Inactive/No Feedback contract and JSS

[saad-jamal]

Hi

The client has previously created 5 to 6 milestones within the contract. All work done, submitted, and paid for. Now the client is saying he will add another milestone but would take him some time. Around 5 to 6 days. The contract is idle now

I want to ask will the contract being idle for this amount of time affect my JSS. or not.

Since the client does not want to end the contract he wants to work on another project with me.

Please let me know about this

Thank You

Regards

Saad Jamal

[PradeepH]

Hi Rehan,

Thank you fo your message. Your Job Success Score will not be affected unless the Client leaves low ratings after ending the contract. You can learn more about JSS here.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[3e876c31]

Thanks

[ahmedjams]

I have two contracts in progress. One has a payment of 14000 USD done on it(Started Oct 2021) and one has a total of 37000 USD payment done on it(Started May 2020), but they are on hold for some time, for around 5 months. No payments have been made on these contracts for 5 months. Will this affect my JSS? I have a top-rated plus badge with 100% JSS.

Only these two contracts are in progress. Also, I haven't had any new jobs done on Upwork since the last one was completed in April 2022.  Please guide me on what are the chances of my JSS dropping.

[3e876c31]

Hi, Your Job Success Score will not be affected unless the Client leaves low ratings after ending the contract. You can learn more about JSS here.

[feb9ca6a]

Hi there,

Thanks for reading my post.

I wanted to know if having inactive contracts, for instance, if my client doesnt add any new milestones, or if my client doesn't give me more work on an hourly contract - does that negatively affect me in anyway? Does closing a contract without any review hurt me?

How is job success calculated anyway?

If I don't reach my weekly hour limit - does that hurt my profile in anyway?

[dariaretoucher]

Hi, 

I am looking for information and finding different answers regarding that topic.

Is our JSS affected badly by Hourly Contract, which is inactive for more than 30 days? 

I don't mind keeping the contract open as I know that there will be more work in the future. However I am worried it might affect my JSS. In that case I would have to ask the client to close the contract. I really hope it's not the case anymore. 

Thanks for clarification

[759e32fa]

Hi Daria,

Thank you for reaching out to us. Keeping contracts with no recent activity open will not affect your score negatively. If you have contracts that are still open, but no further work needs to be done, you can still consider asking your clients to close them or go ahead and close them yourself. Please, note that when you close a contract, the client is notified and will have 14 days to provide their feedback on the contract. If no feedback is provided on the contract by them, it will not impact your score. You may read more about how the Job Success Score is calculated here.

[dyumnin]

I have 7 "active" contracts. Out of which I do not expect any future work from 4 clients.

• Two clients were suspended by upwork a few years back.
• One fixed price project was discontinued by me because of ever changing requirements and scope creep.
• One client "went away" after the design planning phase, as the performance achievable from his chosen system did not meet his requirement.

The other 3 projects are active.

I am thinking of closing the inactive contracts from my end..  I have not worked with them for a few years.

The clients are no longer on the platform and I do not expect any of them to leave a review. Will that affect my JSS?

[759e32fa]

Hi Vijayvithal,

Keeping contracts with no recent activity open will not affect your score negatively. If you have contracts that are still open, but no further work needs to be done, you can still consider asking your clients to close them or go ahead and close them yourself. Please, note that when you close a contract, the client is notified and will have 14 days to provide their feedback on the contract. If no feedback is provided on the contract by them, it will not impact your score. You may read more about how the Job Success Score is calculated here.

[shaltype]

Hi, it's been a while since I started Upwork.

Has been struggling with my JSS for a couple of moments, my score is perfect when on Rising Talent.

Until got ignored by a previous client and ended the contract myself, then the JSS dropped to 75-80%, then back to 100% after a couple of months after the hard work.

Somehow, it dropped again to 88% when I try to make it right on my way to being Top Rated.

