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Project Catalog™—now available globally!

lenaellis
Community Member

Over the past few months, many of you have helped us test and refine our newest Upwork offering: Project Catalog. 

 

Through your contributions, feedback, and support, we’re thrilled to announce that Project Catalog is now officially live for the entire Upwork community—talent and clients alike.

 

If you’re not familiar with Project Catalog (or just want a refresher), here’s a quick introduction:

 

Project Catalog is where the work you love finds you. Build and sell your own project offerings based on the type of work you want more of. Each project will be listed on Project Catalog, ready for clients to purchase for a fixed price in just a few clicks. Once a client purchases, they’ll fill out any requirements you’ve requested, and you’ll be set to get to work.

 

It’s an easy way to get more eyes on your offering and land new projects quickly—all while putting you in the driver’s seat. That means you and your clients can get started right away, and with confidence.

 

Check out this video to learn how clients will discover and purchase your projects. 

 

 

Stay tuned for more exciting rollouts 

 

Project Catalog is just the beginning of a series of exciting new ways to land clients on Upwork, adding to Talent Marketplace, the current platform you already know and love.

 

But no matter how you choose to use Upwork to grow your independent work, know that we’re dedicated to helping you build the strong and profitable relationships that are the foundation of a growing business.

 

We want to thank you for your hard work and the contributions you make to creating a thriving community on Upwork.

 

Happy New Year—may it be your most rewarding one yet!

 

 

824 Comments
gina-herrera
Community Member

Lena E wrote:

Just recently on this thread Scott shared his experience using Project Catalog successfully in addition to the way he's always used Upwork.

 

The feedback everyone has shared is helpful as we shape Catalog into a better experience, it's not going anywhere, and we will continue to make improvements. 


Unfortunately that was likely not a successful experience - it was a thought with potential on how to use the new feature to accomodate a new approach. He does not have have any jobs that resulted from this thought process yet to my knowledge, both from how he phrased it and from looking at his job history.

No one said it was going anywhere, it's been made blatantly obvious time and time again that this is very much a client-serving platform, and while I understand that they are the ones generating Upwork's income, it definitely is stressful to think that high-paying clients could leave once they see such a Fiverr-esque approach being offered, even if it doesn't apply to them. At the end of the day these are the clients creating the most profit. In addition, "One-stop shop" projects typically do not work for a tool like this - the larger a project becomes and the more skillsets are required from one person, the more chance there is of a scope evolving over time and the client expecting you to bend with their needs for the same price. I don't believe that is the intention here, or if it is, it is being approached completely wrong. You may speak with clients regularly, but that does not change the fact that there is a big problem with top earning freelancers not being heard (or at least, not feeling they are being heard, because we just tend to get a templated response - I can appreciate that you are one of the few that actually takes the time to type out a real thought instead of a robotic reply, so thank you for that) and severely lacking control over their own contracts. I personally think that a successful tool is built to accomodate as many people as fairly as possible, and even just the fact that one cannot deny a project after 24 hours is, quite simply, just plain not fair - to either the client or the freelancer.

3e66c1b5
Community Member

Hello,

 

I saw that some of the services in the catalog project offer scraping data, isn't that illegal?
Because when I list my project it is not approved, even though my data gathering is legally valid because retrieving data via Google Maps is permitted. I took data because I have a valid API Key. Meanwhile, most of the catalog projects illegally retrieve data on websites.

Any solutions?

 

Thanks,
Fajar

shujagraphy7
Community Member

Hey there!
this is my second query about the project catalog.

my question is why Upwork always promotes higher reviews count freelancers?
like when I search freelancers in any category like in logo designing there is no freelancer in the top 2 or 3 pages whose reviews are less than 100. 
like if a new freelancer comes on this platform whenever get any job through the project catalog because no client ever goes to the 100 or 200 pages bottom to select the desired candidate. 

Upwork should have some categories like top-rated sellers, rising talent, featured sellers, or Upwork choice. by them, Upwork should promote new freelancers and some active freelancers depending on their reviews with different clients and active time.

thanks.



 

ericaandrews
Community Member

I encountered the same problem: Every project I tried to add to the catalog got "rejected", once for using an image where I had to black-out/redact things to satisfy an NDA with a past customer: It was a great screenshot of my work, but the client said I could only use it if I hid certain information about his computer systems. Most of the work I do requires an NDA, which bascially means I can't post any images of my past work into the project catalog if they are required to be "un-redacted" and "unedited".

