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annalynmarcelang
Community Member

IS PAUSED CONTRACT AFFECTING JSS?

 

 

I just received my JSS and was surprised on the low score. I have 1 active contract and 2 paused contracts.

 

Please enlighten me.  Thank you.

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kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Anna Lyn,

 

A contract being paused isn't going to affect your JSS by itself. However, contracts that have been inactive for a long time can have negative effect regardless of whether they are paused or not.

 

~ Valeria
Upwork

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20 REPLIES 20
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Anna Lyn,

 

A contract being paused isn't going to affect your JSS by itself. However, contracts that have been inactive for a long time can have negative effect regardless of whether they are paused or not.

 

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hi Valeria,

Can you elaborate on what duration of inactivity is considered as a long time in hourly contracts? I have a contract that has been inactive for about a month as the client is waiting for budget approval from their team.

 

Will it affect my JSS, and should I take any action for it?

 

Also, what is the length in case of fixed price contract? I got my JSS recently and it is surprisingly low at 75% despite having 5 completed jobs, 3 with 5-star rating and good review and 2 that are in progress on a good note. Though, when the JSS came, one of the fixed-price contract was inactive for about 3 months, as the client was out of his country. Can this be the reason?

 

Thanks for your help 🙂

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

HI Piyush, 

 

We don't have the exact time frame for when a contract goes idle or dorman. But if a month went by, and you still don't have work available on this contract, you may ask the client to end it and leave you the appropriate feedback. The client has the option to rehire you easily when needed. If the client does not respond, you can close it yourself.

 

I'd just also like you to take note that a pattern of contracts without feedback, and idle contracts may affect your Job Success Score negatively. 


Your Job Success score is updated every two weeks, and it’s important to note any movement in this score (either up or down) reflects both recent activity and activity over a longer period of time. Because we look at trends over a 24-month period, you can see your score change, even without recently closed contracts, due to past jobs slipping out of the 24-month window. You may read this help article to know how your Job Success Score is calculated. 


~ Avery
Upwork
udai_p
Community Member

Thank you for your kind reply Avery!

 

But I need a bit more help on this:

"But if a month went by, and you still don't have work available on this contract, you may ask the client to end it and leave you the appropriate feedback. The client has the option to rehire you easily when needed."

 

1. Are you suggesting to ask the client to end the contract and start a new one when work comes or is there an option to actually "pause" it?

2. Will a paused contract count as dormant?

3. Will the client be able to leave a review in case of paused contract?

4. Is there a different impact on the JSS if a client closes the contract as compared to a freelancer closing it?

 

I hope I'm not being too buggy!

 

Thanks again,

Piyush

g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi Piyush,

1. Yes, this is one option for you not to have open contracts for too long, but I can`t advice you what is the best actions to take since I don`t know all of the details about this.
2. Contracts that have been inactive for a long time can have negative effect regardless of whether they are paused or not.

3. Clients and freelancers are only able to provide feedback on ended/closed contract.

4. No, this is not counted in your JSS. There`s a number of factors that are included in your JSS calculation like, the public and private feedback on your contracts, pattern of contracts with no feedback ect.


If you have any additional questions let me know, thank you!

~ Goran
Upwork

Thanks for your answers Goran.

YOU WORK HERE! How do you dont know how long is too long for an inactive contract to start afecting our JSS?  Cant you ask someone that also works here?

We need a good JSS otherwise clients wont hire us. If we close a contract and we have no feedback it affects us, if we recieve bad feedback it affects us, if nothing happens it affects us, if contract is paused it affects us, if its idle it affects us. 

Just be a decent human being and tell us how long does a contract needs to be unactive for it to affect our score. And if you dont know ASK.

Hi Angel, 

I understand how this can be very frustrating, but please know that we are unable to share specific information how your Job Success Score is affected by the activity (or inactivity) on your contracts to prevent users from manipulating the system. 

 

You may want to read up on this help article, where it shares information on how contracts with no earnings, and/or, no feedback can affect your Job Success Score.


~ Avery
Upwork
adnsofts
Community Member

Hello Avery,

I have one active contract since august 2019, Due to COVID-19 my client said to stop working as we are low on budget but he didn't pause the contract since may 2020.Inshort my time tracker is off since  May 2020.

Please let me know if this will affect my JSS or not.?

Thanks in advance..

Hi Adnan,

 

You may want to reach out to your client and ask them to close the contract if they no longer have any work for you, or if they do, they can temporarily pause the contract and resume it once they are ready to give you new tasks to do. 

~ Joanne
Upwork

Perhaps how long is the considered duration of time for the Project/Contract be in Paused Status? and when to send follow-ups?

Hi Rosalito,

 

For paused contracts, you may reach out to your client to ask if they are ready to give you new tasks to work on. It is up to you to decide when you would prefer to reach out to your client about any new tasks. 

~ Joanne
Upwork

However, what should be done if the job is in progress, and the client is not actively engaged? Will this still impact my JSS? What would you suggest if the client is unresponsive? Should I consider closing the contract independently?

Hi Shahid,

 

If you are working with a client and they become unresponsive for a long period of time, it may be best to stop working on the project and wait for contact from the client.

 

The client being inactive will not affect your JSS. Only their feedback will.


~ AJ
Upwork

However, what should be done if the job is in progress, and the client is not actively engaged? Will this still impact my JSS? What would you suggest if the client is unresponsive? Should I consider closing the contract independently? And if if I close the contract on my own then their will be no feedback which is going to affect my JSS either way.

tsawicki
Community Member

Hello Anna,

 

Although I don't believe you'll be able to get a straight answer from upwork on this (they are fairly adamant about keeping their jss computation method under wraps) in my experience, I can say yes - that does affect your jss score - though I couldn't tell you how badly.

 

My only advice to you is this - be very careful on terminating the job yourself, should that become your only option.  I did this for a few longstanding paused contracts with no activity - all at once - and found out the hard way that an excess of 'no feedback' hurts you far more than a few open contracts gathering dust.

 

So unless you're very confidant that you have a high percentage of good feedback already - i.e. at least 80% - or 4 out of 5 (and it looks like you have been a member starting in May, so I'm guessing you can't have more than 2 or 3 individual feedback pieces on jobs?) don't close that contract.

I stand corrected - Valeria's answer was actualy fairly straightforward.  

 

However - keep in mind I got the same answer when I originally asked - and cancelling the contracts got me into a world of hurt.

Thank you!

I conscientiously try to avoid paused contracts.

 

Contracts are paused after one month of activity.

 

If I am done with work for a client for what seems to be the foreseeable future, I ask them straight out to close the contract. Even if they are certain they'll need me later (but they're not sure when). I point out that they can easily set up a new contract when they need me.

Your responses are always helpful, thank you!
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