Upwork Timer jumps to the next day when workday is not over

[irieislandgirl]

My timer has jumped forward to the next day twice. Anyone else experienced that. For example, It's Sunday night 8:20 pm my time and I'm working on my project, but the timer says it's already Monday, and my time is now being tracked for Monday instead of Sunday night at 8:20 pm. My week has already ended. 

My settings are for my local timezone. How can I fix it? It's screwing up my work and my hourly workweek. 

[AveryO]

Hi Melinda, 

It's past1:00 AM, UTC which is maybe why your Upwork Desktop App is tracking the new work week. 
Please make sure that your Desktop App settings is in your local timezone. Let me know if you have further questions.

[irieislandgirl]

Thank you for the response. If you look again at my post, I did explain that I do have it set to my local time.

[petra_r]

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Melinda M wrote:
Thank you for the response. If you look again at my post, I did explain that I do have it set to my local time.

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It doesn't matter.

The work-week ends for everyone globally at midnight UTC.

Anything after midnight UTC on a Sunday is in the new work-week.

[irieislandgirl]

Petra,

My workweek didn't end at midnight last night.(Sunday) It started tracking my time for Monday last night Sunday at 8:20 pm. Eastern. I got shorted a little less than 4 hours.

[prestonhunter]

Melinda: it works the way that it works.

8pm Eastern for you.

5pm Arizona time for me.

This is correct. Once you get used to it, you don't even think about it. You know when the week ends for your own time zone.

The week ends at the same time for every Upwork user regardless of their  time zone.

re: "How can I fix it?"

There is nothing to fix.

[irieislandgirl]

Omg! I don't think anyone here is understanding what is happening here. I have been on Upwork almost 5 years now. I know how the tracker is supposed to work, and it's not working correctly on my end.

I have already sent my issue to support, and I am going to call them today.

[lysis10]

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Melinda M wrote:
Omg! I don't think anyone here is understanding what is happening here. I have been on Upwork almost 5 years now. I know how the tracker is supposed to work, and it's not working correctly on my end.

I have already sent my issue to support, and I am going to call them today.

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8:20pm on Sunday EST is 1:20am UTC time. Your cut off is 7pm Sunday because of rolling back the time, but when we roll clocks forward again, 8pm EST will be your cutoff.

eta: LOL I just read this whole thread and this needs to get archived. This is so amazing and I love this thread so much.

[petra_r]

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Jennifer M wrote:

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eta: LOL I just read this whole thread and this needs to get archived. This is so amazing and I love this thread so much.

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You, my dear, are just so very very naughty 😄

[petra_r]

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Melinda M wrote:
My workweek didn't end at midnight last night.(Sunday) It started tracking my time for Monday last night Sunday at 8:20 pm. Eastern. I got shorted a little less than 4 hours.

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No, it did not start tracking your time for Monday at 8.20 Eastern.

It moved to Monday at 8 pm Eastern which is midnight UTC. Everyone's work-week around the globe ends and starts at midnight UTC. (UTC being the universal consolidated timezone)

You were not "shorted" at all, as the remaining time will have been on Monday's work diary.

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Melinda M wrote:
Petra,

My workweek didn't end at midnight last night.(Sunday)

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It did. Just as it did for every freelancer in the entire word, as it does every week.

The work week always, always, always ends at midnight UTC !!

[prestonhunter]

re: "I have already sent my issue to support, and I am going to call them today."

Please let us know what happens next.

[VladimirG]

Hi Melinda,

I'd like to follow-up and clarify that UTC time zone that Avery and Petra mentioned is used as a reference in order to standardize timing for reporting features and processes on the Upwork platform. One of those features is the weekly billing cycle, which begins Monday at 00:00 midnight UTC and ends Sunday at 23:59 UTC. 

If I'm reading your post right, it sounds that the last week's weekly billing cycle ended and this week's cycle started around 8 pm EST.

I checked your Work Diary, switched between UTC and Local Time Zone settings, and do see the two segments you tracked at 7pm EST do appear at 12am UTC, as expected. Please take a look at your Work Diary and the contract in question, check how the time you tracked appears under the two time zones and let us know if you need further assistance.

As a personal suggestion, you might want to consider select UTC as the preferred time zone in your Desktop app, to avoid further confusion difference in time zone can create by its very nature. 

[irieislandgirl]

I'm calling Upwork today. I believe speaking with someone directly will help me get this resolved. This has NEVER happened before and I don't want it happening again. Yes. The first time it happened I was on UTC time, why I don't know as I have always had it on My Local Time. How it changed over, is a mystery also. Anyway. I'll get it resolved when I can discuss it over the phone.

[petra_r]

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Melinda M wrote:
 The first time it happened I was on UTC time, why I don't know as I have always had it on My Local Time.

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Melinda, it does not matter whether you set the timer to local time or to UTC.

