Outsourcing Process #2 (Personal Project)

This outsourced project is made available to exemplify the typical RentACoder experience you’re likely to share if you remain committed to the strategies outlined in our outsourcing book.

Significance

Outsourcing Cartoon by Just Outsourcing

This particular outsourcing process demonstrates what can be accomplished when working with a very helpful buyer.

The buyer was careful to supply demonstrations and reasons why the project in question needed to be formatted the way it was.

And the buyer’s excellent communication skills, prompt and detailed feedback, plus positive attitude helped bring this project to a successful close.

Job Description

Need a complete and detailed HELP section for our site. We have a free classifieds website that needs a better help section. The site is much like “X”. I don’t need as detailed a HELP FAQ as “X” but the setup, format, and style should be the same. The pages can be HTML with nothing fancy in terms of formatting much like the “X” style. This is a foreign language site with English, Portuguese and Spanish. You can deliver the project in English and I will get it translated.

Platform:
LAMP

Bidding / message summary

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings  

A bid in the amount of $XX.00 (USD) was posted by DocuMaker (the worker). The bid was (later) accepted by “X” (the employer).

Hello. This is my bid for your project. As you will note in my Rentacoder bio (resume), I have successfully worked as a RAC coder for about a year now – and have quickly obtained a Top-Coder status from providing buyers (like you) with high quality work. I feel very qualified to complete your project and would really like the opportunity!

Thank you.
-Nicole :-)

By “X” with 23 ratings

Have you checked out the “X” help area? I basically need you to use my site and work with me to answer all possible questions people can have. I need these pages set up so they flow easily for people. Nothing complicated, you can model the “X” style of simple HTML page. I think using someone like you might help a lot because you don’t know my site and thus you naturally will need to answer most questions. I can provide a few lists to get you started and then we can fill in the blanks. I think my FAQ / Help area will be less detailed than the “X” area because we have no paid ads area and we are newly online. Does this still seem like something you could do?

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

Sure – I love writing help files/sections/html whatever! Just as long as it’s help! :-) I took a quick glance at the “X” help system and this is something that could be accomplished rather quickly.

By “X” with 23 ratings

Sure… and my site’s area wouldn’t even be as detailed as the “X” area. I think this project just requires a little fore thought and maybe a little “love” to help the users :-)

By “X” with 23 ratings

How much time do you think you need?

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

Maybe 3 days? (just to make sure I cover everything)

Project phase change: All funds have been escrowed. Waiting for work to be completed by DocuMaker (the worker).  (Auto-posted by RentACoder.com.) This open auction project was auto-privatized per the employer’s settings.

By “X” with 23 ratings

Hi ~ my email is “X”@”X”.com. The site is http://xx.com/. Don’t freak out when you see the Portuguese. It has English also. Just not the ads being posted.

By “X” with 23 ratings

NOTE: The buyer was kind and thoughtful enough to supply samples of what was needed. This is an important part of successful outsourcing.

Attached File
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Check out these lists I have been playing with. (ZIPPED and uploaded.) Might help you out. Also feel free to get ideas from the “X” site our sent me a list of questions.

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

Awesome – Thank you!! And yes, I have a few questions but will ask them just a bit later….

During a 24 hour grace-period that follows the escrowing of funds, a worker may choose to decline a project, without penalty. This 24 hour period expired and the worker may no longer exercise it. (Full information on the 24-hour grace period is located in the Worker contract).

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

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Hi “X”… Can you tell me what you think of this submission so far? If you load up the pages while you’re online, you will see that the content fits in well with the site design of “X”. Looking forward to your comments

-Nicole

By “X” with 23 ratings

Cool. Definitely what I was looking for. So some edits I noticed.

• “X” is misspelled a few times on the pages.
• We need a link explaining the logged in area and the sign up. Sign up is not required but if someone does sign up they get to see all their ads in one place and which ones are online and off. In the future you will be able to edit you ad here and other planned services

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

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Hi “X”, I made some changes according to your requests below:

• I couldn’t find any information on the website to help me detail the log-in area and the sign-in area, but I did create a help page for each and briefly described the difference between to the two. If you have more information about these areas, please forward it to me so that I can add it.
• I couldn’t find a link to get a “resend” message, so I just made one up: http://www.xx/cgi-bin/ If you send me the correct link, I can fix that also.

Please let me know how I can further improve the pages. :-)

-Nicole

By “X” with 23 ratings

Nicole ~

Thanks so much for the quick turn around. You are awesome. This project is really coming along.

Sorry I should have explained the login, sign-up thing better. I can see I was confusing. The login is a area for users who have already signed up. It is not necessary to sign up. Users are free to post and surf the site totally anonymous. However if someone chooses to sign up he will be able to access a user area. Basically a page with your ads on it. This is different than just posting an ad and receiving an email for a posting and editing you ad. That was what I was trying to say earlier. Sorry about that.

The made up link is perfect for now. The pages are php so each city and the links needs to be tied together anyway. My other coder will need to string these pages together so the links all work at every city. Just for your curiously .. here is the link to the RE-Send verification email on the “X” city page.
http://xx.com//verify_resend.html

 
By “X” with 23 ratings

One question you might know better than me as I’m not a coder. When linking all these pages together, the best way for me to present these html files to my other coder is without the header and other site specific coding? Meaning the icons, links, city name etc you now have at the top. I think that it will be easier just to present him the HTML of the help text as the pages are constructed with PHP. Am I wrong about this? I can also ask him about this if you are unsure.

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

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“X”, I used *your* re-send verification link rather than mine in this upload, and I think I may have strengthened the log-in and sign-in help a little more but of course, you’ll be the judge of that? :-)

Also, in regards to your coder/format question, it’s hard to predict what another coder would prefer, so I removed all the header and footer code. If you need me to put it back – just let me know. It would be no problem – I still have the code on my hard drive…

-Nicole

By “X” with 23 ratings

A few edits:

The password resend is if you lose your password for the user area (we have also been calling it logged in or signed in area) I am including a picture of this area for you. So the password resend link is located right on the login page. “Feedback ” page should include our feedback email address. feedback@”X”.com

By “X” with 23 ratings 

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zip of logged in area.

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

Wow – this is going to help me alot! I’ll see you a little later on in the day. Thanks!!

By “X” with 23 ratings

Yeah?? I wrote it and thought it might be confusing. I know this is a tedious process, sorry for that. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is anything else you need clarifying, otherwise I’ll wait for your update.

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

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Hi “X” – sorry for the delay,
I made some changes according to your requests below:

If you don’t mind, I promoted one of the reasons to sign up as “Signing up eliminates the need to respond to each and every verification email that we send.” That way, maybe people will get tired of all those emails and sign up to simply log in. (I created a resend password link: http://www.”X”.com/cgi-bin/resendpassword)

Now if I misunderstood anything – let me know! :-)
-Nicole

By “X” with 23 ratings

Hi Nicole ~

I am going to open this up and check but I just read you comments about the sign in reasons. Actually a user would still need to respond to all the email verifications we send out in order to activate their ads. But that’s a really great idea and I am going to add it to the list of modifications we are working on. Thanks!

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

Okay… would you like me to get rid of that sales pitch/warning until you implement it on your site? :-)

I’ll be back home by 12pm (PST). Gotta go to my son’s graduation ceremony. :-D

-Nicole

By “X” with 23 ratings

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Hi Nicole ~

OK I just went through the pages and think I have the final edits. Let me know what you think.

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

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Hi “X”,

Here are the changes according to your requests below:

To stress the importance that this feature is for people who already received the email, I put the information on another page, and then I linked to it. That way (I think), people will think twice about understanding the appropriateness of requesting a resend email.

Your suggestions really pulled things together!

By “X” with 23 ratings

Nicole ~

AWESOME. The help section really turned out great. One quick edit I noticed. We use the link http://”X”.com/ without the WWW on site. So to keep our linking uniform can you remove the www from the “X” links in the left sidebar of the pages. Other than that I can’t see anything else to do. I will start to bring this online this week with my programmers. Thanks so much for all the edits, it turned out great.

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

You’re welcome “X”! Any time you need me – you just hit me up here on RAC. Loved the opportunity!

:-)

-Nicole

P.S. I’m reporting the work complete with the url changes. Good luck with the site!

By DocuMaker with 198 ratings

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Status report: Work reported complete

Project phase change: All work (or part of the work) was completed by DocuMaker (the worker). Waiting for “X” (the employer) acceptance.

By “X” with 23 ratings

Thanks again. Great working with you.

Project phase change

100% of work was accepted by “X” (the employer). DocuMaker (the worker) account has been credited. “X” (the employer) has legally certified that the contract is now 100% fulfilled by DocuMaker (the worker), and released them from any further contractual obligation on this project.