I have a client that makes 3 contracts, one of the examples is attached, but now the client is not active anymore.

I’ve tried to contact him on another platform because he used a company email to register here and move out without ending my contract first.

Can anyone or Upwork support help? Or should I end the contract by myself again?

[spectralua]

You can leave it opened forewer. Or end this contract yourself. Upwork won't help with that.

[shaltype]

It's bad when clients look at my profile to leave it open.

Have you been like that before? Is the JSS fine?

[spectralua]

You cannot receive feedback in any case if client gone.

Upwork say no feedbacks contract not affect JSS but i found that not a true. I leave it opened, have an 20 more old opened contracts with inactive clients.

[shaltype]

Wow! That's insane, so it's better to end it when a client is gone.

But still, suck when need time to get recovered.

Thanks for sharing by the way.

[muddasar-raja]

Hi!

I would like to suggest that you should  contact with upwork support on this matter, and if you want to end it by yourself then you should go to My Job then click on the contract and you will see 3 dots on top right, click on them and you will see end contract option.. If contract stays for too long without any activity on it, it effects your job success score.

[shaltype]

Hi,

Yes, I think so, like I said I’ve been trying to end contact by myself before. But the JSS is dropped more, and need time to get back on track.

It sucks to get a new job with a low JSS.

[muddasar-raja]

Your JSS is dropping because your contract has no activity in it. By acitivity means logging hours, or communicating with client or delivering files and providing revisions etc. I will still suggest you to end contract by yourself.

If its there for more time your JSS will drop even more..

[shaltype]

True! Thanks again for the information, it was helpful.

Upwork needs a better solution to this, so we can get back quickly and not waste our time.

[muddasar-raja]

I believe if you contact Upwork support and tell them this scenario, they will look into it and you can ask them to remove thsi project from your profile, once they will remove and the next time your JSS will get refreshed it will be same as it was before..

[shaltype]

Okay, I’ll try it first, takes more time but I think is worth it when they respond and act fast.

[muddasar-raja]

You should chat with support, live chat is also available i guess. And Upwork support resolves issue quickly..

[7b572db2]

Hello everyone,

A client hired me for a project, I completed the 1st milestone successfully and he paid me for that milestone. Since then he has not set new milestones and the contract is still in progress but inactive for over a month.

I have a few questions:

1. What should I do now, should I ask the client to end the contract?

2. Will this inactive contract affect badly on my JSS? (I am a new seller and have not received any JSS from Upwork till now)

3. What is the best solution for such inactive contracts, if there is any impact on the profile or there is no effect on the profile?

Regards,

Imran Ahmed.

[spectralua]

Better for you is ask client to end contract. You will get feedback and +1 completed job.

[7b572db2]

Thank you, Mykola. Can you tell me will an inactive contract affect the JSS negatively?

[spectralua]

Upwork say no but some users reported that see JSS drop with inactive contracts. JSS calculation is secret so we cannot know for sure.

[alexandernovikov]

If a contract has been "closed by Upwork" (client himself disappeared 3.5 years ago without a trace), will it impact my JSS? What shall i do seeing it happening, to best preserve my JSS?

[abixbg]

Best practice is to ask the Client if he intends to contine giving you work. If he is not responsive just close the contract yourself and never wait more than 1-2 months to do it.  For example i am constantly trying to bump my rates and I have left one low rate contract open. Now closed it's heavy burden for my profile because Upwork shows the contracts in order of the closing date. You may be asked by clients why you ask for $40/h when you worked for $15 on your "recent" contract? 

[hernandezjason26]

Thank you for this advice. I will go and close the old, unresponsive contracts on my profile now. I was not aware that I could do this, because on some platforms, only the client can close a contract.

[c17bdbb1]

Does open contract with no activity effect on JSS?

[rainmaker1145]

Nope.

