NW Scheduler/Publisher - Updates, Support, and Suggestions

[BigMAC]

I found something strange. If you start NWS and go to the schedule you will see the program for the whole week. Including the weekly meeting and also the weekend meating. Everything is fine there. But if i use the arrows for the next or previous week the weekend meeting is totally blank. Do you guys get the same?

Everything is perfectly fine in the NWP so this is not really a problem. I am just not sure if this is a bug or if I need to reinstall the NWS. So it would be great to know if you have the same issue? I have version 1388.

[Cruzer]

6 hours ago, BigMAC said:

I found something strange. If you start NWS and go to the schedule you will see the program for the whole week. Including the weekly meeting and also the weekend meating. Everything is fine there. But if i use the arrows for the next or previous week the weekend meeting is totally blank. Do you guys get the same?

Everything is perfectly fine in the NWP so this is not really a problem. I am just not sure if this is a bug or if I need to reinstall the NWS. So it would be great to know if you have the same issue? I have version 1388.

 

I'm seeing the same bug. Report it when you get a chance. We're also on the latest build #1388.

Edited January 26 by Cruzer

[BigMAC]

On 1/26/2025 at 5:17 PM, Cruzer said:

 

I'm seeing the same bug. Report it when you get a chance. We're also on the latest build #1388.

They fixed it really fast!

[drd217]

I'm having a problem getting our maintenance coordinator signed on as a Shared Person. When he gets to the password, it won't accept it even though we've double checked everything including the way he's putting it in. If I decide to reset the Sharing Password do the other brothers that are Shared Persons have to do anything the next time they log on to the software from their computer?

[Cruzer]

4 hours ago, drd217 said:

I'm having a problem getting our maintenance coordinator signed on as a Shared Person. When he gets to the password, it won't accept it even though we've double checked everything including the way he's putting it in. If I decide to reset the Sharing Password do the other brothers that are Shared Persons have to do anything the next time they log on to the software from their computer?

 

I believe so.

 

https://nwscheduler.com/how-to/congregation-sharing/congregation-sharing-overview/#Sharing_Password

[drd217]

Okay, got the password issued straightened out. Turns out they were trying to put a comma in it...

Next problem: We are trying to setup our maintenance coordinator (MS) to use the software and send out notifications on the app. It is not letting them to send the data once he makes the taskcard assignments. It's saying User Access permissions need to be change to send out data to the App. I read on the Help file where you have to have to turn on the permission under User Access for NW Publisher App. But our talk coordinator (MS) is able to send out App notifications and he doesn't have that permission turned on either.

[More4me2do]

With the release of version 7.7 and the territory changes, we have decided to integrate our territories into NWS. However there are a few questions that I have and hopefully someone can help.

1. We have the territory boundaries exported into a CSV file from Territory assistant.

2. We have no Territory Addresses because Territory Assistant has not implemented that yet and I believe with the popularity of NWS they may never do so.

 

• What is a not so time consuming way to get the addresses into the individual territories?

• I looked at the sample CSV file for importing addresses and it has a TerritoryID field which I have but it also has a TerritoryAddressID which I don't have. Is that field auto generated if it is left blank? Are Longitude and Latitude coordinates required?

 

I have access to the proper Numbers and Street names for any given territory through the department of Assessments and Taxation.

 

Any ideas and help on how to get the addresses into any given territory would be appreciated.

 

[jayrtom]

Hello 

I need a suggestion please

 

How do yuo use (if so) the NWS to plan the away talks for the elders so that one elder can look if in a particular week there is already an other elder with an away talk, for example?

I mean other away besides using just the not avalailable feature

[jwzhang]

Hey all,
I came across this thread and have heard of friends from other congregations using NW Scheduler.

I just want to ask, if I suggest this to our BOE (Right now we are just using spreadsheets and pdfs), how much work is it to get all of it set up? I'll go check the NW Scheduler site in the meantime.

[carlos]

4 hours ago, jayrtom said:

How do yuo use (if so) the NWS to plan the away talks for the elders so that one elder can look if in a particular week there is already an other elder with an away talk, for example?

 

Hey Joao, on NW Publisher, if you look at the program of the weekend meeting, it says which elders have talks away that weekend. It's the last entry in Watchtower Study after Hospitality and just before Duties. Is that what you need?

 

[foghorn]

19 hours ago, More4me2do said:

What is a not so time consuming way to get the addresses into the individual territories?

    Our congregation has been using the territory address feature of NWS since it came out. I have experimented with several different methods of acquiring addresses.

