| Contact us | Help
Find Professionals
Find Work
Skills Central
MyElance
Water Cooler
search

Elance Blog



Elance Home » What's New
vsinha
Elance employee

Overview of New Features

Jul 17, 2008 2:53am

We are excited to announce our latest product release, which includes improvements that help the management of remote engagements and help Providers streamline several day-to-day administrative tasks. 

• MyElance Redesign for Providers
• Status Reports and Job Tracker

MyElance Redesign for Providers
The new MyElance interface lays the foundation for future enhancements and includes many suggested enhancements we have received over the last few months.  Watch the video tutorial »

Here are some highlights: 

• Improved filtering capabilities to navigate through multiple jobs
• New Workrooms to manage projects and jobs
• Consolidated "To Do" lists
• Quick links for active jobs
• Enhanced job search capabilities


MyElance

 

Workrooms – Consolidated List of Jobs

Click to Enlarge

Back to top

 

Workroom – Detailed Job View

Click to Enlarge

 

  

Status Reports and Job Tracker

Keeping clients up-to-date with the status of a job is a best practice in professional services and is particularly relevant to the kind of remote work performed on Elance.

Elance's new Status Report feature helps Providers and Buyers stay in touch and exchange information about the status of a job, including tasks performed, hours worked, journal entries, attachments and plans for the upcoming week. The Status Report also interacts with Elance's invoicing system to create invoices with one-click, saving Providers considerable time during billing and providing Buyers greater visibility and invoices complete with supporting documentation.

 
 Status Report

 
Job Tracker

 

Share this:
delicious | digg | reddit | google | yahoo | technorati
» add new comment
30 Replies
Jul 17, 2008 5:40am
miklos_hv

Looks cool and easy-to-use.
Jul 17, 2008 2:57am
writersflock

Sorry, but how do I change away from the ghastly orange colour in the 'Vital Statistics' / 'To-do' / 'My Active Workrooms' etc tabs at the right? It's horrendously distracting and irritating, and I haven't been able to look at all your other wonderful changes due to my eyes hurting.
Jul 19, 2008 1:43pm
abcwriters

There are some really bad changes in the new interface. I have designed many high-level interfaces and it is always a good idea to get the input of your customers before dropping something on them that makes their life more difficult.

Thanks for posting my comment.

I think Elance is one of the best applications (websites) on the Internet, and I am proud to be part of it. However, it seems like there could be quite a bit more functionality built into the website. As a Provider, the functionality is clearly not there for me, and the upgrades seem to go sideways or backwards rather than forward (implying some sort of disconnect). At least for the way I operate my Elance business.

I don't think this is the appropriate forum for working out requirements or for making change requests, or complaining about specific functions, or indicating what would work or not work for my business, so I won't do that here. However, it seems like the social networking model could be used more effectively / creatively in the process of matching functionality to requirements. For example, have you considered the possibility of giving out connects in return for user input on functionality needs, or some derivative of this? Since I used to get paid several hundred dollars an hour to match applications to requirements, and since I barely have enough time to get my writing assignments done, I just can't ever see myself getting into the spirit of doing it for free.

And then when it seems like an upgrade gets dumped in my lap, and the change creates yet more work, it has this evil Microsoftish tone to it. I know the developers of Elance are hard working and with good intentions—I understand this because I have been in those trenches--but maybe the social networking model is just evolving too fast to keep up or something.

Just seems like upgrades should have more positive aspects.

Good luck,
abcwriters
Jul 17, 2008 6:55am
eComWebsitesLLC

As with any update ever completed to Elance, there are programming errors. Example? Go QA your accounting section. You have a massive dataset that is not displayed. Did anyone check this thing out before you actually updated the live site?
Jul 17, 2008 4:24pm
lorenzo

Hello eComWebsitesLLC,
In general, earnings are based on payments you receive when a buyer releases an Escrow payment to you and your project fee is collected.
Once the service fee is collected, the data batches and the new earnings will be displayed in your profile later that evening.
We will contact you directly to review your provider profile feedback and the data that is displayed.
 
