ServicePlanner

Version 3.0

iMatt — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 08:53:52 +0000

Version 3.0

I am very pleased to announce that version 3.0 of ServicePlanner is now available.

There are a number of new features in this update, but the underlying focus was on stability and usability. ServicePlanner as been out for a while and certain features of the app needed to be taken to the next level, and other features needed to be made more intuitive, especially for new users.

At a high level these changes include:

Up to 5x “Other Hours” categories supported.
The ability to set a max limit on other hour credits (current default is 75 hours).
Visibility of the different hours on the Activity Calendar and Report (Month and Year).
Multiple enhancements to the daily Notes in the Activity Calendar.
A new Contact Type was added … and the ability to rename the Contact Types in the Workflow Settings.
A new Visit Type was added … see details below.
New users will now have some default publications and videos added.
Simplification of the Video and Publication screens.
A new “Bible Study” videos category.
Improvements to the Dropbox Sync.
Better support for Emoji in things like Tags, Contact Names, Saved Filters and more.
Official support for Chinese Simplified and Traditional.
Contacts no longer require an address.
There are new Contact Filter options.
And so much more.

Let’s now review the changes made in detail…

Enhanced “Other Hours”

This is probably the area with the most feedback from existing users. Many were using the existing “Other Hour” category to schedule and report the time they spend on spiritual activities such as oversight or training assignments, LDC, HLC, PVG, PID, DRC and more … gotta love all the acronyms! Many are working hard in more than one of these assignments and need to record their time separately. As a result version 3.0 adds the ability to enable up to five different “Other Hours” categories of time.

You can also now set a limit on the number of Other Hours that get added to your time. So if you are a Regular Pioneer, your ministry time + total other hour credits cannot exceed 75 (you can change this at any time). If your ministry + other hours exceeds the maximum of 75 ServicePlanner will take care of everything for you on your report.

Check out these screenshots for an overview of what is possible in the settings now:

Each of the 5x Other Hour categories allows the following:

Rename the category. Spaces in the name are now allowed.
You can setup a Schedule for each category. For example if you do LDC work every Thursday and Friday, you can schedule those hours and apply it to your month when organizing your schedule.
If you use the Timer, you can log time against any of the enabled categories.

For the overall other hours being reported, you have different settings:

Include in Monthly Calendar – controls if the Other Hours are included in the hours showing each day on the Calendar. If you disable it, only Ministry hours will be shown. The Other Hours can still be visible in the report hours breakdown however – which is another new feature covered in the next heading below.
Include in Reported Hours – control if the Other Hours get included in your final report for the month.
Include in Report Comment – provides a description of the Other Hours per category at the bottom of your final report. Depending on your assignments some will choose to disable the “Include in Reported Hours” but turn on “Include in Report Comment”.
Show Hours Breakdown – this is a new feature covered in detail under the next heading.
Maximum Other Hours – set a limit on the maximum number of ministry + other hours you can report. ServicePlanner will automatically keep your other hour credits below this threshold on your report.

Other Hours and the Activity Calendar

It is all well and good having 5x other hours categories, but previously all the hours were just lumped together as a single amount on the Activity screen. Users suggested showing each hour category inside each day on the Calendar but that was not realistic on smaller screens – and especially now there can be 5 different categories enabled. Hopefully the following changes retain the clean look and feel but also are an intuitive way of solving this challenge…

Notice in the screenshots how the Report now includes an Hours Breakdown. This will only show if 1) You have at least 1x Other Hours category enabled and 2) You have the “Show Hours Breakdown” option enabled in the Settings.

If you click on a line in the Hours Breakdown report, the Calendar will only show the hours for that selected category. This is true on both the Month and the Year calendars.

Daily Notes

I did not expect so much attention on the notes that can be recorded against each day in the calendar. It has surprised me the different ways users are utilizing this feature, and the types of feature requests that have come in around this. For example the ability to include daily notes in the end of month report, and the summary list of notes inside the Hours detail screen, were both feature requests from users.

I am pleased to take this feature to new heights!

