What's New

My Account and Work Activity Tabs

Posted Jun 07, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

My Account tab�
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We have brought all admin information under a new tab, called “My Account”. It includes User Information, as well as Company and Billing information for Buyers. It will also be where we add our new billing & payment features.�
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Here is what it looks for buyers:�
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And for providers:�
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Work Activity Tab�
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We are pleased to offer the first step in increasing your visibility into your oDesk spending and earnings. The Work Activity tab shows your weekly Work Activity Statement, with each hourly and fixed price invoice, bonus, refund, and account adjustment. This serves as a complete record for your oDesk work activity for the week.�
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Two notable things about this new features: (1) You can now view historical timelogs, not limited to four weeks in the past; (2) Freelance providers and Affiliate Managers now see financial information in their timelogs, not just hours. Buyers, please note that in the past, adjustments were not included in the timelogs (they were included on a separate invoice), so timelog/invoice totals may vary slightly.�
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Note: the Work Activity tab replaces the Accounting pane in the lower left corner of the screen.

Upgrade to Bugzilla 2.20

Posted Jun 06, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

While we know that only a small percentage of buyers and providers utilize the integrated Bugzilla tools, we’ve invested in the upgrade of our Bugzilla version from 2.16 to 2.20. All information was fully preserved and migrated to the new version. If you login to your oDesk Bugzilla account you will see some new features and enhancements in the 2.20 version, including: �
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• User-interface: A little cleaner, a little prettier, a little easier to understand.�

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• High-level categorization: If you’ve made use of the product – component structure of 2.16, you now can create a higher level categorization of bugs under “classifications”

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• User drop down menus: It’s now easier to select assignees and email addresses

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• User and Email preferences: You now have enhanced control over your preferences

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For a complete description of the new features in 2.20, please check out bugzilla.org.�
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We’ve always believed that oDesk should offer value-added services and tools that will help our users be successful in any projects that are performed through the our system. Internally, we have made full use of Bugzilla to track all of our tasks and bugs. For us, we’ve found that 100% adoption of the tools and process has greatly helped improve our overall efficiency. Whether you decide to use oDesk’s version of Bugzilla or your own tools, we hope you find best practices that work for you and your team.

New Candidate List

Posted May 23, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

We are excited to announce the new candidate list.� Now, it is easier than ever to evaluate and manage your candidates.� Take a look at some of the new improvements:�
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We hope the new candidate list helps make your hiring experience a great one.�
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If you have any thoughts or feedback on the new candidate list, please let us know here.

oDesk Debit MasterCard, powered by Payoneer, now open for pre-order

Posted Apr 27, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

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Dear oDesk Providers,�
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We are pleased to announce a new way to get paid on oDesk. The oDesk Debit MasterCard, powered by Payoneer, is now available for pre-order.�
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The oDesk Debit MasterCard is a full-featured prepaid debit MasterCard that can be used to withdraw cash at any MasterCard ATM worldwide as well as make purchases anywhere MasterCard is accepted, in stores or online. With low fees and great exchange rates, we believe it will be the best way to receive funds for most non-US providers. Learn more about the oDesk Debit MasterCard, powered by Payoneer.�
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For more information on the oDesk Debit MasterCard, visit the oDesk Guide to Payoneer, or discuss the new card here. Note: the oDesk Debit MasterCard will replace iKobo, so if you currently use iKobo please click here to learn about� the transition to Payoneer.

Switch to Hourly

Posted Apr 18, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

Tired of re-negotiating bids every time you change the requirements?� No problem.� Just switch to hourly.�
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It’s common for buyers decide to hire a provider on an hourly basis after they perform well on a fixed-price project.� Now, it’s easy to do so…�
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Every provider you hire for a fixed price job will have a link to “Switch to Hourly” in the team room.�
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You can pay for any work done to date and set the conditions for the new hourly assignment.�
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That’s it.� It’s that easy…

