Appointment Book Creator

Conference Identity

Required

Conference Full Name *

Shown in the nav bar at the top of every page. Also used on the printed cover page and in the on-screen title block (Public version only, if the “Show Title Page on Screen” checkbox is checked).

Conference name is required

Conference Short Name *

Shorter version shown on the printed cover page and in the on-screen title block (Public version only, if enabled). Not shown in the nav bar.

Short name is required

Denomination *

Shown on the printed cover page beneath the conference name. Pre-filled with the standard UMC name — change only if your conference uses different wording.

Denomination is required

Year Tag *

Shown in the nav bar next to “Appointment Book” — typically the conference year (e.g. 2026). Nav bar only; not used on the cover page.

Year tag is required

Year Range *

The large year display on the printed cover page (e.g. 2026–2027). Also shown in the on-screen title block (Public version only, if enabled). Use an em dash: –

Year range is required

Effective Date Display *

The written-out date shown on the printed cover page and on-screen title block (e.g. “July 1, 2026”). Display only — does not affect data filtering.

Effective date display is required

Effective Date *

M/D/YYYY format. For live pages: the default As-Of date shown when the page first loads (viewers can change it interactively with the date picker). For static/JSON pages: the only date used — all appointment data is filtered to this date and there is no interactive picker.

Effective date is required (M/D/YYYY)

Year Column Format

How appointment start dates display in the Year column.

NEW Badge Date Label *

Shown in the Clergy Status Codes legend to explain the NEW badge — e.g. “appointment beginning 7/1/2026”. Appears both in print and on screen.

NEW badge date label is required

Show Title Page on Screen PUBLIC ONLY

Shows the bishop name, conference name, and appointment year at the top of the page itself, not just when printed. The QR code (if set) still only appears in print, since it's not useful on screen.

Show Clergy Status Codes on Screen PUBLIC ONLY

Shows the legend explaining each status code (FE, PE, RE, etc.) at the top of the page itself, not just when printed.

Bishop

Required

Bishop Name *

Shown on the printed cover page and in the on-screen title block (Public version only, if enabled).

Bishop name is required

Bishop Title *

Shown beneath the bishop's name on the cover page. Pre-filled with the standard UMC title — change only if your conference uses different wording.

Bishop title is required

Branding

Optional

Header Image URL (optional)

Shown in the nav bar on every page AND at the top of the printed cover page. Typically your conference logo, but can be any image (seal, crest, banner, etc.).

Conference Website URL (optional)

If provided, the header image in the nav bar becomes a clickable link to this URL. No visible effect on the printed cover page.

Nav Bar Background

Top navigation bar background color. Title text adjusts automatically (black or white) for readability — no need to set it separately.

Nav Bar Text Color Override (optional)

Only set this if the automatic black/white choice above doesn't look right for your colors. Leave blank to keep the automatic behavior.

Nav Bar Accent Color

Year tag, button borders, and accent bar color.

Cover Page Image URL (optional)

URL of any image to show at the bottom of the cover page — commonly a QR code linking to the digital version, but can be any image. Leave blank to omit.

Cover Page Image Caption (optional)

Text shown below the image — e.g. “Scan for digital version” for a QR code, or any other caption. Leave blank to omit.

Data Sources

How to set up your BRT data exports click to expand

The appointment book reads data from two separate BRT Publish exports — one for Charges (local church appointments) and one for Appointments (extension ministry, leave, etc.). Both must be set up in your BRT admin and published as JSON. The fields below must be included exactly as shown for the data to process correctly.

1. Charges JSON Export

Create a Publish on the Contacts table using the Charges view, with these fields:

Include every field below in your search, even ones your conference doesn't actively use today. A field doesn't need to have data on every record — many are correctly blank for some records (e.g. an active appointment's end date, or a person with no middle name) — but the field path itself needs to be present, or the corresponding feature silently won't work for anyone.

