The UPdate: Direct Contracts: Allow for Organization and Team selections, SMS, Two-Step Verification Enrolment Rule Overhaul, Limit VOIP Phone Number Usage, Offer Page - Tracking total cost of milestones and error message, Email Copy Improved: Provide more context to Freelancer when they can access their balance, IDV Enforcements for CL/FLs at Signup, Refer Any Hire Payroll Leads to Greenlight.ai

[#1]

Hello Team! 

 The Update on Launch Updates! 

Happy Monday!  CS announcement emails now have a new look! We also created a feedback survey and would like to get your thoughts on this new change!

• Direct Contracts: Allow for Organization and Team selections

• SMS Two-Step Verification Enrolment Rule Overhaul

• Limit VOIP Phone Number Usage

• Offer Page - Tracking total cost of milestones and error message

• Email Copy Improved: Provide more context to Freelancer when they can access their balance

• IDV Enforcements for CL/FLs at Signup (Test)

• Refer Any Hire Payroll Leads to Greenlight.ai

• Umami Personalized Multi-Objective Ranking On UFS

• Boosted Profiles in FJP Flow

More Details Below:

Direct Contracts: Allow for Organization and Team selections Launch Date:  July 22, 2024 Aimed at: Clients	For clients managing multiple organizations, Upwork automatically assigns new direct contracts to the first organization they created. This can be inconvenient, as clients might prefer to choose the specific organization and team where the contract should be assigned. We’re making this improvement to allow clients with multiple organizations and/or teams to select the specific organization and/or team to which the Direct Contract should be assigned.
SMS Two-Step Verification Enrolment Rule Overhaul Launch Date:  July 23, 2024 Aimed at: Freelancers and Clients	We’re updating the SMS two-step verification rules to stop fraudulent SMS use and suggest users try other verification methods when possible, reducing automated sign-ups. What are the changes: We’ll make SMS 2SV feature available only to customers who have passed IDV or connected a payment or withdrawal method. We’ll encourage only customers from the USA, UK, and EU to enroll in SMS 2SV during the login enrollment flow. For other countries, we’ll propose alternative 2SV methods like mobile app prompt.  We’re keeping SMS as one of the primary two-step verification methods for the mentioned countries above.
Limit VOIP Phone Number Usage Launch Date:  July 24, 2024 Aimed at: Freelancers and Clients	To prevent fraud, we will no longer allow two-step verification for customers using VOIP numbers. Customers will see the following error message if they try to verify with a VOIP number. *A VoIP number is a real telephone number operating on an internet connection. Voice over IP phone numbers are assigned to a user and not to a physical location.
Offer Page - Tracking total cost of milestones and error message Launch date: July 25, 2024 Aimed at: Clients	We are adding a notification for marketplace and enterprise clients if the total of all milestones goes over the budget they set for a Fixed Price offer. Check offer from job proposal: Check offer from Enterprise Standard CLs:
Email Copy Improved: Provide more context to Freelancer when they can access their balance Launch date: July 25, 2024 Aimed at: Freelancers	Issue: Freelancers think payment is available immediately upon receiving the email. Solution: We’re updating our email message to make payment processing time clearer.
Test IDV Enforcements for CL/FLs at Signup Launch Date:  July 24, 2024 Aimed at: Freelancers and Clients	In addition to existing Upwork detection models, we’re introducing mechanisms like IDV for identifying bad actors’ profiles as far early as possible to prevent scammers.
Refer Any Hire Payroll Leads to Greenlight.ai Launch date: July 25, 2024 Aimed at: Any Hire Clients	For a more streamlined process, we are initiating the migration of Any Hire contracts by performing the following:  Transition our active payroll contracts to Velocity Global and  Refer out the incoming payroll leads to GreenLight.ai as part of our GreenLight.ai Referral Pilot Program As announced last Friday here, we have related internal (not to be shared with customers) and client-facing (can be shared with clients) FAQs. Feel free to review the internal KB under the “added FAQs” section.
Umami Personalized Multi-Objective Ranking On UFS Launch date: July 25, 2024 Aimed at: Clients	We’ll be using an in-house, optimized function and include more personalization in our search ranking built by *Umami. *Team Umami stands for "Upwork's Mindful, Artificial, and Measurable Intelligence".
Boosted Profiles in FJP Flow Launch date: July 25, 2024 Aimed at: Clients	To grow our supply for boosted profiles, we are exploring adding it to the FJP flow. This is an extension to the current *MFS surface to include first job posts (FJP) from CLs who have never hired on Upwork.  *Merchandising freelancer search--refers to the system by which registered clients are suggested freelancers to invite after posting a job