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

[759e32fa]

Hi Dharmesh,

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 have an impact on your score.

In the case of contracts without earnings, 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 JSS. If the client specifies in their feedback that the contract had a negative outcome, that will be counted in the score.

If the client doesn't provide any private feedback on a contract with no earnings, that contract will be excluded from the JSS calculation.

[b54270a7]

I have a contract where the client has not provided me with any work ever since it started and I am sure they don't have any work to give me. They keep telling me to wait another day or two and then nothing. If I close down this contract with no transactions, would that impact my JSS?

[bundie702]

I'm not sure...I've ended contracts without it affecting my JSS, but your client just sounds as if they're just running behind. I'd recommend waiting a few more weeks, then politely remind them that you've been waiting for a month or nearly a month for them to give you more work, and ask if they have a more accurate estimate of when they'll have something for you. I don't think it'll hurt your score to hold onto an inactive job for a few more weeks...

[feed_my_eyes]

It won't hurt you to close it unless they give you a bad review. But I would just leave it open - that isn't hurting you, either - and stop messaging the client. (If they've told you to wait, then wait. There's nothing to stop you from taking on other projects in the meantime, though.)

[b54270a7]

It's been more than 2 months and looking at their previous history they have only spent $30 on 4 jobs where each one of those job listings were presented as long term high paying opportunities but none of them crossed the $10 mark. So I'm sure they don't want to spend money. Thanks for the help tho, I'll proceed to close the contract now 🙂 

[eeb179a1]

I need justice. So a few months ago, a client hired me to do a job saying that he'll contact me when it's availabe. But after a few months later, he's gone silent. I tried reaching out to ask if there's data available yet; no answer. I reached out again to see if he could do something about the contract because it remained idle for so long already; no answer. Then in the end, the contract got closed automatically. Then I raeched out to upwork support email telling them about this and here is the answer I get. 1=> The JSS will be affected badly if the client leaves a poor feedback. Well, how in the universe does that make any sense? Is it some kind of hunger games? There was no work given or done at all---NONE AT ALL---but how is it possible that the client could still leave a feedback that may affect my score so badly while he behaved like that? And we all know how horrible bad JSS will look on the profiles. I dont even want to care about JSS in the first place, but because it's already set to oppress us like this already, I have no choice, but this is too crazy, it makes no sense at all. Could someone help me understand how this makes any sense at all? Does this not show how discriminated and biased Upwork is too its freelancers? Creating a score to oppress the workers is one thing, but calculating the score based on such poor unjustified criteria is simply monsterous. 

[pgiambalvo]

Hmm. Seems to me that clients shouldn't be allowed to leave feedback unless they've actually paid a freelancer for work.

[76982059]

Question: can open contracts hurt my JSS? I submitted my work 2 Ago, client Paid my milestones and is Gone on weekends.

Please let me know Thanks 🙂

[ibtesamsadiq]

Hi, I hope you are well!
I am confused about keeping projects open without work. Because I had a 100% JSS. And I took 3 months' break from the work. During that time, an hour-based contract was open. I completed the work and got a 5-star review on that job. But I didn't close the contract. Because the client said that she might have more work for me, so I kept the contract open but didn't get any work from that client. After waiting for 2 months, I closed the contract. And after some time, Upwork dropped the JSS score. my rating was good, and I didn't have any bad ratings or reviews.
I was confused about the reason. So, I asked the Upwork support for the reason. They didn't tell me the exact reason but after looking at my profile they suggested I should ask the client to close the contract as soon as I complete the job or if the client doesn't close it, then I should do it myself.
But now when I ask my clients to close the contract they say that they have more projects for me so, They want to keep the contract open.
So now I am confused. What should I do? I want to know for how long can I keep the contract open without affecting my JSS?

[wlyonsatl]

Ibtesam S.,

I regularly close idle projects because the clients won't. Whatever their reasons are, if I leave a contract open because the client says more work is coming and no more work then comes over the following month, I close the project (with a good review of the client, if that's accurate), including in my public rating and in a private message to the client that I closed the project only because it had been idle for a while and I'd be happy to re-start the project whenever the client wishes.

I have gotten no negative responses from clients and I don't think my JSS has suffered as a result of this approach to keeping only active projects in my list of current workload. It is not unusual for such projects to be re-opened by the client, but I wouldn't say the majority do so. (I don't think enough clients really take the time to understand how Upwork works and many don't realize how easy it is to re-start a closed project.)