The second it gets to midnight UTC (which is obviously a completely different time all over the world) the work week ends and the new work week begins.

For you that's at 7 pm, for Preston it's at 5 pm, for someone in Australia it's Monday morning, for the Brits it's midnight, for me in Italy it's 1 am.

But it has always, always, always been that way,

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Melinda M wrote:
I believe speaking with someone directly will help me get this resolved.

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There is nothing to resolve. This is how it is supposed to work and how it has worked as long as I've been on Upwork (2011).

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Melinda M wrote:
This has NEVER happened before and I don't want it happening again.

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You probably never noticed. But the work week has always ended at midnight UTC (UTC being the point here... )

[irieislandgirl]

Yea. There is something to resolve. The timezone is NOT the problem. I used the time zone as an example. Leave the time zone out of it. When I call Upwotk to find out why my hours got screwd up, I will come back here and tell everyone here what happened.

[petra_r]

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Melinda M wrote:
The timezone is NOT the problem. I used the time zone as an example. Leave the time zone out of it.

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The timezone is at the very core of what happened.

Upwork's Monday and new work-week starts at midnight UTC (or 7 pm your time, or 1 am my time)

So any time you log after that moment, is automatically counted as Monday's hours.

There has to be a definitive cut-off point which is the same all over the world, and that cut-off point is midnight UTC.

[irieislandgirl]

I know it's midnight. Ok. Again I'll give the examples. This past Friday I started working at around 7 AM. I got about 5 and a half hours in. I stopped for lunch, turning off the tracker. When I started again around 1:00 pm, the tracker automatically skipped to tracking my hours for Saturday in the middle of the afternoon. Then on Sunday, I started working, stopped for a few hours, and resumed again, starting my timer at 8:20 pm. I worked about 20 mins, only to find that the tracker was already tracking time for Monday at 8:20 pm Sunday night. So I DID LOSE time last night.

[petra_r]

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Melinda M wrote:
Then on Sunday, I started working, stopped for a few hours, and resumed again, starting my timer at 8:20 pm. I worked about 20 mins, only to find that the tracker was already tracking time for Monday at 8:20 pm Sunday night. So I DID LOSE time last night.

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Because 8.20 your time is already Monday UTC. Because it is past midnight UTC. So of course any time you track beyond midnight UTC (7 pm your time) is counted as week starting 23nd of December because in UTC it *IS* Monday.

You didn't "lose" the time, it just counts as time logged on Monday, because anything after the cut-off (midnight UTC) is after the end of the previous work-week and added to the new week. You'll find the time in this week's reports.

[irieislandgirl]

I was not on UTC I was on MY local time.

[petra_r]

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Melinda M wrote:
I was not on UTC I was on MY local time.

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But the work week is in UTC. It does not matter what time you set the tracker to, the work-week always ends at midnight UTC. Always has done. For everyone all over the globe, no matter what their timezone is, no matter what they set their tracker to. At that second, everyone's new work-week begins.

Any time added to the diary after the work-week ends at midnight UTC, will be added to the following week.

This has always been the case.

[VladimirG]

Hi Melinda,

I understand your concern and I'd like to clarify that I'm part of the Community Management team, which is the team tasked with managing the forums and helping users with problems just like the one you're having. Please check my previous post and as a follow-up, I'd like to confirm I checked the time you tracked last Friday and do see the time you logged after 7pm EST is logged properly. You haven't lost any time and can verify that on your end by going to the Work Diary, switching to UTC time and seeing the segments logged after 7pm EST appear after 12am UTC on Saturday, since 7pm EST is equivalent to 12am UTC. Segments logged before 7pm EST and those after do appear in your Work Diary and your client will be billed for them.

A personal observation, I'd like to clarify that the "Local Time" setting in the Word Diary is related to the location you've set on your account. If travelling, please note that the "Local Time Zone" will continue to reflect your account location and not your actual location, unless you decide to update your account location. Let us know if you have further questions.

[lizablau]

It actually changes at 7:00 pm on the east coast due to Daylight Savings Time.  Goes back to 8:00 pm in the Spring.

[petra_r]

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Lisa B wrote:

It actually changes at 7:00 pm on the east coast due to Daylight Savings Time.  Goes back to 8:00 pm in the Spring.

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Yes. At any rate, the week does not change at midnight her time, but at midnight UTC, no matter what she sets the tracker to.

[lysis10]

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Lisa B wrote:

It actually changes at 7:00 pm on the east coast due to Daylight Savings Time.  Goes back to 8:00 pm in the Spring.

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whoops, I did get that backwards. I've confused her even more now probably. xD

[yitwail]

While I have no actual proof that the work week ends at midnight UTC regardless of time zone for every Upwork freelancer, I can confirm mine always ends Sunday at 2 pm UTC-10 here in Hawaii. And this is OT but Mele Kalikimaka everyone.