Time Tracking Codes
on Fri, 2008-11-14 20:42. News What is it? - With this feature, buyers can submit a list of codes, along with descriptions, that providers can use to classify their time. Buyers will then be able to report on the time worked by time tracking code.
Why are we doing this? - Buyer have asked for a way to track the work that's done by code/task name or some other shorthand. They would like to track progress on specific projects or activities, and to ensure that a particular task is not taking longer than expected. Often, they would like to transfer the data between oDesk and an external system. Currently Buyers are doing this by asking their providers to type specific codes in the memo field. However, this process is error prone and it is not easy to extract memos from the reports we provide.
Please give us your feedback and suggestions. How can we improve your ability to use the data in oDesk?
What will it look like? Buyers (Or their Hiring managers) set up tasks (and optionally sub-tasks):
Providers see the tasks and their descriptions in the team client:
Buyer can then report on how hours break down by task and provider:
Anand
Product Manager, oDesk.com
Interesting use case
on Thu, 2008-11-27 06:29.Hi Doreen,
This is an interesting use case. In our current design, the buyer creates tasks for the projects, and you would log time to the tasks. Then the buyer would be able to pull a report that shows your time broken out by task. Our thinking was that the buyer would want to control what the reports look like. We believe that many buyers do tell their providers what tasks to work on, and this would be one way to go about making that process a bit more robust. Sounds like that won't work for your buyer?
We will need to work on a solution here. One work around would be for the buyer to allow you to have hiring manager privileges for their team. Would that work in your case? Alternately, we would need to create the option for the buyer to allow you as a provider to create your own tasks.
Thanks for the feedback!
Anand
Product Manager, oDesk.com
in my case
Hi Anand,
In my case the buyers have had me 'long term' assignments (most since March) and they have various clients from month to month - so in my case I might have 1 client that has me working 5 hours on one client, 3 hours on another and 10 on another...if that makes sense!! If needed I can continue to do the monthly reporting - if oDesk provided a way for me to break it out it would just be easier but I can certainly continue to do it! Hope you had a great holiday. Regards, Doreen
Two way task creation is
Two way task creation is something i can realate to.
Sometimes i get a flurry of emails askig to this this this and this.
and i have my own agenda of doing things for the project.
Perhaps with the 2way tasks, both of us can see where we stand
and if anything is missing, all that need to bedone is to add the task.
Regards
Deepa
Is it possible
To set up a similar system for providers? Here's an example: I have a client who has me do XX hours per week/month for Client A... I have to manually track those because they just set up a 'blanket' job. So it'd be helpful for me to be able to add the same information for a client if that's possible (provided of course the client didn't do it).
Doreen