[abdurrehman010]

Hi Ibtesam! Hope you are doing well.

It is not recommended to keep an inactive contract open. You must try to end the contract on the good terms as soon as you complete the work. If client says that he has  more work for you, you can request him to kindly create a new job post and send you an invitation. You have to make him understand that if I keep inactive contract open, it will affect my Profile and JSS (most probably). So everytime, client asks you that there is more work for you after completion of work, you must do two things:

1. First, request the client to create a new job post and send you an invitation (which usually the clients happily agree on).
2. Second, once the client is agreed on creating new job post for further work, end the completed contract on the good terms.

I hope it will help. If you need any further assistance, kindly let me know.
Cheers!

[759e32fa]

Hi Ibtesam,

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 have an impact on your score.

In the case of contracts without earnings, 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 JSS. If the client specifies in their feedback that the contract had a negative outcome, that will be counted in the score.

If the client doesn't provide any private feedback on a contract with no earnings, that contract will be excluded from the JSS calculation.

[appdevexpert]

Hi Dear,

I have seen many article that idle contract without activity affect JSS. I want to confirm in my case, I have a client, I am working for him 3rd time, First time he gave me review and ended the contract. Second time he was irresponsive for a long and his account was suspended. I manually ended the contract from my end. 3rd time he again hire me and we are in an hourly contract with 99$/hour. I have completed all the task, our messages has clear sign that we have completed that contract. After completion it passed 23 days he did not replying my messages. I have earned 924$ from that contract already, Client account was again suspended, and upwork itself paied me the amount. Clients account again activated and suspended, and then again activated. Client accout is now active but he is not responding my messages. I want this contract to be end. Because I have another contract already with him without feedback. And also this contract he is not ending and responding. And many article says It will affect my jss if the job is idle 1/2 month. Even I saw number of contract without feedback also causes negative outcome. What can I do to save myself, When its not my fault that client is not responding and ending the contract?

Is that affect my JSS if I ended the contract and the contract (Client account is activated now, not suspended, he got suspended 3 times)?

I want a good solution for this that did not affect my JSS.

Thanks

[759e32fa]

Hi Md. M,

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 have an impact on your score.

[yagyarajbogati]

Hi, I actively started freelancing on Upwork from the end of May 2022. Since then I have completed around 30+ jobs.

The thing is half of these contracts are "Awaiting Milestones" and others have been closed. 

I just wanted to know whether these contracts which are "Awaiting Milestone" will affect my Job Success Score ?

[759e32fa]

Hi Yagya,

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 have an impact on your score.

In the case of contracts without earnings, 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 JSS. If the client specifies in their feedback that the contract had a negative outcome, that will be counted in the score. If the client doesn't provide any private feedback on a contract with no earnings, that contract will be excluded from the JSS calculation.

[ruslanchabanyuk]

Hello,
1) I have an open contract that has not been in effect for 2 months, just recently found out that it was affecting my Job Success Score. I have contacted the client to resolve this but the client is not responding. The contract has one milestone open but not paid (pending). Can you please tell me how I can close it correctly without affecting my stats. Fixed Price Contract 
2) I WANT to ask, does the contract affect the JSS which has not been in effect for a long time ?

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[759e32fa]

Hi Ruslan,

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 have an impact on your score.

[ruslanchabanyuk]

Thank you for your reply

[polyniki]

I would like to close all of my idle contracts. Will this affect my job score or any other stats?

[ArjayM]

Hi Polyniki,

Thank you for your message. I'd like to confirm that open contracts without recent payments ("idle" contracts) can cause the Job Success Score to decrease. I will not be able to share specifics about how and by how much such contracts affect the score. There is a number of factors that go into the calculation. For that reason, you may look into asking your clients to close contracts that don't need any work done on them anymore or closing them yourself.

[mar_work]

Hello Arjay. I'd appreciate an update on this answer, to see if I have any misconceptions about idle jobs that have already been paid (I discussed this in the previous post).
I appreciate any guidance
Cheers

[ArjayM]

I'm sorry for the late response Marcelo,

I sincerely apologize for the confusion and for sharing incorrect information in my previous response. I'd like to confirm that keeping contracts with no recent activity open will not affect your score negatively. You can still consider asking your clients to close contracts that don't need any more work done or go ahead and close them yourself. The impact of those contracts on your JSS will depend on feedback that's provided on them if any at all. If no feedback is provided on the contract by the client, it will not have an impact on your score.