Field Path	Purpose
Name	Charge name
StartDate	Charge active start
EndDate	Charge active end (blank = still active)
Churches.FirstName	Church display name
Churches.GCFANumber	GCFA number shown in parentheses
Churches.ChurchStatus	Used to exclude closed churches
Churches.District.Name	Church's current district assignment in BRT
Churches.FutureDistrictDataCore.Name	Church's incoming district for next conference year (standard UMC Data Core field)
Churches.Appointments.StartDate	Appointment start date
Churches.Appointments.EndDate	Appointment end date
Churches.Appointments.AppointmentPosition	Senior Pastor, Associate, etc.
Churches.Appointments.People.FirstName	Pastor first name
Churches.Appointments.People.LastName	Pastor last name
Churches.Appointments.People.MiddleName	Middle name/initial
Churches.Appointments.People.NameSuffix	Jr., Sr., III, etc.
Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatus	Clergy status field (fallback)
Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatusRecords.StartDate	Status log start (for date-based resolution)
Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatusRecords.EndDate	Status log end
Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatusRecords.ClergyStatus	Status log value

2. Appointments JSON Export

Create a Publish on the Content table using the Appointments view, with these fields:

Include every field below in your search, even ones your conference doesn't actively use today. A field doesn't need to have data on every record — many are correctly blank for some records (e.g. an active appointment's end date, or a person with no middle name) — but the field path itself needs to be present, or the corresponding feature silently won't work for anyone.

Field Path	Purpose
StartDate	Appointment start date
EndDate	Appointment end date
AppointmentPosition	Role/position label
ExtensionMinistry	Organization/ministry name
ExtensionMinistryPositions	NCC category label
Church.FirstName	Used to exclude church-based records
People.FirstName	Pastor first name
People.LastName	Pastor last name
People.MiddleName	Middle name/initial
People.NameSuffix	Jr., Sr., III, etc.
People.ClergyStatus	Clergy status (fallback)
People.ClergyStatusRecords.StartDate	Status log start
People.ClergyStatusRecords.EndDate	Status log end
People.ClergyStatusRecords.ClergyStatus	Status log value
ExtensionMinistryList	Related table extension ministry name — include alongside ExtensionMinistry so the ABC can use either as the primary display source

3. How to publish as JSON

In BRT, go to Contacts - Charges and Content(UMC) - Appointments. Create and save a search in each with the fields shown above.
Add each required field using the field paths listed above
Save the Search, then More Actions -Publish Data
Important: on the publish settings, set Realtime to Yes and check the Options box for Include Ids. This is what adds the underlying BRT IDs (church links, person links) to the export — these can't be added as search fields, only enabled here after publishing.
Click on the JSON publish link, and copy/paste the results into Notepad. Save the file — it's fine to leave it as a regular .txt file, no need to rename it or change the file type. Ex: Charges.txt
Repeat for Appointments. Upload each saved file in the corresponding spots below — .txt or .json both work.

Validate your BRT query XML

After setting up your BRT publish, BRT will show you the query XML it generated. Paste it below to automatically check whether all required fields are included. This tool compares your XML against the required fields and tells you what is missing or different.

Paste your Charges query XML:

Paste your Appointments query XML:

Show sample reference XML (for comparison only)

Charges (TableId: Contacts, ViewId: Charges):

<Query TableId="Contacts" ViewId="Charges">
  <ResultFields>
    <Ref FieldId="Name" />
    <Ref FieldId="StartDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="EndDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.FirstName" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.GCFANumber" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.ChurchStatus" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.District.Name" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.FutureDistrictDataCore.Name" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.StartDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.EndDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.AppointmentPosition" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.FirstName" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.LastName" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.MiddleName" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.NameSuffix" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatus" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatusRecords.StartDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatusRecords.EndDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="Churches.Appointments.People.ClergyStatusRecords.ClergyStatus" />
  </ResultFields>
</Query>

Appointments (TableId: Content, ViewId: Appointments):

<Query TableId="Content" ViewId="Appointments">
  <ResultFields>
    <Ref FieldId="StartDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="EndDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="AppointmentPosition" />
    <Ref FieldId="ExtensionMinistry" />
    <Ref FieldId="ExtensionMinistryPositions" />
    <Ref FieldId="Church.FirstName" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.FirstName" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.LastName" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.MiddleName" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.NameSuffix" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.ClergyStatus" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.ClergyStatusRecords.StartDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.ClergyStatusRecords.EndDate" />
    <Ref FieldId="People.ClergyStatusRecords.ClergyStatus" />
  </ResultFields>
</Query>

How do you want to power your appointment book?

Export your two JSON files from BRT (Charges and Appointments), then upload them below. The data will be processed and embedded directly in your config file — no server setup required. When appointments change, simply come back here, load your config, and re-upload updated files.