You can now select a color for the daily notes. The color will then be applied to that day on the calendar.
There is a new Notes window accessible from either the toolbar button top/left, or by a long-press on the Activity window.
The Notes summary shows all notes from the selected month forward. You can filter by color, search, swipe to clear the note, or tap on a note to jump to that day.
If you have chosen to include notes in your Report, you can now specify which color notes to include.

Here is a demonstration of some of these features…

Workflow and Contact Types

ServicePlanner is optimised for the process of recording interest found in our territory, and streamlining the workflow of returning on interest. Users can tweak the workflow in settings, but it is a relatively advanced process to understand and generally users don’t play with these settings until they have used ServicePlanner for a while. There is now an overview of the workflow available in the settings screen, and the screen has been optimised to hopefully make things a little more intuitive.

One of the things you may notice on the above screenshots is that the Contact Types have a pencil icon ✎ indicating that they can be edited. And that is correct! You can now change the names of the default Contact Types to reflect your personal requirements. Yes that’s right – you can finally change the “Magazine Route” type to be called something else! I also added a new Contact Type called “Custom Type” for your convenience (I know sorry, had a mind blank there ) .

New Visit Type

There is a new Visit Type called “Secular” (meaning “non-religious”). This allows you to record a conversation that is not recorded on your report as a Return Visit … but you still communicated with them and want to remember what was discussed.

While in this area I also renamed “First Call” Visit Type (and Contact Type) to “Initial Call” to better reflect the terminology we use in the Workbook.

New Contact Filter Options

The Contact Filters are perhaps the most advanced feature of ServicePlanner that most users don’t seem to look at. The button is relatively prominent in the toolbar at the top/left of the Calls screen! Please have a look sometime

Filters control the list of Contacts – who is showing in the list and how they are grouped and sorted. You can change the options, and then create a new “Saved Filter” so you can easily re-use that search criteria again. There are already some Saved Filters for you to use – such as the “Inactive Contacts” filter – useful to show all the contacts that you didn’t delete but marked as “Inactive”.

The Filter Options now have some new criteria:

You can now limit by “name or address”. Basically the same as typing a phrase into the search bar at the top of the list of contacts, but you can now save a search phrase into the Filter.
You can now Group By “Next Visit” or “Date Added”.
Tags search now includes AND|OR options:
- AND = the matching contacts must have ALL of the selected tags.
- OR = the matching contacts can have ANY of the selected tags.
The new custom contact type is included in the filter options.

And hot tip – you can long press on the Filter icon on the Contact screen to return to the default Saved Filter – that is the one at the top of the list of Saved Filters. And if you longpress again it will switch to the next one in the list, and if you longpress again it will return to the default filter at the top of the list, and if you longpress again it will return to the second filter. You get the idea! You can now longpress to switch between the top two Saved Filters.

Better Emoji Support

We often heavily use emoji when messaging others – but they are a very useful tool inside ServicePlanner as well. I have optimised the app to support them in a number of places, especially in a Contact or Tag Name.

Emoji Tips:

Use emoji at the end of the Contact Name to indicate things like a Man / Woman , Older Person , Phone , Letter , or whatever you like . You then have visual clues in the Contact list that do not take up a lot of space and are easily searched for even using the new filter options (in addition to tags and the other features available).
Use emoji at the start of your Tag names. You can then group your tags easily. For example I use Language, or Preferred Contact Method, etc.
I typically rename my Saved Contact Filters to use emoji as well – it is just another way to use them.

PS: I can’t include emoji by default in the app sorry as it breaks the Apple guidelines.

Publications and Videos

So this area of the app has been the most challenging for me right since version 1.0. I wanted to keep it simple, but I also wanted to cater for users (like myself) who are into the detail. The implementation allowed for all options – but it was probably not immediately obvious to new users that they could just take the lazy option and add high level publications and videos to record placements against – or they could go all out and add every single publication and insert cover artwork and more. On top of that, since the app was launched the amount of publications we typically work with out in the field ministry has drastically changed and simplified.