    To be honest, in residential territories, for me the simplest, fastest way is to create your boundary, and then populate the addresses by moving your mouse down a street and right-clicking where you think a house should be. The program is very fast now; once you get the feel for it, you can add 10-12 addresses per minute. The mapping system seems to know exactly where the property boundaries are, and can place an address icon very accurately. Of course, it populates the city, state, and zip fields also, so it all goes very fast. Be aware = this method will still create an address, even if there is no house on the lot. But the first time the friends work the street, they can flag that for you.

    Apartments have to be handled a little differently, and take a little more work. They use many different numbering schemes so you need some 'boots on the ground' knowledge when you add those. You need to plan ahead in case you anticipate turning apartment Not-Homes into letter-writing territory, because you need the resulting addresses to work the way your postal system expects them to look ( ie, street address  Apt No, City, State, Zip)

[Floyd]

On 1/30/2025 at 7:22 PM, More4me2do said:

• What is a not so time consuming way to get the addresses into the individual territories?

 

Don't look at it as though you have to do all the territories before you start using it in the app. You can start by doing territories that you sign out from this point forward. Then you can start on territories that have recently been signed out and for those that ask for it. Do the ones that have not been signed out last. Just do a little at a time over a period of several months if needed. 

[More4me2do]

For a few days now I have been absorbed in the NWS territories documentation as well as video tutorials and have come up with some conclusions. Hopefully someone will be able to spot some erroneous assumptions and errors.

 

First I thoroughly believe that NWS & NWP will become the de-facto software for congregation administration. For territory management all the other providers like Territory Helper, Territory Assistant, KHS and Online Territory Manager it looks like that they will eventually stop maintaining their software.

 

For Territory Assistant ever since their being hacked, it feels like they are closing up shop. No new update since Feb 2024, promising of dealing with Territory Addresses so that they can be exported, I believe it when I see it. I can't shake the feeling that their protection against hacking and a ransom ware attack was not handled professionally.

 

On to the NWS business with territories. For me there are just 2 ways to get our territories into the digital age. First import the territory boundaries that were exported from Territory Assistant. Here again TA swapped the entries for longitude and latitude, not giving me a fuzzy warm feeling, but easily spotted and corrected.

 

Then get the addresses into the territories either from within NWS or create a CSV file according to their sample one, then populate it with the data and finally import it. I lean toward the later one as it is easier to obtain the needed data using a PC and being able to use some automation.

 

However I have a few questions. I don't understand the Category part as in our case we only have City territory which can be walked and any long boundaries can be driven. Are the Category and Category Code fields necessary to be populated? In addition who or how is the TerritoryAddressID number being generated, is it necessary?

 

Thanks for any help as years of neglect make this now a massive job from paper maps to the digital age. Some of the Do Not Calls entries are over 10 years old.

 

 

[AndyCase]

Hi all.

Tried to look at duties for our meeting today on the NWP app and all of the Sunday duties are showing blank

 

They are all scheduled in NWS, and any duties for Thursday meetings are there.

 

But every Sunday is blank when it comes to Microphones, Attendant duties etc

 

Have made a change in NWS, and sent those changes to NWP

Made no difference.

Changed it back to how it was, sent changes again, still blank 

 

A couple of people at the hall can see the duties when they look at their phones, but I suspect they might be using an older version of NWP.

Those of us that have the up to date version are having the same problem, no duties showing for Sunday meetings.

 

Any ideas?

[foghorn]

8 hours ago, More4me2do said:

Are the Category and Category Code fields necessary to be populated? In addition who or how is the TerritoryAddressID number being generated, is it necessary?

    No, category fields are not necessary - just for your convenience. One possible use in your city territory might be for Residential and Business. In many congregations those two types are handled differently.

    TerritoryAddressID is generated internally by NWS. it is a unique identifier for that particular address. If you are importing newly generated addresses from CSV, just leave that column blank - NWS will fill it as it creates the address.

[jayrtom]

On 1/31/2025 at 1:08 PM, carlos said:

 

Hey Joao, on NW Publisher, if you look at the program of the weekend meeting, it says which elders have talks away that weekend. It's the last entry in Watchtower Study after Hospitality and just before Duties. Is that what you need?

 

Thanks Carlos

It seems what's I was looking for👌

[More4me2do]

On 2/2/2025 at 9:26 AM, foghorn said:

    No, category fields are not necessary - just for your convenience. One possible use in your city territory might be for Residential and Business. In many congregations those two types are handled differently.