[mar_work]

I greatly appreciate the clarification and updated answer, Arjay. It seemed important to me so that there is no confusion.

Many thanks. Health!

[mar_work]

This answer raises a few questions for me. It is my understanding, as has been said numerous times in the community, that inactive contracts (with payments already made) do not in any way affect the JSS job success score.
It would be useful to know, then, what is now called an "inactive contract". How long does it take for that contract (again, with the payment already made) to be considered inactive and negatively affect the success score?
I would appreciate a clarification. 🙂

[salsham0065]

Hello there

When I was new in Upwork I accept a contract and after a while, my client stated that she don't like to do this project because of some problems that she had. So, she canceled the contract. This canceled contract remained in my profile without any feedback.

How can I deal for remove it from my profile? Because it reduces my job success score despite I didn't do anything wrong. All of my other jobs were finished with five stars feedback. 

Thanks in advance 

Sal. 

[webstreams]

Hi, client created an hourly contract that I accepted but mistakenly ended by client and he created a new fixed price contract. The previous contract have no feedback. Will it effect my jss? What should I do in order to keep my jss to 100?

[JoanneP]

Hi Abdul Rahman,

No feedback doesn't affect your JSS. You can check this announcement and this help article to learn more about how your JSS is calculated. 

[webstreams]

Hi, thanks for replying. That contract has 0 hours of work. Is it all right also in terms of JSS? 

[759e32fa]

**Edited**

Hi Abdul,

Thank you for reaching out to us. A contract with zero earnings will not be shown on your profile and will not affect your JSS.

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 JSS. If the client specifies in their feedback that the contract had a negative outcome, that will be counted in the score.

If the client doesn't provide any private feedback on a contract with no earnings, that contract will be excluded from the JSS calculation.

[ashokmehta999]

I have recently worked with a client who is unresponsive. He vanishes for days, comes back for 1-2 days and then vanishes again. My work with him is finished and I've sent him a message to end the contract and leave his feedback. He has since then vanished again. Is it okay if I end the contract? Will no feedback equal to zero star rating? Will it affect my potential JSS?

[prestonhunter]

re: "Does no feedback equal to zero stars?"

No.

[PradeepH]

Hi Ashok,

Thank you for your message. Contracts with no Public or Private feedback will not be included in your JSS calculations.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[rakib_cs14]

Hi,

I completed 2 projects about 4 weeks ago and got positive reviews and feedback from clients. But still, my JSS score has not increased. I know the JSS score updates every 2 weeks. Can anyone help me with this situation?

Best Regards,
Rakib

[PradeepH]

Hi Md Rakib,

Thank you for your message. We update the score that you see on your profile on a biweekly basis. You may also see your Job Success score change due to the rolling time window over which the score is calculated. Because your score is calculated over multiple time frames and the best score from your 6-month, 12-month, and 24-month JSS displayed, a contract can sometimes slip out of that calculation, causing your score to change significantly without any recent activity. For example, a contract will no longer be counted in your 6-month window once it is 6-months and one day old. We have gone into great detail on how your Job Success score is calculated here.

Thank you,

Pradeep

[rakib_cs14]

Hi Pradeep H,
Thanks for your valuable reply. "We update the score that you see on your profile on a biweekly basis", yeah I'm also talking about this. In the previous contracts, when I completed any contract, JSS score updated withing next 2 weeks. And it happened every contracts. But right now, I already 2 contracts done before 4 weeks but JSS score didn't change.

Thanks

[tpaunov]

Hi,

I have 8 opened contracts that are not active, I asked clients to close the contract if there is no more for work, but only 1 client responded and did it.

So currently I have 8 opened contracts, that have been started 2+ months ago, the job is finished successfully but the contract is still open.

I would like to ask you will these contracts affect my JSS if they are still opened?

Should I close the contract, or should I leave it like it is?

Thank you

[sullivanliz]

No, they don't. You can leave them or close them.

[ochiengopiyo]

If you close them, your job success score may improve. So my answer is yes, open contracts completed long ago may affect your job success score.

[3e876c31]

I have a question.

My client's budget is $300. But he approved $10. And no more job was given. $290 left now. I just want to know. If their contract end, will my work success score be affected?