 

 

Several other project submissions were rejected when  the Upwork "screeners" didn't agree with how I "categorized" my projects.  I do IT work exclusively, but when I submitted a project related to technical writing and IT business analysis/project management, Upwork rejected it and said I needed to 're-categorize' it under "Graphic Design" / "Info graphics", which is not where my future clients would think to look if they were looking for *IT* and *System* documentation.  If I posted my project into a category that made no sense for IT, it would either not be seen by the right clients or would attract clients looking for "graphic design" and "advertisement" "infographics", wasting my time and theirs.  It didn't make any sense because I know my industry and how/where clients will search for my work much better than a generic person "screening" my project and deciding where to file it on Upwork.  The available categories are too limited and don't cover most of the available services in IT. I just got frustrated with it and gave up.   They need to go back to the OLD way where freelancers posted these types of available one-time "side projects" directly on their profile, with direct control over the images, description, pricing, and categorization.  I already have my own web site for handling one-time non-upwork contracts of this type, so I'll just keep using that for now.

 

I agree that this new "feature" is eventually going to steal work away from long-time freelancers that have long-term client engagements, because you'll eventually have new people join Upwork with no Upwork client experience, simply posting projects promising to build entire e-commerce websites for $2 just to land their first Upwork gig.

browersr
Community Member

Gina H wrote:

Lena E wrote:

Just recently on this thread Scott shared his experience using Project Catalog successfully in addition to the way he's always used Upwork.

 

The feedback everyone has shared is helpful as we shape Catalog into a better experience, it's not going anywhere, and we will continue to make improvements. 


Unfortunately that was likely not a successful experience - it was a thought with potential on how to use the new feature to accomodate a new approach. He does not have have any jobs that resulted from this thought process yet to my knowledge, both from how he phrased it and from looking at his job history.
-----

Please do not speak for me on matters you know nothing about. I have had 4 engagements coming from the PC and all were entirely successful for both parties. Really it's 6 as I had two clients who found me via the PC but after a brief discussion we moved it to a "regular" project because they needed more than the pre-packaged time and it did not make sense to buy the same thing over and over.  So my packaged time of 1 hour has resulted in 11 hours of billable consulting with one still ongoing as of the time of this writing. Make of this what you will. 


 

gina-herrera
Community Member

Scott B wrote:



Please do not speak for me on matters you know nothing about.



**Edited for Community Guidelines** The REASON I said it likely didn't result in anything was because you hadn't mentioned that it had, and I think we can both agree it would have been much more helpful to actually state clearly that it had had results.

Also, to be quite honest I was referring to people who had a positive experience with actual deliverables, as most people are not keen on having consultation clients weigh in with feedback.

gilbert-phyllis
Community Member

Gina H wrote:

Scott B wrote:



Please do not speak for me on matters you know nothing about.



**Edited for Community Guidelines** The REASON I said it likely didn't result in anything was because you hadn't mentioned that it had, and I think we can both agree it would have been much more helpful to actually state clearly that it had had results.

Also, to be quite honest I was referring to people who had a positive experience with actual deliverables, as most people are not keen on having consultation clients weigh in with feedback.


I'm inclined to go on record that I don't read Scott's comment as dramatic in the least, or personally offended. Exasperated, maybe, at seeing someone else misrepresent his experience based on their own assumptions. Furthermore, for some of us on some projects, a consultation is the deliverable. I opened such a contract yesterday. I'm not going to be creating anything specific but rather, helping the clients figure out how to do something. The way Scott has found to use the PC is the only way it could ever work for me, and I'm still cogitating about whether to try it or not. 

gina-herrera
Community Member

Phyllis G wrote:

Gina H wrote:

Scott B wrote:

I'm inclined to go on record that I don't read Scott's comment as dramatic in the least, or personally offended. Exasperated, maybe, at seeing someone else misrepresent his experience based on their own assumptions. Furthermore, for some of us on some projects, a consultation is the deliverable. I opened such a contract yesterday. I'm not going to be creating anything specific but rather, helping the clients figure out how to do something. The way Scott has found to use the PC is the only way it could ever work for me, and I'm still cogitating about whether to try it or not. 

Perhaps, but I don't think it's fair to be exasperated with me when he was thoroughly unclear, his comment was then cited as a source by an admin as a successful experience, yet there was no evidence that it had even been successful. I misrepresented unintentionally based on the information he provided, so to say "you know nothing about this" feels pretty over the top of a reaction as opposed to an informative correction.

 

Either way, I totally agree - I think we are in similar fields, and a consultation is the only way this could work for me currently, I'm just not sure if I want to do so since it's a very abstract deliverable to leave feedback on.

m_terrazas
Community Member

Lena, I've been looking at a profile with various jobs done through Project Catalog.
Jobs are displayed like any other in the job history.
I think it would be a good idea to highlight them in some way, to make it clear that this work is from PC.
In another portal this is done, the work carried out through PC is shown with the image, title and link of the specific project.
This would draw the customer's attention to those jobs, if he doesn't have a very specific idea of what he wants. If the specific project solves your need, perfect. If you need more, you can always go for a "normal" contract.
Just an idea Smiley Very Happy

BojanS
Community Manager

Hi Erica,

 

Thank you so much for the valuable feedback regarding categories. I see that our team sent you an email when your project was declined which outlines a specific reason why that happened and some suggestions on how to improve. I encourage you to check that email out!