Work Diary
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The work diary is a window into your virtual office. Allowing the whole workteam to see who's working on what and when helps foster a collaborative and cooperative work environment - even when team members are spread around the globe.
The work diary is also the backbone of our hourly payment model (Verified Work = Guaranteed Payment). Providers use the oDesk Team application to log their time on hourly assignments and upload it to their work diaries for review. Time logged on hourly assignments is automatically added to the timelog and then billed on a weekly basis.
The work diary is, by default, a bunch of boxes arranged in hourly rows. Each box represents a 10-minute billing segment. When the user is logging time online, one screenshot is uploaded per segment.
Across the top you'll see how many segments you've selected, the selected time statistics and buttons to Add offline time, Edit memo, Delete selected and Deselect. In the gray bar there's a team member selector, date controls and a Total Time calculator (check the box to include offline time). Below the gray bar are the Preferences: Past Users (show or hide), Time Zone (Mine, User or UTC), Time Format (12h or 24h), Empty Hours (show or hide) and View as (thumbnails or list).
- Go to Manage & Work > Work Diary.
- Select the relevant team the top left.
- Select the user whose work diary you want to view at the left side of the gray bar.
- Select the date you want to view in the center of the gray bar. Use the forward and backward arrows links to navigate one day at a time, click the calendar icon to find a specific date or use the today link to return to the present.
- Hover over the activity meter to see the activity detail. Hover over the memo to see the full memo (if truncated). Click on a screenshot to see the full-size image.
Color indicators:
- Green dots are billed, online time (guaranteed payment).
- Yellow dots are billed, offline time (but not guaranteed).
- Brown dots are unbilled, over the weekly limit.
- Red dots are unbilled, offline time.
Activity Meter:
- Level (colored blocks) show how many (out of 10) minutes had activity.
- Activity is defined as a mouse click or a keyboard stroke.
- Total number of mouse clicks and keystrokes per segment is recorded and displayed (we do not record what you clicked or typed, just count the number of clicks and strokes).
- Time segments with a low activity level are not guaranteed.
User Controls:
- Only the provider can add, delete and edit time in the work diary.
- All team members can view each others' work diaries. If this is a problem, the buyer can contact Customer Support to request changes to viewing privileges. Unless the providers must share a Bugzilla system, you may want to separate the users into more teams instead.
A provider logs on with the oDesk Team app at 7:58 AM and logs out at 10:02 AM. The buyer will be billed for 2 hours and 20 minutes of work. Why? Because every 10-minute segment with activity is automatically included on the weekly invoice.
The 7:50-7:59 and 10:00-10:09 segments will have activity levels too low to qualify for oDesk's payment guarantee. The buyer may dispute (and therefore not have to pay for) these and any other low activity segments during the weekly review period.
Online time is logged with oDesk Team application. Whenever you're working on an hourly assignment, just log in with oDesk Team application (make sure you're logged into the right team, if you have more than one), not here on the website. It will automatically upload your time, memos, screenshots and activity record to the work diary. When you stop working, log out. It's that simple. (Read more about logging time with the oDesk Team application.)
We strongly recommend you log all your time for hourly assignments with the oDesk Team application. Why? Because Verified Work = Guaranteed Payment.
If you must add offline time to your work diary, speak to the buyer first. Getting permission prior to logging offline hours is highly recommended. But please remember that offline time isn't verifiable; therefore we can't guarantee payment. Any dispute of offline hours will be automatically granted to the buyer.
- Go to Manage & Work > Work Diary.
- Select the relevant team at the top left.
- Select yourself in the user menu at the left side of the gray bar.
- Choose a Time Zone. If you're traveling, you may want to change your Time Zone in your User Info first.
- Select the date you want to view in the center of the gray bar. You can only add time to the current work week.
- Press the Add offline time button in the top right.
- Specify the from and to times (must be in 24h format). Be careful not to overwrite time already in your work diary.
- Enter a descriptive Memo.
- Press the Save button. You can remove time you've added, but if you overwrite time already in your work diary, you can't undo it.
We strongly recommend your keep your offline time to a minimum. Why? Because offline time isn't verifiable and therefore doesn't qualify for guaranteed payment.
Everyone is bound to need to remove some time from their work diary at some point. You may have forgotten to log out of oDesk Team application, had a personal chat pop up during work or realized you spent way too much time on research. Whatever the reason, it's important to clean up your work diary as soon as possible to remove any inappropriate or mistakenly-logged time.
We suggest reviewing your work diaries daily, but do it weekly at the very least. Reviewing all your work diaries as soon as you finish logging hours for the week is a good habit to get into.
When removing time, you'll have the option to delete all snapshot info (turning this time segment into a 'red dot') or just your webcam pic (if you had one). We offer this second option so you don't have to lose the time just because something irrelevant happened in the background.
- Go to Manage & Work > Work Diary.
- Select the relevant team at the top left.
- Select yourself in the user menu at the left side of the gray bar.
- Select the date you want to view in the center of the gray bar. You can only remove time from the current work week.
- Check the box at the right bottom corner of the time segment. You can select a whole hour at a time by checking the box under the hour in the far left column.
- Press the Delete selected button in the top right.
- A box will pop up to ask if you're sure.
- Press the Save button. This cannot be undone.
Hourly assignments offer automated weekly billing. Each week, all time in the work diary (up to your specified weekly limit) is invoiced. You are given several days to review the work diary, talk with your provider about refunding any inappropriate time and file a dispute (if necessary). At the end of the review period, your verified payment method 
will be charged.
will be charged.
On hourly assignments, you may submit payments in addition to your weekly invoice. Buyers do this to compensate the provider for time worked over the weekly limit, give a performance bonus, etc.
Fixed-price assignments are not billed automatically. Your provider has the option to log time in the work diary, but it won't be used for billing purposes. You'll need to submit milestone and final payments as appropriate.
You may occasionally see time in the work diary when providers aren't working. It's generally an accident (forgot the log off, a personal message popped up, etc.) and they have until a few hours after the work week ends to remove it. So if you notice this during the week, please just send a quick reminder to the provider to clean up the work diary.
Once the work week ends, the review period begins. If you see any inappropriate time in the work diary at this point, the first step is to contact your provider. Point out the time in question and request the provider submit a refund. A refund of pending time submitted during the review period will prevent you from being charged for that time.
If you've contacted your provider but they will not refund the inappropriate time or do not respond, please file a dispute during the review period. Any disputes about time that does not qualify for the oDesk payment guarantee will be resolved in favor of the buyer. (Read more about filing a dispute.)
Time that does qualify for our guarantee will not be removed during a dispute. The buyer is paying for the provider's time, not a particular deliverable. Managing the quality of the work is the buyer's responsibility.
Yes! Every team member has a work diary. So invite your colleagues to join your team. You can use the work diary to record your time whether you're on assignment, a manager, an admin or just a colleague.
To take advantage of our reporting capabilities, you'll need to hire your team members for hourly assignments on oDesk.