Version 3.0 provided an opportunity for me to step back and look at this area again. I am hoping the following changes provide a better balance of features for all user types (the “lazy” ones, and the detail oriented ones )

New users will now have some default Publications and Videos enabled.
- The default Publications are limited to those in our Teaching Toolbox – 1x book, 2x brochures and 8x tracts.
- Only the publication name and abbreviation is added – no artwork or links or additional details. Users can add these extra details themselves if they want to.
There are also some generic publications added into the “Other” section – a Contact Card, a Letter, a Website Link.
Some generic videos are also available. These are mainly to demonstrate that you do not need to add in every single video you show householders. You can just add a generic video to start reporting videos shown.
- Note: the generic videos include some default cover artwork – these are royalty free images courtesy of Unsplash.
Existing users will be asked if they want to install these default publications and videos only if that Library section is currently empty. Otherwise they can long-press on the “+” button in the top/right toolbar and they will be asked if they want to add these new items to their existing Library.
I have removed the 4x fields for video urls to play or stream. If you have already populated these fields for your existing videos, then they will still show. But when you add any new videos from now on, these fields will not be available.

Some of these changes, especially around the videos, may sound frustrating at first. But not for long. Instead switch focus to populating the “Share Link” / URL field for each video (see last screenshot above). You can link to either the video on the official website – or even better, use the Share Link from inside JW Library. ServicePlanner will then use the link to open JW Library and play the video from there. This will stream the video if you are online, or play the video offline if you have downloaded the video in JW Library already. And you get all the advantages of the enhanced video controls in the official app.

Other Improvements

There was a lot of work done to the underpinnings of ServicePlanner – the stuff you can’t see, but it makes a difference.

A number of improvements to the Dropbox Sync. Most users don’t have any issues with the sync, but some have from time to time. I hope the new controls in place will limit issues, and if you have any please reach out as I have better tooling in place to try and isolate what went wrong.
The Home Screen app icon shortcut used to be enabled for devices with 3D Force Touch, but is now enabled for Haptic Touch. Basically this means that the app icon shortcuts should now work on all devices. Give it a go. Long press on the ServicePlanner app icon to see the menu options.
Many users don’t make a “Manual Backup” – but they should. I have changed the default settings to remind users to backup every 60 days. You can change this default option in Settings > Manual Backup.
The app is now fully translated into Chinese Traditional and Simplified! A big thanks to the efforts of our brother here.
The Bible Studies showing on the Activity Year tab are now limited to unique persons studied with throughout the year – as opposed to a total of the reported Bible Studies per month.
There are new icons used in different areas of the app to give the UI a general “refresh”.

Ok so I am impressed that you made it to here. I am exhausted just typing this blog post . Never mind the hours that went into version 3.0. I hope it works smoothly for you. But as with any changes made to an app, some things can be missed, so please just reach out and let me know of anything you notice.

And of course, if you are enjoying ServicePlanner, I would be really grateful to hear your feedback. And your review on the App Store would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again for your ongoing support and enthusiasm for ServicePlanner.

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Version 2.6.4

iMatt — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 18:04:05 +0000

I am pleased to announce the version 2.6.4 update.

What’s New

There is a new Notes icon on the Activity Calendar to subtly indicate which days have a note added.

Bug Fixes

Fixed filtering for personal maps in TerritoryHelper.
Fixed time picker for witnessing partner start/end times.
Fixed issue with notes keyboard covering hours selector in the day screen.
Updated Romanian translations.

Thank you again for using ServicePlanner. If you feel inspired to leave a review on the App Store it would be greatly appreciated

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Version 2.6.3

iMatt — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 21:27:10 +0000

Version 2.6.3 is a quick update fixing an issue with restoring the manual backups ZIP file.

Thank you again for using ServicePlanner. If you feel inspired to leave a review on the App Store it would be greatly appreciated

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Version 2.6.2

iMatt — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 19:47:08 +0000

Version 2.6.2 brings the following changes …

What’s New

Version 2.6.2 added the ability to disable “Points of Interest” (POIs) on the Map. While POIs can be useful, they are also a visual distraction from the Contact markers. By default POIs are now off, and can be enabled again in the Map layer options.

