Setting Up Schedules

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At this point, your database contains a list of all the jobs that will be performed and a list of members that will be performing those jobs. Now all that is left before you can start using the Scheduler is to create the schedule(s). In our example, we will be setting up a schedule for Sunday worship services at the WestSide congregation. You may wish to set up separate schedules for the Sunday morning and Sunday evening services. In our example, we will be setting up one schedule for both services because the fewer schedules we have to work with, the easier the Scheduler is to use. If you have two separate worship services on Sunday mornings, you probably want to use a separate schedule for each service. If you only have one service in the morning and one in the evening and the same members attend all services, it will be easier to use just one schedule for both services. The way you set up the schedules is entirely up to you. Go ahead and create a schedule the way you think that it should be. You can always come back and change it if it doesn’t fit your needs.

To work with the schedules, click the Schedules button on the main screen. The Schedules list is shown in Figure 2.11. Notice that this screen has two menu buttons – one for schedules and one for reports. We will discuss the Reports menu in Chapter 3. Figure 2.11 shows what the Schedules menu looks like. Notice that there are several items on this menu that were not on the Jobs and Members menus. For now, don’t worry about the first two menu options: Generate Workers for Selected Schedule and Revise Computer Generated Schedule. We will go over these two menu items in Chapter 3. In this chapter, we will only be using the last four menu items: New, Edit, Delete, Copy.


Figure 2.11 Schedules List

Click the New menu option to start setting up your schedule. Figure 2.12 shows the New Schedule screen. The first thing that you should do is give the schedule a name. At the ficticious WestSide congregation, we would like to print out the worship assignments for one month at a time. We will be setting up one schedule for each week in the month, so we are going to name our first schedule ‘Worship Services – Week 1’.


Figure 2.12 New Schedule Screen
Now we are ready to start adding items to the schedule. Click the Item button to display the New, Edit, and Delete menu items. We want to add items, so we are going to click the New menu item. The New Schedule Item screen is shown in Figure 2.13.


Figuree 2.13 New Schedule Item Screen
For each schedule item, you will select a job and a worker who usually performs that job. The first thing we want to do is add preaching and the preacher to the schedule. Figure 2.14 shows us selecting the job named ‘Preaching’ from the Jobs list. Note that the Jobs list contains all of the jobs that have been set up in the database so far.


Figuree 2.14 Selecting a Job from the Jobs List
Once we have selected a job from the jobs list, the Usual Worker list will then be filled with the names of workers who you have specified as willing to perform that job. Figure 2.15 shows us selecting the name of the full-time preacher from the list.

Figuree 2.15 Selecting the Usual Worker
Now we will click Next to accept this entry. What we have just done is told the Scheduler that we want to have ‘Preaching’ in our service and that the usual preacher is ‘Joshua Coomer’.
Now we are going to add two items for leading singing: one for Sunday morning and one for Sunday evening. Remember that, in our ficticious congregation, we have some men who like to lead songs only on Sunday evenings and others who will lead songs at any time. Our database contains separate jobs for leading singing – one for A.M. and one for P.M. We first select ‘Lead Singing – Sunday A.M.’ from the Jobs list. Figure 2.16 shows the Usual Worker list for the current item.

Figuree 2.16 Usual Worker List for ‘Lead Singing – Sunday A.M.’
You will notice that the first item is ‘(Assign)’. No, we do not have a member in our congregation whose name is Assign. This item is selected whenever you want the Scheduler to automatically choose a person to fill the job selected from the Job list. At the WestSide congregation, we try to rotate all of our song leaders so that they all get a chance to lead singing. We are going to pick ‘(Assign)’ from the Usual Worker list to indicate to the Scheduler that a new worker should be automatically assigned to this job each time we generate a schedule.
We are going to describe how to generate schedules in Chapter 3. When you generate a schedule, you are just telling the Scheduler to assign workers for every job in a schedule that has ‘(Assign)’ listed as the Usual Worker. We are currently walking you through the creation of a schedule. Once you have created all of your schedules, you will not have to make changes to them again. The process of generating schedules will have to be done each time you want new workers to be assigned. Since we print our worship service assignments on a monthly basis at WestSide, we will generate the schedules each month. More on that in Chapter 3. Figure 2.17 shows what we have added to this schedule so far.


Figuree 2.17 WestSide Schedule after Adding Three Items
Now we want to add items for those helping with the Lord’s table. At WestSide, we have two members who preside and two members who help serve the Lord’s supper. The two that preside will also serve at the Lord’s table during the evening service, so there is no need to add additional items for the evening service. If your congregation uses different members for the evening service, then you will want to add additional items. Our schedule is now shown in Figure 2.18. Remember that some jobs will have multiple assignments. ‘Preside at Lord’s Table’ and ‘Serve at Lord’s Table’ are both examples of jobs that have multiple assignments.

Figuree 2.18 WestSide Schedule after Adding 7 Items

We are going to go ahead and complete our schedule by adding items for scripture reading, opening prayer, and closing prayer. We have now completed setting up the schedule named ‘Worship Services – Week 1.’
Since some months have 5 Sundays in them, we need to create 5 worship service schedules. Remember that at the WestSide congregation, we print the assignments on a monthly basis – that is why we need to create 5 schedules. If we were to print the assignments every week, we would not need to set up more schedules – we would just use the one that we have already created. We are not going to walk you through creating the other 4 schedules since they should be the same or very similar to the schedule for week 1. You can quickly create the remaining schedules by copying the schedule for week 1. This is described in the advanced features section 4.1.

Our database has been completely set up and we are ready to use Worship Scheduler to generate our worship service assignments. Click the r in the upper right corner of the Schedules List screen to return to the main menu. Please note that the r in the upper right corner of the program’s caption bar will cause you to completely exit the Scheduler program.