Congregation Groups and Responsibilities
CongPlan uses the word group for more than one thing, and the terms resemble each other closely enough that mixing them up leads to real mistakes. This page sorts the terms out first, and then covers the two administration screens behind them: congregation groups and Positions of Responsibility.
Where to Start: the Congregation Hub
Choosing Congregation in the navigation opens the congregation hub at /admin. It is a genuine overview page, not a silent forwarding to whichever screen you happen to have access to.
The hub mirrors the Congregation navigation group one to one: the same entries, the same icons, the same sections — General, Plan, Organisation and System — in the same order. Every tile carries a one-line description of what the screen behind it does. What you see is filtered by your permissions in exactly the same way the sidebar is filtered, and a section in which you may not open a single entry is omitted altogether rather than shown empty. Because the hub is derived from the navigation itself, it can never drift out of step with it.
Everything described on this page is reached from the Organisation section of that hub.
Three Words for "Group"
| Term | What it means | Where it is managed |
|---|---|---|
| Field service group | The group of publishers organised for the field ministry. It has a group overseer (a group servant if the brother taking the lead is not an elder) and optionally an assistant. Every publisher belongs to exactly one field service group. | Field Service Groups — see Field Service Groups |
| Foreign-language group | A group of publishers who meet and serve in another language while still belonging to the one congregation. It has its own language, its own program and its own planners, and it forms its own planning context. Optional feature, off by default. | Foreign-Language Groups at /admin/congregation-groups |
| Congregation group | The internal name CongPlan uses for a foreign-language group — in the address bar, in the API and in the feature setting. It is not a separate kind of group. | Same screen as above |
"Congregation group" and "foreign-language group" are two names for the same entity. The interface consistently uses the congregation-facing name, Foreign-Language Groups; the technical name survives in the address /admin/congregation-groups and in the names of the feature setting and the permissions. If you have read the term "congregation group" somewhere and are looking for a third screen, there is none.
The genuine distinction is the one in the first two rows of the table: a field service group organises the ministry, a foreign-language group organises a program in another language. A publisher belongs to exactly one field service group, but may belong to several foreign-language groups.
Two further distinctions are worth keeping straight:
- Pregroup and Group are a status, not a type. A foreign-language group is either a Pregroup — an emerging group — or a full Group. That is a property of the same entity; it does not create another kind of group.
- The congregation itself is not a group. In the planning screens the choice is between Whole congregation and one named group. A field service group is never a planning context.
Managing Congregation Groups
Turning the feature on
Congregation groups are off by default. The Foreign-Language Groups entry remains visible in the congregation hub. While the feature is off, its page explains the disabled state and links permitted administrators to the congregation settings. Planning-context controls and group-specific planning appear only after the feature is enabled.
If you open the screen through an old link while the feature is off, you get a neutral note explaining that the feature is not enabled — never the management surface itself.
Switching the feature off again is only possible while no active groups exist. If groups are still active, archive them first; the setting explains this when it refuses the change.
Creating and configuring a group
With the feature on, open Foreign-Language Groups from the Organisation section of the congregation hub and add a group. For each group you set:
- Name and language. The language is chosen from the full list of languages, not just the languages the app itself is translated into. It decides which program the group plans in and which language its notifications use.
- Status — Pregroup or Group.
- Description — optional.
- Leadership — the brother taking the lead and, optionally, an assistant.
- Program — whether the group plans its own midweek meeting, its own weekend meeting, or both. For the weekend you also choose the weekend program scope: Full program, Watchtower Study only or Public talk only.
- Technical assignments — which kinds of technical assignment the group staffs itself.
- Publishers — individually assigned publishers, in addition to those who arrive through their field service group.
- Planners — the publishers who may plan this group's program.
Creating, editing and archiving groups requires the permission to edit settings. Someone who may only view the screen sees the same groups without the action buttons. See Permissions.
Leadership
The title of the brother taking the lead follows his appointment, not the group: an elder leads as Group Overseer, a ministerial servant as Group Servant. CongPlan derives the label from the person, so the screen never shows a wrong title. This is the same rule that applies to every field service group.