Charges JSON File *

The BRT export containing charges, churches, and appointments — accepts .json or .txt

Appointments JSON File *

The BRT export containing extension ministry and leave appointments — accepts .json or .txt

District Field *

Current District reads the District field — use this when generating the appointment book for the current conference year.
Future District reads FutureDistrictDataCore — use this if your conference has already moved churches to their incoming district assignments in BRT and you are generating the book for the upcoming conference year. Both fields are standard UMC Data Core fields available in every BRT conference.
Note: changing this field requires your Charges JSON to be uploaded — a saved config alone is not enough to repopulate districts.

Validate your export files

After uploading your files above, click below to check whether all required fields are present. The tool will tell you exactly what is missing or incorrect.

A Cloudflare Worker proxy is required to fetch live data from BRT due to browser security restrictions (CORS). If you are not sure what this means, choose Option A instead.

Proxy URL *

Your Cloudflare Worker proxy URL. Must end with ?url=

Proxy URL is required for live data mode

Charges Export URL *

BRT published JSON export URL for charges, churches and appointments

Charges export URL is required for live data mode

Appointments Export URL *

BRT published JSON export URL for extension ministry and leave appointments

Appointments export URL is required for live data mode

District Field *

Controls which BRT relationship the generated page reads from when fetching live data.

Districts

Required

Color Theme: Applies to all districts at once — you can still adjust individual colors after.

Add one entry per supervisory area (district). The order here is the order they appear in the book. Upload your Charges file above to auto-populate. Drag ☰ to reorder.

Extension Ministry Section

Optional — uses defaults if blank

Primary Extension Ministry Name Source *

Which BRT field to use as the displayed organization/role name for extension ministry appointments.

Backup if Primary is Empty (optional)

If the primary field has no value for a record, fall back to this field instead.

Section Label

Header Background

Text on this background adjusts automatically (black or white) for readability — no need to set it separately.

Header Bar Color

CSV Download — District Codes

Optional

When someone downloads the appointments as a CSV file, the first column shows a short code for each district. For example, if your Northern District should show as NO in that column, set it here. If you leave a code blank, the full district name will be used instead. These update automatically when you add districts above.

District Name	CSV Code

Generate Appointment Book

Final Step

BRT Subdomain *

The subdomain of your BRT instance — found in your BRT admin URL: yoursubdomain.brtapp.com. Used to generate clickable links to person and church records in the internal version.

BRT subdomain is required

STEP 1 Save your configuration file

Download your config file first and keep it somewhere safe. This is your master settings file — next year you load it back into this tool, upload updated appointment data, and regenerate. Without it you start from scratch.

Saves as apptbook-config-[yourconf]-[date]_[time].json

STEP 2 Generate your appointment book page(s)

Choose which version(s) to generate. Public is for your conference website — clean, no admin tools.
Internal/Admin adds the date filter, CSV download, audit tool, and direct BRT record links.

STEP 3 Create a Blank Site Layout in BRT — one-time setup, skip if you already have one

In BRT, go to Website → Site Layouts → Add Layout
Give it a name such as Blank or No Header/Footer
In the layout editor, delete all existing content and enter only:
@RenderBody()
Important: if your BRT instance has more than one website (e.g. a current site and an older "Z-Old" site), make sure to select the correct website this layout should be available on. If this isn't set, the layout won't show up as an option later when you go to use it on a page.
Save and publish the layout

This layout suppresses your site's normal header and footer so the appointment book fills the full page with its own built-in navigation bar.

STEP 4 Add the page to your BRT website

Open the downloaded HTML file in any text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, VS Code)
Select all — Ctrl+A (Windows) or Cmd+A (Mac)
Copy — Ctrl+C / Cmd+C
In BRT, create a new page and apply the Blank Layout you set up in Step 3
From Source View, click into the page content area and paste — Ctrl+V / Cmd+V
Save and publish the page

Repeat Steps 2 and 4 whenever you need to update appointments — load your saved config file, upload new data, regenerate, and re-paste.

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Appointment Book Creator

Please fix these issues before generating:

Conference Identity

Bishop

Branding

Data Sources

Districts

Extension Ministry Section

CSV Download — District Codes

Generate Appointment Book