Sincerely,
Lorenzo Mellon-Reyes
Community Team
Elance
Jul 17, 2008 7:11am
webgrity

Hello,

I have listed a few issues that are a major concern with regards to the new Elance setup.

1) Initially when we (providers) received a mail notification for any message posted by the client where the mail used to have a link. Clicking on the link would take us straight to the project message board.

This has been omitted from the present flow. Many providers like us have multiple executives to whose mail ids the PMB messages are forwarded. According to the present flow, only the email id registered with ELANCE, can directly reply back from their mailbox to a particular message. This is then automatically posted to the concerned PMB. The other executives who get the messages forwarded to their id cannot do this and will now have to log in to their Elance MY Account area, search for the particular project and then reply back. This entails investment of extra time and unnecessary confusion.

If only the project link is sent along with the PMB message like before, it makes it very easier and friendly for everyone (specially Providers with multiple people using the PMB)

2) Sorting messages has become difficult as mails now come with the subject line "Message from Elance Buyer about Simple Website with E-mail robot"
Please have the Buyername included in the mail subject line to enable easy sorting of mails.

3) In the Elance MY Account area, if we need to file a Fee Refund Request for a project which is, say 1 month old, we would have to approximately make around 30-40 clicks to land up on the page that has the project listed. This is because the pagination on the pages just gives an option to jump to maximum 2-3 pages at a time. Please have the pagination like it was before (i.e approx 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,.........14) and then when a person clicks on 14, the next set of 14 pages are displayed. This eases the project search process and reduces the time spent

4) Please add an option for text search for projects in the Elance MY Account area. For example, if I want to raise an invoice for a specific project which is around 50-60 days old, we would just have to type in the Project ID, Buyer Name, etc and the result would take us straight to the project page instead of we having to follow the pagination and keep clicking on the page numbers.

Regards,
Amit
Jul 17, 2008 4:26pm
Ssong
Elance employee

Hello webgrity (Amit),
Thank you for your comments.
Regarding #1 and #2 - Those issues are being fixed as we speak.  You will see the corrections to the PMB email notifications shortly.

Regarding your #3 and #4 comments - You can quickly search for your project on the NEW "Workrooms" view (list of jobs) and click on "Select Action" to either request a Fee Refund or Invoice that project... You can search by Project name, Buyer name, Project ID, Bid ID.  Hopefully you'll be able to quickly get to your project.
Sidenote: We will definitely increase the number of rows shown.
 

Thanks,
Sunny
Elance Product Team
Jul 17, 2008 8:24am
MSVA08

Great enhancements; particularly I liked Status report and job tracker functionality very much and definitely will be using for my next projects.
Jul 17, 2008 11:29am
LB6364

just some comments on the new workspace
love it!
the collapsing feature, love the sorting features. That makes it so much easier for me to manage multiple things at once.
like the to do panel, like the feature in the 'working' workroom, to choose action and seeing an overview of the projects i am bidding on.

Active workrooms
would like to remove my active workrooms, I don't need completed projects there, so it would be nice to be able to remove them. some listed there are from a month ago or longer and are just there bc the buyer never left feedback, I may already be able to do that, but haven't jumped in totally to check out all the features.

only issue
I set up my preferences in my area, collapse all projects, sort by project, left the page, came back and it went back to the default. would be nice to be able to save the layout preference, but hey I can live with it!
Tracker..very cool

Awesome work elance, thanks so much!
Linda
Jul 17, 2008 7:49pm
Selwyn_Consulting

Slow. I hope the speed of the new interface can be improved. I just want to get work done sometimes and the new interface is a lot slower.
Jul 18, 2008 2:25am
prism

I see Huge Problems with the " Archive" and current displays of work rooms. We have been on elance for past 8 years and with this "upgrade" we have lost ALL of our awarded proejcts data and client contact details. We had Over 300 " Awarded" projects and we now see only 20 ! Do you realise that It is Importamnt for Providers to have completed contact detaisl ( EVEN if they are 7 year old ) of ALL clinets we worked with via elance ?