The group card
Each active group is shown as a card carrying its name, its language and status, the brother taking the lead and his assistant, and two counts: how many field service groups are assigned to the group and how many publishers are assigned individually. The names of the assigned field service groups are listed underneath, so you can see at a glance how a group is put together.
Archiving instead of deleting
Groups are archived, never deleted. Archiving removes a group from all active selections while keeping its history intact and referenceable. Archived groups are listed in their own section and can be restored at any time.
How Congregation Groups and Field Service Groups Are Coupled
The two group types are deliberately linked, so that you assign most publishers once rather than twice.
Membership comes from two sources
The publishers of a congregation group are the union of two sets:
- Assigned through their field service group — everybody in a field service group that is itself assigned to the congregation group. These entries are managed on the field service group and are shown here for reference only.
- Individually assigned — publishers you add directly to the congregation group, independently of their field service group.
A publisher who is covered by both routes is only counted once. Because the second route is independent of the first, a publisher may belong to several congregation groups, while still belonging to exactly one field service group.
Assigning a field service group
The link is made on the field service group: its edit view has a Foreign-language group field, whose default is None (main congregation). Choosing a group there moves that field service group, and with it all its publishers, into the congregation group. The change is confirmed with a message that can be undone straight away.
Because the field is on the field service group, it only appears while the feature is switched on.
Leadership can be derived as well
If a congregation group has neither a lead nor an assistant of its own, and a field service group is assigned to it, CongPlan shows that field service group's overseer as the group's lead and marks him as derived, naming the field service group he comes from. As soon as you set an explicit lead on the congregation group, the explicit entry takes precedence. This keeps small groups usable without any duplicate maintenance.
The coupling is enforced when you archive
A congregation group cannot be archived while field service groups or individually assigned publishers are still linked to it. The confirmation dialog does not simply refuse: it names the field service groups and the publishers that are still in the way, and links straight to the field service group management so that you can reassign them. Only once nothing is linked any more does archiving go through.
For everything the groups do beyond administration — the planning context, planning in a group, notifications in the group's language, and the public schedule — see Foreign-Language Groups.
Positions of Responsibility
Positions of Responsibility in the Organisation section is where the congregation's standing assignments are recorded. It replaces a checkbox column in the user list: each responsibility is held by a specific person, so the screen asks per responsibility who holds it, not per person which boxes apply.
What the page contains
The responsibilities are grouped, with each assistant responsibility placed directly beneath the main responsibility it supports:
| Responsibility | Assistant responsibility |
|---|---|
| Coordinator of the Body of Elders | Assistant to Coordinator |
| Secretary | Assistant to Secretary |
| Watchtower Study Conductor | Substitute Watchtower Study Conductor |
| Service Overseer | Assistant to Service Overseer |
| Life and Ministry Meeting Overseer | — |
| Group Overseer | Assistant Group Overseer |
| Auxiliary Counselor | — |
| Territory Servant | — |
Assigning a responsibility
Select the person for a responsibility directly in its row; the change is saved immediately, with a small spinner on the row while it is in flight. Only active, baptized publishers are offered. Anyone already holding a responsibility remains visible in their row even if they later become inactive, so that you can see and remove them.
Most main responsibilities are normally held by exactly one person, and the row says so with a discreet note. The note is a hint, not a rule: several holders remain possible, which matters during transitional periods and in small congregations. Assistant responsibilities are the deliberate exception — two or three holders are normal there.
Editing requires the permission to edit users, the same permission the user management needs. Without it the page is readable but not editable.
Group overseer and group servant are read-only here
Group Overseer and Assistant Group Overseer are the two responsibilities that are derived, not assigned. They come from the leadership slots of the field service groups, which are the single source of truth for them. The page therefore shows the current holders read-only and points to the field service group management, where the assignment actually takes place.
Since the title follows the person's appointment, a brother taking the lead who is not an elder does not appear under Group Overseer. Instead, the card shows an additional read-only Group Servant row for exactly those brothers, and only when there are any.
Printing
The list of responsibilities can be printed as a template of its own from the Print Center — the button on the page opens the print centre with that template preselected. The button is only shown to those who may also edit, since the same permission governs printing.