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51c2dd73
Community Member

When I start a new contract, why is the freelancer automatically able to see/use ALL activity codes?

Each time I start a new contract, I have to go through my time tracker activity code list (currently 13) and remove that person from any activity codes they won't be using.

 

It should be the opposite - when a new contract is started, the freelancer is by default added to none of the activity codes.

 

This works better for both clients and freelancers.

 

  • Clients who want to control just which activity codes various team members see don't have to constantly remove new hires from every. single. activity. code. one. at. a. time.
  • My freelancers don't have to sort through irrelevant activity codes, which also leads to less mistakes.

 

If this is a setting or something that I can turn off, I would greatly appreciate learning how to do so. If it's baked in behavior, I would very strongly suggest adding a fix for this to your roadmap.

 

Thank you.

10 REPLIES 10
AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Nathan, 

Activity codes can be controlled from the following: 

  • Activities Management: Go to Reports then select Budgets and click on Manage Activity Codes. This is the main page where you will create Activities and assign them to contracts. You can also archive Activities that are no longer in use. Data for archived Activities will stay in reports and they may be unarchived to be used again.
  • Contract Room: On the Terms & Settings page in a Contract Room you can view and edit the list of Activities that are assigned to the contract. This is where you can assign many Activities to a contract at once.
  • Work Diary (View/Edit): The Activity will be displayed above the screenshots with the Memo in the form "[Activity]:[Memo]." Click on the Activity to edit it.

~ Avery
Upwork
51c2dd73
Community Member

Thank you, but this response is not relevant to my actual concern. I'm already aware of how to manage activity codes. 

 

If this is a setting or something that I can turn off,

 

By "this," I'm referring to the problem of the contractor(s) being automatically added to all my existing activity codes any time I open a new contract.

 

This should work exactly the opposite - by default, new contractors aren't assigned to any activity code, and the client must select any codes they want the freelancer to have access to.

 

The way it is now, I waste so much time retroactively adjusting activity codes.

 

 

Thanks for bringing this up and sharing your feedback and experience, Nathan. I can confirm that currently it is working as designed. That said, our product team is planning to look into how the activity codes are assigned when a contract is created and possibly change the process in the future. Unfortunately, at this point I can't provide an ETA for when it will be done. I'd certainly share your post with them as this is very helpful!

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hi, any update on this?

 

Still having to go in and remove any newly hired freelancer from every single one of my activity codes. 

 

Newly hired freelancers should not be assigned to any activity codes by default, rather than the current behavior (assigned to all of them by default).

 

This is a simple tweak which would greatly improve user experience.

 

 

Following up...

BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Nathan,

 

Unfortunately, we currently don't have an update about this request. Thank you for following up.

~ Bojan
Upwork
51c2dd73
Community Member

Thanks Bojan. From Valeria's post on Jan 9, 2019:

 

That said, our product team is planning to look into how the activity codes are assigned when a contract is created and possibly change the process in the future.

 

Can you confirm if this was discussed? I can't believe more people haven't complained about this incredibly annoying behavior. It should be trivial to change, and would make a difference in user experience.

 

 

Hi Nathan,

 

We have shared your feedback with the product team and we understand that it's important. However, we don't have any information yet about when any changes in this area will be implemented.

 

Thank you for your patience.

~ Valeria
Upwork

What is the thinking here? Obviously someone feels that this is a feature, rather than a bug. Otherwise, it would've been solved long ago because it's so trivial to change. In fact, it takes more work to have this behavior than to not have it.

 

Can you help me understand why this is the desired behavior? As a client, I am at a loss for how forcing me to manually remove every new hire from every single one of my activity codes (the majority of which I want them to have no knowledge of in the first place) is a feature? 

Great post. Thank you. I've been struggling with this for about 4 years now.

 

We sometimes have 30 contracts running and a freelancer will be added ALL of the activity codes even though they are only working on one. It costs me money to have my accounting team having to go through and remove them.

 

What I don't understand is when I start a contract it asks me which codes I want to add them to. I select only one and yet it still adds them to all the codes.

 

Ah well, thanks for following up.

 

Love the Upwork platform. It keeps getting better and better. Keep up the great work everyone.

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