2, The CLOSED projects : Again what is the rationale in " REMOVING" ALL projects we had bdi on in pas ? We had 150 - 200 pages of " Closed" Projects in our My-Elance and now we have only 2 pages !! We pay to BID on projects, we communicate on PMB and to remove whatever communication we had witha Buyer, is not good at all.

3. The Old " awrded" proejcts are not shoiwng in archive.

4. The " Search" s not working right.

Can you please restore ALL old project related data ?
Jul 18, 2008 1:35pm
Ssong
Elance employee

Hello prism,
In general, for projects in your "Hiring Closed" page that have not been awarded for over 90 days will automatically be deleted.  For more information, click here.
Our customer service team will be contacting you directly about your specific projects, as well as what you are entering in the search field.  Please reply directly to their email.
 
Thanks,
Sunny
Elance Product Team
Jul 18, 2008 6:52am
jamos

Unable to now see email details for buyers. is this intentional? If so it's not helpful. Many buyers prefer to communciate by email or to send files direct if they are too large for the elance system...
Jul 22, 2008 7:08pm
Outsource_Wiz

Hi
Two providers have asked this before me with no replies. I will ask again, where are the email addresses of accepted buyers?
Best
Jul 18, 2008 12:29pm
citpl

It all works great for me. But, um, where have the buyer's email details gone from what was previously our accepted projects (now called Working)? This is pretty important. Not everybody in our office uses the PMB for communication. Also I'm having trouble with a PMB of an old project ever since the new change came into effect (I've contacted Elance services about that separately), and I don't remember the email id of the customer as I have always used the PMB. Now I can't communicate because I can't use the PMB or see the email id of the client. Please restore the email id - can be a mouseover on the buyer's name or anything, but somewhere hopefully where I dont have to click through from the project listing view.

Regards,
Binoy
Jul 23, 2008 6:32pm
lorenzo

Hello webgrity, jamos, citpl and Outsource_Wiz,
We appreciate your feedback regarding the visibility of your buyer's email addresses once you have been hired for a job.  You should now be able to click on the "working" link in the left navigation column to see your awarded and accepted jobs.  Next to your buyers usernames are their registered email addresses to help in communication.
 

Sincerely,
Lorenzo Mellon-Reyes
Community Team
Elance
Jul 18, 2008 9:10am
acecreative

Hi,

It looks good and easy but it's need one correction.

After login When you click on on your user name on top left it will direct you to your profile. The link " Back to My Elance " goes to old my Elance interface.

Please check.

Regards,
Ace Creative Technology
Jul 18, 2008 12:43pm
tap1

Can you please put my data back? Maybe next time you guys can test this stuff before rolling it out? ...just a thought.
Jul 17, 2008 11:49pm
Conservative

horrible! PMB threads are gone from past conversations.
Jul 18, 2008 1:43pm
lorenzo

Hello Conservative and tap1,
It appears you are trying to access your activity as Buyers on Elance.
When you first log in, click on the "buyer view" link in the left navigation column.  You will then see your PMB messages and workrooms related to the projects you had posted and awarded as Buyers.
 
Sincerely,
Lorenzo Mellon-Reyes
Community Team
Elance
Jul 18, 2008 3:02pm
Pace_Dataprocessing

Now I can't see the email addresses of buyers in my "Accepted Projects" (New "Working" tab). Please let me know how to send large files now. Most of my files are 4 to 18 MB and most buyers prefer the completed files to their emails (without PMB).