    TerritoryAddressID is generated internally by NWS. it is a unique identifier for that particular address. If you are importing newly generated addresses from CSV, just leave that column blank - NWS will fill it as it creates the address.

 

Thank you very much and those answers were extremely helpful. I did my 1st territory address import from CVS file and it worked. I did expect as the video on the territory management showed to have the houses on the territory map the way they appear in the app. However it looks like that either you have to do the placing of houses in the scheduler or the latest software revision has made changes. I personally feel that listing the houses from the addresses in a separate part of the scheduler page is more useful.

 

However, me having an obsession with accuracy found it a pain to get coordinates that display properly where the house is on any street and finally found out where to right click on Google maps to get the proper coordinates. This whole map provider business is tricky. Since we want basically every dwelling place in  a database, but so do also businesses that want to make profits by selling you something.

 

Tried ChatGBT to create a spreadsheet and it said no go because of privacy laws.

 

Again thanks for developing a tool to be used in living up to our dedication that allows us to work our territory more efficient, more thorough as this is very important as we work our territories more often.

[Tronora]

Installed NW Publisher today. It even has a dark theme! 😍

 

Soooo excited. Wo-hoo

[Cool.As.Ice]

Such a simple, yet elegant tool.

[foghorn]

2 hours ago, More4me2do said:

found it a pain to get coordinates that display properly where the house is on any street

Brother, I'm not sure if you tried this, but after you import a list of addresses successfully, you have one more step. You click on each address, and then click the "map pin" button. This looks up the address, retrieves the coordinates, and adds them to the database. Same hold true if you add an address manually.

[More4me2do]

4 hours ago, foghorn said:

Brother, I'm not sure if you tried this, but after you import a list of addresses successfully, you have one more step. You click on each address, and then click the "map pin" button. This looks up the address, retrieves the coordinates, and adds them to the database. Same hold true if you add an address manually.

 

Thank you so much I didn't try that yet as I did a manual populating of the CSV sheet with the coordinates and found out Google messes up sometimes. Compared it with Bing and HereWeGo to see what is correct. I have to rely upon the publishers to enter corrections in the Territory Working Notices.

[More4me2do]

Just in case anyone else is having a similar experience as our congregation does, I will post every now and then some updates and unique experience here regarding the territory feature in NWS & NWP.

 

We have had our territory remapped about 15 years ago, because there was an exchange of publishers among 5 congregation which resulted in our territories now being documented in Territory Assistant. I can't over emphasize the importance of having a tech savvy territory servant. We didn't as the only thing he did for almost 10 years was check out and check in territories.

 

Once TA had a ransom ware attack, we lost all our addresses because we had no backup made no spreadsheet with address details, we were now at square 1 mirroring a newly established congregation. DO NOT let that happen to you have backups and even a spreadsheet of the addresses BECAUSE you can now turn easily all the NOT at HOMES into letter or phone witnessing territories.

 

QUESTION:

When a territory is completed and is checked back in will the worked homes be returning to the AVAILABLE status? OR will the status change when it is checked back out or when does the status change?

[trottigy]

On 1/31/2025 at 4:27 AM, jwzhang said:

Hey all,
I came across this thread and have heard of friends from other congregations using NW Scheduler.

I just want to ask, if I suggest this to our BOE (Right now we are just using spreadsheets and pdfs), how much work is it to get all of it set up? I'll go check the NW Scheduler site in the meantime.

 

Does it look like a difficult transition?

 

Our congregation doesn't use this, we use DeckHand, but ...

 

Maybe that will change ............

[More4me2do]

5 minutes ago, trottigy said:

 

Does it look like a difficult transition?

It all depends what form your present data is in. NWS allows imports from the more popular existing programs and if yours is not listed you can import your data using a CSV (Comma delimited) file where the 1st row is the field name and from 2nd row onward your data entry. Whenever the entry for a field changes, like from house number to street name, a comma tells the software this is new data for a different field. MS Excel does that very well for you.

 

So if your data exists in a spreadsheet, it is easy and not time consuming. Never heard of DeckHand and you need to find out if they have a function for exporting the data. If not you are basically at the juncture of a new congregation.

[foghorn]

1 hour ago, More4me2do said:

When a territory is completed and is checked back in will the worked homes be returning to the AVAILABLE status? OR will the status change when it is checked back out or when does the status change?

it is NOT automatic - that is something you do when you are ready. You tap the "Reset Territory" button and choose which categories you want to reset.