New To-Do List collaborative tool

[lenaellis]

*UPDATE 7/1 - To-Do Lists feature is now available to all talent and clients!

Today, we are starting to test out a new collaborative tool, To-do lists, with freelancers and clients. To-do lists can serve as a collaborative space to organize your contract’s work. Clients and freelancers will be able to create to-dos, assign an owner, add a short note, and set a due date.

We hope the due dates and notes in this tool will be helpful when managing projects and deadlines. You can toggle to view the full list or only tasks assigned to you, so this tool could also function as a way to organize your own tasks for a contract in an easy to access spot.

Use the tool however you’d like. It’s completely optional and the deadlines are not monitored by Upwork and do not replace your contract terms agreed upon when starting the contract. You can access the to-do list from your contract workroom. We have released this to some customers today and will expand to more very soon.

Tell us how you like it and what improvements you'd suggest with the feedback.

[heather_lusk]

How do you all keep track of deadlines? I have more than half a dozen regular clients, some use milestones and some are hourly (I'm a writer). The jobs aren't consistent, so it's not like I know I have to turn in X on Tuesday, Y on Thursday, etc. It varies each week. I've just missed two deadlines in the past two weeks because I didn't notice it in the milestone. As I'm gaining new clinets I'm afraid it's going to happen more frequently.

My biggest problem is that the hourly clients don't have a deadline attached to their needs - it's just mentioned in a message. So I manually have to keep track.

I used to use Trello when I worked for a newspaper, which helped keep track of indiviual stories and their deadlines. But I don't think it will work here because each job is so different - plus I'd have to cut and paste so much info from Upwork to make it really effective. Does Upwork have any manual tracking of deadlines, or calendar so I can add a project to a timeline and be alerted that, hey!, today that assignment is due?

[AndreaG]

Hi Heather,

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts! To-do lists can serve as a collaborative space that allows clients and freelancers to create to-dos, assign an owner, add a short note, and set a due date. Both clients and freelancers are able to create, edit, and complete to-dos. Using the feature is not required, but an option that some users might find helpful when managing projects and deadlines. 

I've merged your post into the Announcement where you can read more about this. 

Thanks!

[heather_lusk]

Thanks for your response Andrea. I saw that but thought it was just viewable for each individual client - so I wouldn't be able to see a master list of every single item I have due (with Trello I could organize by due date so I could plan my week ahead of time, or know that I couldn't take a new assignment for a certain day if I had a looming deadline). 
Plus it only seems available for my hourly contacts unless I'm missing it somewhere? I just received a new contract with two milestones. I'd like to have those milestones on a calendar or to-do list next to hourly assignments.

Perhaps I'm not looking in the right place?

[AndreaG]

Hi Heather,

That's correct, this is for Hourly Contracts. We appreciate your suggestions and we'll make sure to pass this on to the team.

Thanks!

[heather_lusk]

So Andrea, I'd like to ask other Freelancers then for suggestions of how to accomplish this. If I repost to the Freelancer forum will you assure me it won't be moved or deleted (unless of course it violates guidelines)? 

[AndreaG]

Hi Heather,

Of course you can ask for further advice from other users on Freelancer board! I would also like to assure you that your posts here in the Announcements board are visible to all users.

Thanks!

[colettelewis]

I hope this new feature is not going to be obligatory. 

[hferrin]

Hi! This is a great tool and really helps me keep assignments from my clients in order.
I think it's missing two important features though:
1. Notifications when new To-Do's are added (or when changes are made to an existing to-do).
2. An attachments/uploads feature so all the files related to the task can be found in one place.

Thanks!

[JoanneP]

Hi Heidi,

Thanks for sharing your feedback about this feature. I'll sure let the team know about it so that they can consider this suggestion. 

[evadavit]

In an active contract in the new "To-Do's" section I created a To-Do item with a deadline. There are no buttons or options anywhere to mark it as complete, so it is now showing as overdue, which is incorrect. How can I mark a to-do as complete?