There is a new QR Code feature on Publications and Videos. There is a new button to “Show QR Code” which will generate the image based on the URL for the item. You can also save the QR Code to your devices Photo Library.

Bug Fixes

Fixed issue with accessing the device Calendars, which broke the Partners screen.
Fixed issue with accessing the Settings > Addresses screen.
Rewrote the SMS module. Sending the Report via Text Message should not have any further issues.

Thank you again for using ServicePlanner. If you feel inspired to leave a review on the App Store it would be greatly appreciated

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Version 2.6.0

iMatt — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 17:48:01 +0000

It has been a while since the last update to ServicePlanner. Fortunately it has been working well during COVID.

Version 2.6.0 brings the following improvements and fixes …

What’s New

Full support for iOS 15 and the latest underlying SDKs.
Migrated to support the new short-lived access tokens used by Dropbox. Users will likely be prompted to sign into Dropbox again from inside ServicePlanner settings.
Added support for Russian. Thanks to the translators who helped with this.

Bug Fixes

Fixed issue with Activity Notes not saving changes in some situations.
Fixed issue with Activity Notes showing wrong date in some timezones.
Fixed issue with popup modal windows not saving changes when closing without using the “Done” button.

Thank you all for your patience waiting for an update to ServicePlanner and for your ongoing support. Be assured that you have all been in my thoughts and prayers.

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Dropbox Sync Error

iMatt — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 20:10:05 +0000

Please note that changes in how the Dropbox API works will result in temporary issues with the Dropbox Login and Sync. If you are already logged into Dropbox, you may start to see alerts about a “Dropbox Error”. And if you are trying a fresh login to Dropbox from the ServicePlanner settings it will just time out.

I say that this is a temporary issue because an update to ServicePlanner is in the final stages of testing that resolves this issue. I hope to have it available on the App Store within the next few days.

In the meantime, you can go into Settings > Dropbox Sync, and disable the “Auto Sync” if you want to stop any alerts. And please use the Manual Backup option available in Settings if you are worried about losing any data or want to manually sync to another device.

Thank you for your patience.

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Version 2.5.0

iMatt — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 22:00:35 +0000

Version 2.5.0 includes a number of enhancements:

Improved support for importing ZIP files from the Files app on iOS 13. This will mainly help with restoring manual backups.
In the list of Visits on the Contact window, it will now show the full note from each Visit spanning multiple lines. This allows users to easily read what happened on previous visits without opening each visit one-by-one.
When adding a new Visit of type “Not at Home” it will now auto-insert any Plans into the Next Visit Details section, effectively carrying the Plans forward so you don’t need to type them again.
Added a double-confirm when enabling GDPR mode to minimise any chance the user enables it by mistake.

The following issues were resolved:

Fixed issue with the Today screen Activity Plugin not calculating Visits correctly. It was including any manual Visits recorded, but not the Visits against Contacts.
Fixed issue with “Other Publications” and “Other Videos” not correctly +/- on the Today screen.
Fixed possible issue when sending your Report via Telegram. The phone number in Settings > Reporting must be an exact match to the contacts phone number in Telegram.
Fixed long-press on a month in the Year calendar not going to the correct month in some Time Zones.

You can see further details about this update in the Issue Tracker Milestone.

Thank you again for using ServicePlanner. If you feel inspired to leave a review on the App Store it would be greatly appreciated

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Version 2.4.1

iMatt — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 21:04:43 +0000

Version 2.4.1 includes the following changes:

Fixed scrolling of the Settings screen when GDPR Mode is enabled.
Re-enabling sending report via Telegram. Telegram has only partly fixed their URL scheme – Telegram must be open in the background.
Fixed Video Player issues that started with recent iOS update.
Under Reporting > Other Hours, if you have “Include in Activity” = Off, but “Include in Report” = On, the Other Hours will now be included in the total report hours.
When looking at a list of Visits on a smaller phone, the date format has been improved.
Auto-cleanup of Dropbox “conflicted” files. Some users have experienced issues caused by Dropbox creating these files. To trigger the cleanup, go into Settings > Dropbox Sync > “Sync All Files Now” – let this finish and press the button again to run the process twice.