Please guide ASAP.
Jul 18, 2008 4:53pm
VectorFlower

Welcome features Smile
Jul 18, 2008 7:34pm
WritePartner

How do I get rid of the TO DO information that Elance put in ?
How do I turn off the Vital Statistics, I do not want them displayed either at 6 months or from the beginning.
Thanks Stan
Jul 18, 2008 9:03pm
WritePartner

Lets try again.
Please remove what ever you (Elance) put into my TO DO box. I don't even want one, especially if you put information into it. If it is my TO DO list, I should be the only person that can edit it. How do I turn off the vital statistics box, I do not want that open for anyone to see. Also, I agree with the others, the screens now take 3 or 4 times longer to process, the original was fine, this new one is horribly slow.

Thanks
Stan Carr
Jul 21, 2008 12:34pm
ypoon
Elance employee

Hi WritePartner,
 
Thanks for the posts.  The Vital Statistics and To-Do list in MyElance only shows system generated tasks that require your attention.  They are not visible to anyone else.  Deleting system generated items and entering custom items are not allowed at this point.  We definitely agree with the requirement for tracking tasks and issues defined by the users and are planning to roll it out in the future.  We will bring our design to this forum for your input when we are ready. Thanks.
 
York
Elance Product Guy
Jul 19, 2008 1:55pm
8PROJECT-Design

I can't edit my profile informations.
When I'm on the Provider Profile editing page, I can't upload a new image for my thumbnail. Now I have one image but I'd like to swap it. It's that easy but....
Uploading goes fine, the pop-up works but when I close that window, the main window begins to load and load and load... but nothing happens.
The status bar reads: transferring data from 03.presence.userplane.com (translated from italian), and this takes minutes!!!
Old thumbnail is still here.
Jul 21, 2008 12:29pm
lorenzo

Hello 8PROJECT-Design,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  Our customer service team will be contacting you directly to review your profile thumbnail image and resolve your issue as quickly as possible.
 
Sincerely,
Lorenzo Mellon-Reyes
Community Team
Elance
Jul 22, 2008 3:39pm
heyitsdj

Hi,

Thanks for the upgrades and enhancements to the MyElance page. As far as I can tell, everything's working smoothly.

I would like to throw something out for consideration though. Since the page uses modules (or call out boxes or whatever you call them) would it be possible for users to customize the content of some of them? Perhaps we could create an area that displays new projects, or displays specific projects posted in an area that I'm interested in?

Or maybe, you could add in an area that lists projects by title in the areas that I pre-determine, or that are available to me because of my account.

I realize that there's a window in the bottom right where I can click to and search projects, but a big part of my interaction with the site is looking for projects, as well as managing the projects that I have. It'd be a big help to quickly be able to scan what's available from the MyElance page as opposed to needing to click through three other pages.

Just a thought.

Thanks again for the new interface.
Jul 25, 2008 7:42am
jamos

With the new "upgrade" is it possible to now request soemthing that should really be in the functionality anyway? I have invoicing issues.

If i bill a client for $100, and they for whatever reason decide to make me a one-off payment of $100 instead of making payment against the invoice, elance record the incoming payment but does not in any way marry it up with the outstanding invoice. Obviously you cannot make the assumptions you'd have to do to do this automatically, but if we could (2 options here first is best second would be an ok fix if no 1 is too complex...)

1. we MANUALLY link the receipt for $100 with the invoice for $100 so they credit one against the other and the unpaid status of the invoice becomes paid.

2. we have the facility to record on elance a ststus of "paid" against an invoice.

Please please please can this be fixed? I can't believe i am the only user with many many outstanding invoices that have in reality been paid, and what this does is renders the whole Invoicing/billing screens unusable for us, we have to work in the project invoicing screens which is not as easy.

Thanks
Julie-Ann
Jul 30, 2008 9:00pm
ypoon
Elance employee

Hi Julie-Ann,
 
Thanks for the post. We understand and agree with the requirement. We are tracking this as a feature candidate for future release.  In addition, we are enhancing the existing "New Invoice" email notification sent to the buyers.  Buyers will be able to click a link from the email message to immediately see the specific invoice and make a payment against the invoice.  This will reduce the number of non-invoice payments. 
 
Thanks,
York
Elance Product Guy