What are Activity Codes?
goLance offers users a great way to report activities. For hourly contracts, clients can list activity codes relevant to a contractor's daily tasks. This can help both the freelancer and the client with accurate reporting. The use of the feature is simple:
- A client can define sets of Activity Codes and then assign them to specific contracts.
- When a freelancer starts their goMeter, they can select an activity code description and add a note.
- Codes represent tasks such as answering calls, sending emails, design reviews, meetings, etc.
- The Work Diary will represent information about activity codes and the time spent on them.
The article will highlight the following topics:
- How to set up Activity Codes
- Adding Activity Codes to Contracts
- Activity Codes Reporting
- The goMeter & Activity Codes
Setting Up Activity Codes
- From your Dashboard, hover over the "My goLance" tab and select "Companies". | Note that you will need contractors hired through a company to create and enable activity codes.
- Choose the company with which you would like to add activity codes to the contract.
- On the company page tab, you will see a tab named "Activity Codes".
- Within the "Activity Codes" tab, you will see that you can add activity codes and activity sets. The ability to create "sets" will help you organize codes per contract or role.
- You can add an activity code by selecting the blue "Add Activity Code" button.
The Code ID is a technical information that a client can use, and the code description should be the task that the freelancer will complete. The description will be what the freelancer sees on the goMeter.
You can then add each activity code to a set to help organize your codes and easily assign multiple codes to a contract.
Adding Activity Codes & Sets to a Contract
- From your Dashboard, hover over the "My goLance" tab and select "Companies". Note that you will need contractors hired through a company to create and enable activity codes.
- Choose the company with which you would like to add activity codes to the contract.
- Head to the "Contracts" tab on the company page.
- Select the contract to which you would like to add activity codes to.
- From the contract page, select "Settings".
- Scroll down to "Activity Codes" and click "Enable."
- You can select the Activity set you want to apply to the contract from the drop-down menu.
Activity Codes Reporting
When a freelancer uses the activity codes, the client can view the tasks through the work diary and the client dashboard. This will help make more informed decisions for the client and freelancer and provide a detailed breakdown. See the images below.
The goMeter
As a freelancer tracking time for an hourly contract, the goMeter is a powerful tool to help arrange and organize your busy day. First, to use the activity codes feature on the goMeter, ensure that you have selected the correct contract.
If Activity Codes have not been enabled for your contract, your goMeter will look like this and ask you for a note on your current task:
If your client has enabled activity codes for your contract, you will be prompted to add the code for the task and to create a note.
You can select an option that will remind you in 30 minutes to change your task. This is helpful for you to keep track of how much time you have spent on a specific activity. If the option is selected, the goMeter pops back up on your screen if it is minimized. If you do not want this feature, untick the box.
This is what the goMeter will look like with enabled activity codes: