Navigating the Elance Workroom

After you award the project, set the milestones, and both parties have agreed to everything, you will then use the workroom for day-to-day managing of your project. You access this workroom by clicking on the house in the top-left corner of the main toolbar. This will bring up a list of all your jobs. Click on the title of the one you want to view.

Whether for a client or contractor, the project workroom looks the same. It opens up to the message board where you can post messages, as you can see in Figure 13.1. The messages are also forwarded by email to the contractor. On the left side is a menu of resources, many of which I’ll go through in this chapter.

Figure 13.1: The client workroom is where you will manage the day-to-day activities of the job.

From the message board you can also upload attachments, and on the right side you can see those that have been uploaded by you or your contractor. You can see if the contractor is online and invite them to a meeting.

The workroom is also where you can access various applications to smooth the workflow process. I get into these later in this chapter.

DEFINITION

Applications are technical tools specifically designed to help make your virtual office as user-friendly as possible. They include Elance’s Work View, video conferencing, screen sharing, and a format for managing code in a collaborative setting.

Prefunding Milestones

As I mentioned in the last chapter, I highly recommend that you use milestones in your project setup. This gives both you and your contractor a clear structure to work by. Milestones apply to fixed-price projects, not hourly ones.

You also have the option for prefunding milestones. This is where you place funds in escrow at Elance, before they’re due. The contractor will not have access to the money until you release it from escrow. If you cancel the project or change the agreed-upon terms, the money will be refunded back to you. In other words, it’s safe there.

DEFINITION

Prefunding milestones refers to placing funds in escrow before they are due to be paid. This is often done by clients at the beginning of a project.

The advantage to prefunding milestones is the action clearly shows the contractor you’re serious about paying them for the work they’re doing. In their eyes, this is a sign of a good client. After all, much of the time they’re doing at least part of the work before they get paid.

To prefund the milestones you can click on Payments on the menu on the left. Or you can click on Manage on the top toolbar. Then click on Payments from the drop-down menu. Both avenues lead to the same end.

File Sharing and Status Reports

These are two tools you’ll use frequently as a client. Both are accessed from the menu on the left of the workroom. Using the file sharing system allows you to easily monitor and assess the work being done. It also means you have an automatic record of everything shared.

Status reports are required on all fixed-price jobs (while timesheets are required on hourly jobs). The contractor is required to post a status report every week before midnight on Sunday. You will receive notification of this as well as if there’s a problem or any action that needs to be taken.

Teams

As with contractors, clients can also form teams (see Figure 13.2). For larger projects this is an enormous help. Maybe you’re busy with your start-up company and need to get the work done but don’t have time to manage the project yourself. In this case you can still keep tabs on what’s going on, but your team member will handle the day-to-day management of the project.

Figure 13.2: Client teams are managed here.

In client accounts, these roles are available: