybe others have had a better experience.

[luisenriquereyes]

1 hour ago, carlos said:

I have had to contact support several times and I hate to say I'm not impressed. Whenever you have an issue and are looking for support they try to make you feel you are an annoyance. Read 200 pages of documentation first. Call a computer-savy brother in your area. Find someone else, we can't be bothered. Then when you finally manage to find the Contact link and send them a ticket, they take several days to answer to send an automatic reply or a one liner which shows they hadn't paid much attention to my explanation.

 

Last time this week: We have a syncing issue I have been struggling with for several weeks. I read all the relevant pages in Help, explained how I had checked every one of the points they mention and all the tests I had done. Their answer?

 

"Thank you for your message and sorry to hear you’re having problems.

This problem has been discussed in Help & Support, please see Help > Congregation Sharing Help > Congregation Sharing Data or Syncing Problems." Then they go on with an automatic response about why it's important not to bother them and read the documentation instead.

 

I understand they are busy and support takes a lot of time, but this is not free software. They sell a product, they need to give better support. Maybe others have had a better experience.

Hello brother Carlos, greetings from the Dominican Republic 👋😁  Unfortunately the same attitude and lack of support from the NW Scheduler support team has plagued them for years now.  I have asked myself if they are even witnesses.   There are some suggestions or fixes I would like to see done with the software but I don’t bother anymore to send in support requests ☹️

I pulled up some past emails and these are some of my replies:
 

"...Taking care of my family and with congregation responsibilities and being a full time servant of Jehovah is very expensive and very time-consuming. Despite this, I try very hard to keep a positive attitude in everything I do and in whatever I do I try to work at it whole-souled as for Jehovah, and not for men. This allows me more time to help my congregation and our territory where they need it is great in this country. Each and every time, before I bother the NW Scheduler support team, I spend a considerable amount of time and carefully check Help & Support to see if it provides answers to my question or problem."

"I did this exhaustive research and investigation so as to not waste your time answering my annoying questions."

"But your automatic scripted reply does NOT answer my question / problem because there is a bug / problem."

"I submit these support requests to help you spend more time improving NW Scheduler, and less time answering questions that have already been answered in Help & Support."

[Aja]

I'm not sure who or how many they have answering their support requests. It does seem they lack a little bit in "bedside manner". If they are brothers and sisters (which I suspect they would have to be based on how they keep up with theocratic direction), I sincerely hope that operating this program for the brothers and sisters doesn't cause them to lose their joy with the brotherhood. It's tough. On the one hand I wish they would do better, but on the other I know I couldn't create a program like this. For me, the positives outweigh the negatives, but each person will have to weigh that for themselves. 

[Sooner Guy 89]

9 minutes ago, Aja said:

I'm not sure who or how many they have answering their support requests. It does seem they lack a little bit in "bedside manner". If they are brothers and sisters (which I suspect they would have to be based on how they keep up with theocratic direction), I sincerely hope that operating this program for the brothers and sisters doesn't cause them to lose their joy with the brotherhood. It's tough. On the one hand I wish they would do better, but on the other I know I couldn't create a program like this. For me, the positives outweigh the negatives, but each person will have to weigh that for themselves. 

 

Well said my brother. I was thinking something along the same as you. We have been using NWS for a little over two years now, and for us the positives are definitely worth the challenges. We have worked out most of the issues and glitches for us. The number of positive comments from our publishers is worth it. Our congregation absolutely loves the app.

 

Totally agree with the sentiment that their responses could be improved. As secretary I am constantly receiving requests of various natures. While that may be annoying some days, answering the same questions over and over again, it is good to always reply in a kind manner.

 

That being said, this forum has helped me to a great degree. Also, we have a WhatsApp thread with several local brothers that we try to help each other resolve issues with the software. The majority of the time we are able to get a resolution without contacting support as that seems to be of little value.

[ChrisW]

1 hour ago, luisenriquereyes said:

Hello brother Carlos, greetings from the Dominican Republic 👋😁  Unfortunately the same attitude and lack of support from the NW Scheduler support team has plagued them for years now.  I have asked myself if they are even witnesses.   There are some suggestions or fixes I would like to see done with the software but I don’t bother anymore to send in support requests ☹️

I pulled up some past emails and these are some of my replies:
 

"...Taking care of my family and with congregation responsibilities and being a full time servant of Jehovah is very expensive and very time-consuming. Despite this, I try very hard to keep a positive attitude in everything I do and in whatever I do I try to work at it whole-souled as for Jehovah, and not for men. This allows me more time to help my congregation and our territory where they need it is great in this country. Each and every time, before I bother the NW Scheduler support team, I spend a considerable amount of time and carefully check Help & Support to see if it provides answers to my question or problem."

"I did this exhaustive research and investigation so as to not waste your time answering my annoying questions."

"But your automatic scripted reply does NOT answer my question / problem because there is a bug / problem."

"I submit these support requests to help you spend more time improving NW Scheduler, and less time answering questions that have already been answered in Help & Support."

That's a shame. Sometimes we treat our people worse than we treat someone in the world. New World will be the only real fix.

[computerwiz]

I have not had a negative experience with NWS support.  The only place I can agree with y'all is the delay in getting a response.  Sometimes it takes a week, and sometimes I have to send in a 2nd request.  But I've always gotten my issues resolved.  And probably 90% of my suggestions have been implemented.

 

Being a software developer myself, that probably helps a ton.  I know the "language" they speak.  Long paragraph explanations cause confusion.  Friendly formalities are not needed.  Just cut right to the chase, step by step how to recreate the problem.  List it in steps too: 1. 2. 3.  Provide screenshots with arrows pointing at each step.  Don't write big long paragraphs.  Keep background info to a minimum, unless it is absolutely needed to recreate the problem.

 

Just some examples of my communication with them:

 

They were always very friendly and appreciative

 

 

My very very long message (but had step by step) about Public Speaker sharing.  I must have sent a total of 30 messages just for this issue.  But we got it working!!

 

 

That email went on and on until step 31....but they read it all and worked with me on it!

 

 

And when I send screenshots to them, this is how they tend to look:

 

 

Granted, these communiques are old.  I haven't needed them lately for any issues.  I've actually found that if I wait a week or two, the issues I do find disappear.  They are very much on the ball!

 

I will be happy to help as much as I can with any existing issues.  I need to re-subscribe to this topic so I can watch it more closely.  

Edited November 30, 2023 by computerwiz

[ChrisW]

9 minutes ago, computerwiz said:

I will be happy to help as much as I can with any existing issues.  I need to re-subscribe to this topic so I can watch it more closely.

Nice. 

[Mike047]

We are a little slower over here in the UK, with some congregations ahead of others in their use of NWS/NWP, they have yet to agree to putting up their territory maps, partly because some maps are borderline congregation maps and they don't have a map for 'nomansland' (although it is somewhere around here). 

 

some locations have very strange names, though, and we have to be careful that in recording details, none of the names can be mis-understood, or gives the appearance of an expletive!

Edited November 30, 2023 by Mike047

[carlos]

6 hours ago, Aja said:

On the one hand I wish they would do better, but on the other I know I couldn't create a program like this. For me, the positives outweigh the negatives, but each person will have to weigh that for themselves. 

 

Of course I agree. This software is extremely useful and very well thought. It saves a lot of time and helps keep everyone in the loop. I also love that it has tons of useful features such as importing from and exporting to all kinds of formats. And unlike others have commented, their customer support has never been unkind to me. They were always nice. So the positives certainly outweigh any negatives.

 

I am just complaining that their customer support needs to improve. Then don't make me feel like a valued customer.

[carlos]

6 hours ago, Benjamin said:

That being said, this forum has helped me to a great degree. Also, we have a WhatsApp thread with several local brothers that we try to help each other resolve issues with the software. The majority of the time we are able to get a resolution without contacting support as that seems to be of little value.

 

I have to agree the friends in this topic have been immensely useful.

A big thanks!

[computerwiz]

1 minute ago, carlos said:

Then don't make me feel like a valued customer.

 

I had the luxury of having a supervisor that micromanaged me.  For most, that sounds like a terrible thing.  But for me, it was most educational.  He told me at least once (probably more) that my emails to other employees needed to be more friendly.  That I needed to take the time to say "Good morning" or whatever.  Believe it or not, even as a JW, I needed to be taught this courtesy.

 

I imagine that the NWS group is just that...a group.  Not a "professionally" run business where certain training in customer support is provided.  Of course, I agree they could do better and am in no way suggesting that the way they communicate is "acceptable".  I'm just trying to explain it.  😉

 

There is a reason why customers do not get to talk directly to developers in normal situations.  😅  Our brains work differently for sure!

[foghorn]

Our circuit is sloooowly coming around to using the Public Speaker Sharing feature. With some effort, we managed to get 9 congregations to the share list. So far the new software version for speaker sharing seems to be rock-solid for us. Much improved from the version computerwiz showed. 

[Bart1044]

On 11/25/2023 at 8:03 PM, Bart1044 said:

I have been having a weird issue. When I import audio and video duties from KHS to NWS all the blank fields just fill in with someone random. What I mean by blank fields are fields that we do not use. Like there are places for 4 attendants but we only use 2. Has anyone else come across this before? I am not able to find that anyone has with a quick skim of the old posts. 

Coming back around to this question. Has anyone experienced this? For the work around I had to give the person that was assigned to the Duties that we do not use the Duty (Microphone, Platform, attendant...). Then I could erase the person from that Duty assignment. It is a very tedious task as i had to do it all manually. The brothers did get back to me and advised that I delete the app data for the duties and them import that again. I am scared to do that as it took over an hour to fix it last time. 

[Cruzer]

 

Have had this glitch for a while & have already submitted a ticket for it, just wondering if anyone else has seen this. The listed duties in NWS don't all appear in the date scheduler section. NWP is completely unaffected, if a name is entered, whether it shows or not in NWS, it'll show on NWP.

 

[jwhess]

1 hour ago, Bart1044 said:

Coming back around to this question. Has anyone experienced this? For the work around I had to give the person that was assigned to the Duties that we do not use the Duty (Microphone, Platform, attendant...). Then I could erase the person from that Duty assignment. It is a very tedious task as i had to do it all manually. The brothers did get back to me and advised that I delete the app data for the duties and them import that again. I am scared to do that as it took over an hour to fix it last time. 

I noticed in one of the last updates (in the last week or so) the list of things addressed pointed out that some of the KHS stuff was not going to import.  The changes made affected the importing programming.  It was not going to be fixed.

 

I do not remember if it was all KHS data or just some specific  part of the app.

[molnarj]

We work with NWS for about 2.5 years now. It has been very pleasant for us. We had some issues which later most of the time turned out to be no issues. Sometimes we think it's a bug but it is just working another way then we expect. We had to learn to think the way they think. 

 

There is a new feature that may be helpful.

 

Go to the Help section in the left lower corner:

 

 

Then click Request Personal Help. 

 

 

Select your Language and select a Topic you need help with under Help Needed and click Search. Or simply click Search. 

 

A list of Persons show up who have offered personal help. You can contact them by mail or phone and ask for support with the Program.

 

Click on a name and in the right section click on Show. Click on Yes in the next Box. In the right section you will see the Contact info.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by molnarj

[carlos]

Thanks, János!

[jwhess]

The new Field Service Report feature works (check box and so on).  Wonderful.  November's report is in.

[computerwiz]

11 hours ago, Bart1044 said:

Coming back around to this question. Has anyone experienced this? For the work around I had to give the person that was assigned to the Duties that we do not use the Duty (Microphone, Platform, attendant...). Then I could erase the person from that Duty assignment. It is a very tedious task as i had to do it all manually. The brothers did get back to me and advised that I delete the app data for the duties and them import that again. I am scared to do that as it took over an hour to fix it last time. 

 

I remember reading somewhere that importing from KHS (or anything else) should only be done when there is NO data at all in NWS.  Too many problems were popping up.

 

I assume importing individual people would still be fine at any time.

[foghorn]

     I just tried out the RESTORE function for the first time. Evidently the new update deleted a portion of our territory addresses. Specifically - I had apartment buildings, with apartment numbers inside. After the update, all the individual apartment numbers inside the apartment buildings disappeared, for all the territories. ☹️

    The RESTORE function allowed me to be very selective on what to restore: I selected 'Territory Addresses". It gave me a list of my territories (although not exactly in alphabetical order) with a checkbox so I could select which territories to restore. Worked perfectly.

    I got a good reminder, also: make regular manual backups! Especially around update time. The program automatically saves a backup every time you close it, but it only saves a certain number. Because I had opened the Scheduler many times after the update, almost all my backups were of the NEW version, not the previous. Fortunately, my manual backups came to the rescue.

[computerwiz]

1 hour ago, foghorn said:

     I just tried out the RESTORE function for the first time. Evidently the new update deleted a portion of our territory addresses. Specifically - I had apartment buildings, with apartment numbers inside. After the update, all the individual apartment numbers inside the apartment buildings disappeared, for all the territories. ☹️

    The RESTORE function allowed me to be very selective on what to restore: I selected 'Territory Addresses". It gave me a list of my territories (although not exactly in alphabetical order) with a checkbox so I could select which territories to restore. Worked perfectly.

    I got a good reminder, also: make regular manual backups! Especially around update time. The program automatically saves a backup every time you close it, but it only saves a certain number. Because I had opened the Scheduler many times after the update, almost all my backups were of the NEW version, not the previous. Fortunately, my manual backups came to the rescue.

 

Good reminder. Thanks for the heads up. Our apartments seemed fine. We haven't added too many individual addresses. Wonder what was different between yours and ours.

 

But I wanna emphasize what you said. When it comes to major updates, we need to make a manual backup first. Just make it a habit... 

[Floyd]

Are backups compatible with new versions? What I would really like is to go back one version of the software if there are any problems. With KHS I could just make a backup of the entire folder and I could go back to a previous version of the entire software.

[Mike047]

If you are taking about a restore from previous, then are there still multiple copies of the software still about. We have had a number of updates since inception.

[Floyd]

There doesn't seem to be a way to associate a meeting place or address with the field service group. Also the time the group meets.