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Version 2.4.0

iMatt — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 09:15:42 +0000

Version 2.4.0 includes the following changes:

GDPR Compliance Mode

There have been some major changes to how the ministry is being conducted in the EU and UK. To comply with the GDPR these users have been instructed to no longer collect any contact data in the ministry. In order to protect myself from any legal issues as the app developer and to help users comply with these privacy regulations the new GDPR Compliance mode in ServicePlanner will:

Disable and hide the Calls tab.
Remove the Contacts section from the Today screen.
Permanently delete any existing Contact records.

All users will receive a notice about this the first time they go into the Calls tab, regardless of where they live. To activate the new GDPR Compliance mode please go into Settings and toggle the option at the top of the screen.

Territory Helper Integration

Closely related to the previous topic, Territory Helper has also integrated a number of changes in order to enforce compliance with the GDPR. I wrote a detailed post about these changes here. In order to bring ServicePlanner in line with the Territory Helper the following changes have been made:

The Notes field will be removed from the Location and Unit screens.
The Language field will be removed from the Location and Unit screen.
The Location Status and Unit Status screens will only list “Unknown”, “Do not call” and “Delete”.

You can read more about these changes and the reason for them in my previous blog post, or by logging into Territory Helper and checking your notifications.

Updated Activity Plugin on the Today Screen

Since the GDPR Compliance mode will disable the ability to view contacts and add Visits to these contacts, it is even more important for affected users to be able to easily record Return Visits and Bible Studies. On the Today screen you can now manually add Return Visits and Bible Studies using the “+” and “-” buttons. You can choose which items appear in this list in the settings top/right of the Today screen in the “Activity Plugin Items” section…

Other Changes

The app now supports Korean and Danish users! Thanks to the translators who made this possible.
Bug fixes and improvements.

Thank you again for using ServicePlanner. If you feel inspired to leave a review on the App Store it would be greatly appreciated

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Changes to Territory Helper Integration

iMatt — Wed, 29 May 2019 00:52:40 +0000

Depending on where you live you may be aware of a number of refinements that have been made in the UK and EU to the way we conduct our ministry. In these countries the direction has been given that no contact data of any kind be recorded in the ministry, including Not at Homes.

There is a discussion open in the Issue Tracker regarding what this means for ServicePlanner in general. I encourage you to have a read and to share your thoughts.

However … there is a more immediate impact due to changes in Territory Helper (TH) that have already been applied on the TH website and will soon be enforced at the API level. I encourage you to login to the Territory Helper website and read the latest announcements if you have not already done so. Please note that ServicePlanner is directly using the TH API and the exact data stored in TH – there is no “workaround” in place for these major changes in how Territory Helper works.

Changes made in Territory Helper…
In summary, the following changes have already been made to the Territory Helper website:

Only 3 Location Statuses are available – “Unknown”, “Do not call”, and “Delete”. All other Location statuses have been removed.
Visit Statuses have been removed (Visited, Not at home, etc) with one exception … “Visited” can still be applied for a “Do not call”.
The Language fields have been removed.
Any Location and Unit Notes have been removed.

Resulting in the following changes for ServicePlanner…
The next update to ServicePlanner will thus follow suit and remove the following Territory screens and fields:

The Notes field will be removed from the Location and Unit screens.
The Language field will be removed from the Location and Unit screen.
The Location Status and Unit Status screens will only list “Unknown”, “Do not call” and “Delete”.

Effectively ServicePlanner will be brought in line with the changes made at the Territory Helper end.

This is not a topic that is open for discussion. This post is just informing you about the changes in ServicePlanner that are being made to match what is already being implemented in Territory Helper, and to hopefully reduce any confusion. If you are using Territory Helper in your congregation and you are unsure about why these changes are being made, please speak to your local Territory Servant or Elders to obtain further details.

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