[c_sammering]

Hello everybody,

I have been hired by a client at an hourly to do some video writing. I have been given minimal briefing and very little support to make the project a success. I have offered to redo the work given some useful feedback that I can apply but the client has gone unresponsive and the contract is still running. I have been doing so well lately with multiple offers pouring in and I do not want this situation to negativel impact my profile or work history,

Do you have any advice? 

[wlyonsatl]

If a client is unresponsive, move on to other clients and other projects. Stop work on this project if you have no feedback or new information, and close the project yourself after a month or so of nothing from the client.

Being ghosted by clients is just part of an Upwork freelancer's life. Don't dwell on it. Just move on to working with clients who pay you for your time.

An idle client can always re-hire you, if you and they agree the new work is something worth doing.

[2779bde0]

Hi,

I am newer to Upwork. The two big copywriting projects I have right now are both ongoing work, with multiple milestones over time. I have been given a five star rating by one of them, but neither job still is currently showing as completed, and may go on for months, which is great.

Here's my question. Does a 5-star rating on a completed job carry more weight with Upwork's algorithims than on one which is ongoing? Both jobs are well paid, and in applying for the $5 "quick" jobs, they seem challenging to get.

Would it be to my benefit to find the $5 jobs, and complete those to build up the 5-star ratings, or just continue to get 5-stars with the existing clients, which haven't been completed. I am concerned that the lack of completed jobs is holding me back.

Thanks

[PradeepH]

Hi Martin,

Thank you for your question. I checked your contract and I see that you are referring to Mid contract feedback left on one of your active contracts.

There are two types of feedback for contracts at Upwork: public and private. Mid-contract feedback is public and shows on your Work History. However, it does not factor into your Job Success Score. Many factors go into your JSS calculation, including public and private feedback given when the contract is closed, the weight of the contract, etc.

I see that the Mid-contract feedback left on your active job is already visible on your Upwork profile under the 'In progress' job section. Keeping contracts open with or without activity will not affect your score negatively. If you have contracts that are still open, but no further work needs to be done, you can still consider asking your clients to close them or go ahead and close them yourself. Please, note that when you close a contract, the client is notified and will have 14 days to provide their feedback on the contract. If no feedback is provided on the contract by them, it will not impact your score. Feel free to message us if you have further questions.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[2779bde0]

Hi Pradeep,

Thank you for the response. Along those same lines, I have a question. One of the contracts I am working on has maybe one milestone per month, and hopefully go on for a long time.

This is great, but being it will never close, I, at this point in my Upwork journey, would want to have this as a completed project, with the corresponding feedback, so it will positively impact my JSS.

Is it within the TOS to ask the client to close, then reopen a new contract, with the same terms, say every couple of months? I have seen profiles of other freelance who do the same job for the same employer multiple times.

I am assuming this is OK, but wanted to run it past someone first.

Thanks

[PradeepH]

Hi Martin.

Thank you for your inquiry. Proposing a new contract to improve your feedback or rating score is not allowed per our Terms of Service. Please refer to our TOS for further details.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[priyankajpursani]

Hello,

One of my clients requested a refund before accepting the milestone and ended the contract. If I accept the refund request, the contract will be zero earned, and if the client has provided poor private feedback, will it affect my JSS?

[b85cd295]

Hello All,

I and one of my new clients started a manual Time contract two days ago. Today, when I uploaded the output, the contract was ended by the client a few hours before. However, I hadn't added any time to the contract timesheet, resulting in zero Transactions. The client didn't provide any feedback as well.

-I'm concerned about whether this will have any negative impact on my account or affect my job score ?

[LuiggiR]

Hi Akhif,

While the parties won't be able to provide public feedback on a contract that didn't have any payments, they can still provide private feedback. If the client provides positive private feedback on a contract with no earnings, that contract will be excluded from your JSS. If the client specifies in their feedback that the contract had a negative outcome, that will be counted in the score.

[b85cd295]

Thank you for your response!

- How long would take to visible if affact the job score ?