I have an ongoing complaint about the Upwork Time Tracker, you can find that here:
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Time-Tracker-Is-Unfair-Punitive-and-Poorly-Designed/m-p/...
But this issue is something I just discovered and its particularly troubling as it has has cost me many hundreds of dollars.
The Time Tracker randomly records a screenshot and your activity level on average every 10 min. However, it doesn't calculate your activity level across the actual interval captured but still calculates the activity level based on a 10 min. increment. The upshot is that if you had a screenshot capture interval of 2 min. your activity level will reflect that you have been idle for 8 of those 10 min. even though you were diligently working.
I made a habit of going in and deleting those “low productivity” increments in my Work Diary because I assumed from the representation that I had failed to work that diligently during that time. THIS IS NOT THE CASE! I have deleted literally hundreds of increments of viable billing time because of this particular failure in Upwork’s activity tracking algorithm.
Now I know that Upwork doesn’t take any of the feedback provided by the freelancers to improve their algorithms. Through arrogance, incompetence, and a healthy dose of avoidance they shelter themselves from ever having to address the glaring issues that are regularly reported to them. So I have little faith that this will be resolved, but the problem will persist.
The simple solution is to just stop deleting the increments of “low” activity levels. But my question is this; do my clients get to see my work diary as I see it?
If they can look through my work diary and see that I am leaving a bunch of “low” activity levels in there they are going to think I am a lack luster contractor. I feel it’s incumbent upon me to explain that Upwork’s Activity Level monitor is flawed because it randomizes the captures but doesn’t change the max activity level to accommodate those changes in capture duration… Anybody else think that is a totally unacceptable thing to have to explain to a client? Anybody else think their client is going to call B.S. on that? I know I would be highly skeptical of somebody who was trying to sell me that story.
Thoughts? Comments? Explanations?
Thanks!
