Publisher Reports (Records)

New World Scheduler strictly follows the branch Congregation Records Retention Policy. We must remain obedient to direction given.

Congregation’s Publisher Record (S-21) for an active publisher are retained for the current service year and for the previous service year only. (see sfla).

For your reference, the current service year starts in September and ends in August of the next year.

For example:

• On September 1st, 2022, the current service year is 2023 and runs from September 2022 – August 2023 and the previous service year is September 2021 – August 2022.
• On August 30th, 2022, the current service year is 2022 and runs from September 2021 – August 2022 and the previous service year is September 2020 – August 2021.

To indefinitely retain the Last Publisher Record for Inactive publishers, either Automatically Copy Last Publisher Report or Manually enter Last Publisher Report.

NW Scheduler will not prevent an elder or publisher from entering an Hour amount for publishers. This is for the following reasons:

1. Sometimes a publisher is Auxiliary Pioneering but AP hasn’t been ticked yet
2. A Regular Pioneer might not be set correctly as a pioneer, e.g. they just moved into the congregation
3. An elder might accidently change someone’s Regular Pioneer status
4. The NW Publisher app does not know who is a pioneer, missionary or publisher. We want to limit what information is on the app
5. Maybe a publisher wants to tell their local elders how many hours they did. They is no direction stating publishers can’t do this.
6. We try to imitate the physical way of doing things as much as possible, and there are no restrictions to what a publisher can fill-in on a physical S-4 form.

If the elders would like to remove Hours from the Publisher Report, please use the Clear Hours button.

The box Shared in Ministry should be ticked “if the publisher shared in any form of the ministry during the month”.

Obviously this should still be ticked even if the person is a pioneer or missionary.

There are many ways to do enter field service reports, depending on your preference:

In New World Scheduler

1. In New World Scheduler, the congregation Secretary or his assistant can enter field service reports. They can use either the Congregation Field Service Report > Publishers or Persons > Publisher Records views.
2. In New World Scheduler and after enabling Congregation Sharing, each Group Overseer or Assistant can enter their group field service reports. They can use either the Congregation Field Service Report > Publishers or Persons > Publisher Records views.
3. In New World Scheduler, the congregation Secretary or his assistant can click the Send Field Service Collection to Group Overseers Quick Step.
4. In New World Scheduler, the congregation Secretary or his assistant can Print or Email the Send Field Service Collection to Group Overseers report to Group Overseers.

Using NW Publisher app

1. Using NW Publisher app, each publisher can quickly and easily submit their own field service report. The Congregation Secretary or Group Overseer can then Receive and Import this into New World Scheduler. Enable App Features – Allow Submit Reports.
2. Using NW Publisher app, Group Overseers can be set as a Delegate for other publishers, and then submit field service reports for these publishers.
3. Using NW Publisher app, Group Overseers can view and submit Field Service Reports for all publishers in their group. Enable App Features Show Field Service Group

If it has been confirmed that a publisher did not share in the ministry for a month, you should type “confirmed”, “no share”, “did not share in ministry”, or something similar in Remarks.

This helps NW Scheduler know the report was received and is not missing.

An empty report must have something in remarks, otherwise it is considered missing.

• Note: If a Field Service Report is received from the NW Publisher app with no Hours and without checking Shared in Ministry, NW Scheduler will automatically add “Did not share in ministry” to the Remarks field.

Averages are calculated based on how many months of the service year have already passed, as well as the Person Spiritual > First Report field.

Please ensure the First Report field is accurate. This should be the date the publisher first started preaching, i.e. became an Unbaptised Publisher. This date MUST be before their Baptism date, and there should be no Publisher Reports before that date.

Obviously averages are now less meaningful for publishers, but may be useful when quickly looking at a Pioneers activity.

Publishers do not indicate if they served as an Auxiliary Pioneer on their field service report.

Instead, a publisher submits an application to Auxiliary Pioneer to the elders, and then the Service Committee either approves or denies the request. See od pp 109.

If the application is approved, the secretary will indicate this on the Field Service Report. See Auxiliary Pioneers.

There is no direction to record if the publisher plans on doing 15 or 30 hours. This is their personal choice and does not involve the elders. The S-205b form does not ask for this information.

A reactivated publisher is any publisher who has not ticked Shared in Ministry for 6 months or more, and then shares in the ministry.

There is nothing special you need to do with reactivated publishers, NW Scheduler will automatically add them to the list.

A Service Year runs from September to August.

For example, the 2023 Service Year runs from September 2022 to August 2023.

Use the Credit field for any “credit hours” for pioneers (e.g. Bethel service, LDC, Construction, Theocratic Schools, etc)

• Important Note: You should also enter the reason for the credit in the Remarks field. Since different credit is counted differently (e.g. “approved assignments” can not exceed 55 hours per month, whereas “theocratic schools” credit has no limit, see sfl 9:13), New World Scheduler will not apply any limiting to the credit . It is up to the Service Committee to do this when checking Regular Pioneers hours.

Please see Inactive Publishers

• Automatically Copy Last Publisher Report
• Manually enter Last Publisher Report

Please see Receive and Import App Data