Feedback Resolution

Posted Apr 11, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

We’ve received a number of support tickets over the past several months requesting changes to feedback scores and/or comments. Most of these requests come as a result of a positive outcome. For example, a buyer may have ended an assignment and left negative feedback because project was not completed to satisfaction, but then the provider resolved any of the outstanding issues and delivered a working product. In these cases, the buyer often offers to go change the feedback and comments that were initially left for the provider.�
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In order to facilitate feedback resolution, we’ve enabled a way for any buyer or provider to enable a feedback change. When you view any feedback that you have received in the past, you will see a new link.�
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This feature is intended to be used only after you have worked out all issues and discussed the outcome directly with the buyer or provider that left you the feedback. Once you enable the user to make a change, they will have up to 14 days to modify the feedback. Please note that this operation can only be performed once for each feedback you have received. �
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We hope everyone finds this to be a fair solution for all users.

Save to Favorites

Posted Apr 04, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

Who was the guy with that great profile?� Forget already?� �
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Buyers can now save any provider profile to their list of favorites.� Now itâs easy to keep a list of providers youâve worked with before, or providers you might like to work with in the future.� Just click the âSave to Favoritesâ button next to any profile.�
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You can also enter Notes on any provider.� These notes are private and only visible to you.� Use the Notes field to remind yourself what you liked about the profile, to jot down questions you want to ask the provider, or to save your comments from an interview.�
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You donât need to have a job posted to use this feature so start building your favorites list now!

Privacy Control for Jobs

Posted Mar 29, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

We will be making a significant change within the next month in order to share more information in the oDesk marketplace and enrich the user experience for everyone. You can see detailed discussion of the upcoming feature here. It will make many more jobs available to view, even if they have been cancelled or filled. The intent of making jobs available after being filled or cancelled is to educate the marketplace; allowing providers to learn how to better acquire jobs and allowing buyers to gain a deeper understanding of a provider’s assignment history. We believe that an open exchange of information is critical to making a marketplace operate efficiently. �
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In order to prepare for the upcoming feature, we are now enabling privacy controls for buyers for any past job openings. We do our best to balance the marketplace’s need for open information with our individual users’ needs for some privacy control. To that end, any buyer can now go to their My Jobs tab and click on any of their past jobs to edit the visibility settings.�
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1) Go to My Jobs tab and search for All jobs�
2) Click on any Job title�
3) Select Change Visibility�
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Buyers: we recommend going to your My Jobs tab to review the privacy settings for any jobs you’ve posted in the past. �

24-hour Activity Chart

Posted Mar 29, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

We’ve integrated a small 24-hour activity chart in the main console view of My Team. It is intended to give the user an at-a-glance update on the team’s activity within the past 24 hours. �
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The 24 hour chart will display by every oDesk provider on the team and a user can click-thru to go to a Work Diary. We hope users find this to be a valuable addition to the oDesk console.

Weekly Limits on Hours

Posted Mar 29, 2007 by oDesk Marketing

Buyers now have the ability to set weekly limits on the number of hours billed on any hourly jobs. The limits can be set by the buyer upon hiring any provider and they can be changed or added into an assignment at any later date. For buyers, if you’d like to add a weekly limit on hours for any of your existing assignments, please go to your My Assignments tab and select Change Limits. �
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A few important notes on this feature. �
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1) Buyers can update limits on hourly assignments at any time, however, changes will not take effect until the following work week. �
2) Providers may log hours over the limit on a job, but these hours will not be billed or paid automatically. We suggest that users should discuss any hours over the limit and use bonus payments as necessary. �
3) Buyers may always review the hours worked over a limit using the Work Diary.�
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Any hours over the limit will be designated by the following status indicator.�
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For providers working on an hourly job with a weekly limit, you’ll notice a few changes to the oDesk Team client. We launched a new version of the client application that has a weekly limit indicator and notifications upon reaching a weekly limit for a buyer. �
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We believe this feature is a major enhancement to the hourly-based jobs because it gives buyers a stronger sense of security by giving them a tool to control their budgets and exposure. We feel it benefits providers by enabling a simple way to understand expectations about a workload on a job. �
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A frequent source of complaints and disputes stems from miscommunication between buyers and providers, often around time estimates and expected workloads. This tool is intended to give users a way to structure their expectations on workload through the oDesk system.