Any Basecamp users here? Share

Amoxicillin said:
What's the issue with using Trello for clients?

At a glance, a client can see exactly what is being worked on, and where the status of each of the steps of the project are at. The client can see who is working on something, and provide them with feedback. You can @John the client and get their attention to particular card/list/upload.

Your post makes it pretty clear you use Basecamp mostly for to-do lists. Well, Trello is to-do lists on steroids. 37 Signals has barely updated Basecamp since it's inception.
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It's more than just to-do lists though, I keep everything in here. Like I said earlier too I already have clients/VA's in here and it would be a major pain to move everyone.

For my business needs Trello just wasn't great, I gave it a try for a couple months and then I upgraded to Basecamp -- which I'm much happier with. Certainly not knocking it as a program. If you check my post history I was actually a big promoter of it :)

What's funny is I think some of the same people I recommended Trello awhile ago are telling me to switch there.

This thread was less about arguing about why I should switch off Basecamp though. It's about automating and how people set theirs up.
 


I have tried pretty much every project management software out there and have to echo the comments about using Basecamp with clients.

Obviously YMMV with what type of clients you work with, but the majority of my clients like the fact that they can see what is going on in an intuitive project format. Lots of them were confused with things like Trello. Don't ask me why.

OP, have you found ways to update specific projects with Zapier? I've found that it's nice, but only for global things like adding projects, not necessarily for updating current projects.
 
jaranen said:
Im using basecamp and asana, both are good so far
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How do you use 2 different project management systems? Seems like a huge pain in the ass. Why not use 1 and that way you have everything in 1 place?

Merezza said:
I have tried pretty much every project management software out there and have to echo the comments about using Basecamp with clients.

Obviously YMMV with what type of clients you work with, but the majority of my clients like the fact that they can see what is going on in an intuitive project format. Lots of them were confused with things like Trello. Don't ask me why.

OP, have you found ways to update specific projects with Zapier? I've found that it's nice, but only for global things like adding projects, not necessarily for updating current projects.
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Yea, I had a couple clients who didn't mind being guinea pigs for my project management hook-up phase. No one preferred Trello (from the client side).

I set up a workflow so anything from a Basecamp project goes into a specific Box.com folder I have to review. I make a lot of ebooks so I have 1 set up for any new cover designs for me to review. I'm going to try out what you were saying above, haven't attempted yet.

Unarmed Gunman said:
Didn't they just completely rebuild it from the ground up a year or two ago? Basecamp and Basecamp Classic aren't anything alike.
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Yup, they just had a couple redesign not too long ago, users can still use the old layout though. They do perform constant updates to the program too, there's always notifications for updates whenever I'm in there.
 
I used to use TeamLab but been testing out Asana since the beginning of this year...

The UI kinda annoys me... To many clicks to get to what you want to see.

Also, I don't like the fact you can't see when you employees history log for activity, last seen, etc.
 
I_like_cock said:
I used to use TeamLab but been testing out Asana since the beginning of this year...

The UI kinda annoys me... To many clicks to get to what you want to see.

Also, I don't like the fact you can't see when you employees history log for activity, last seen, etc.
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Even though I don't use Teamlab, with these project management systems there's so many add-ons to increase the power of them. I'm guessing Teamlab has an API? I wouldn't be surprised if it had tons of tools already made for increased management for your team and include metrics like you mentioned.

For team management, because I'm starting to get a lot of writers and VA's, I started checking out this tool (just Basecamp of course): http://www.hiveed.com/


As a side note, this addon for Basecamp is fucking nuts: http://dashstack.com/ Checking out today to buy. Looks way better.
 
JulianTrueFlynn said:
How do you use 2 different project management systems? Seems like a huge pain in the ass. Why not use 1 and that way you have everything in 1 place?


Yea, I had a couple clients who didn't mind being guinea pigs for my project management hook-up phase. No one preferred Trello (from the client side).

I set up a workflow so anything from a Basecamp project goes into a specific Box.com folder I have to review. I make a lot of ebooks so I have 1 set up for any new cover designs for me to review. I'm going to try out what you were saying above, haven't attempted yet.



Yup, they just had a couple redesign not too long ago, users can still use the old layout though. They do perform constant updates to the program too, there's always notifications for updates whenever I'm in there.
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I use Teamwork.com & Basecamp. Teamwork.com for everything agency-side (it's by far the best I've found for that) and Basecamp for all communications with clients.

Basecamp is great because it's easy to understand, so ideal for sharing ideas, reports and timelines with clients. Teamwork has the functionality we need to be efficient internally, which Basecamp lacks.

We don't use Teamwork for both, because clients aren't willing to invest the time in learning how to use it.
 
mituozo said:
I use Teamwork.com & Basecamp. Teamwork.com for everything agency-side (it's by far the best I've found for that) and Basecamp for all communications with clients.

Basecamp is great because it's easy to understand, so ideal for sharing ideas, reports and timelines with clients. Teamwork has the functionality we need to be efficient internally, which Basecamp lacks.

We don't use Teamwork for both, because clients aren't willing to invest the time in learning how to use it.
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That's interesting you just use Basecamp as kind of a help desk for clients.

Maybe your services require much more sophisticated task management than me. I know a couple of people who use Teamwork and swear by it.
 
JulianTrueFlynn said:
That's interesting you just use Basecamp as kind of a help desk for clients.

Maybe your services require much more sophisticated task management than me. I know a couple of people who use Teamwork and swear by it.
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We need to be able to track time against individuals, generate reports on how profitable clients are, etc.. Means I can identify employees that aren't pulling their weight, and also accounts which we either need to close or up our fees on.

The Gantt charts are really useful for planning out a project with multiple people involved too.

Basecamp is great for basic projects, but as soon as you start wanting to improve efficiency, things get difficult. You have to start using Zapier and bringing in external reports, then you don't have all your reports in one place, etc..

There's things like risks and such you can do in Teamwork too which are cool, so if there's a chance something might happen that'll delay the project, you can mark it as a risk so the entire team working on the project is aware of it.. yada yada.
 
secretagentdad said:
I hate all project management software.


Dropbox + Notepad + email + post it notes is all you need.
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Do you do any client work/services anymore or is it all software? If so do you have a lot of people working in and out of the software? Maybe what you mentioned is all you need. I can't see that working out for me though seeing how I started with that and needed to upgrade

mituozo said:
We need to be able to track time against individuals, generate reports on how profitable clients are, etc.. Means I can identify employees that aren't pulling their weight, and also accounts which we either need to close or up our fees on.

The Gantt charts are really useful for planning out a project with multiple people involved too.

Basecamp is great for basic projects, but as soon as you start wanting to improve efficiency, things get difficult. You have to start using Zapier and bringing in external reports, then you don't have all your reports in one place, etc..

There's things like risks and such you can do in Teamwork too which are cool, so if there's a chance something might happen that'll delay the project, you can mark it as a risk so the entire team working on the project is aware of it.. yada yada.
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I use Toggl for all the time management part (used to use Harvest). I agree it's absolutely crucial and no one does it. That's really neat Teamwork includes all those features though.
 
Having Basecamp Classic here, using for SEO projects/SEO diary mostly. Trello, Asana and the others looks like are built for the masses, same with the new Basecamp version. Way too messy and hard to navigate.

Basecamp Classic is all clean, easy to navigate and everything is at 1-2 click difference. One thing I'm working on is to see how I can open .xls right from Basecamp, not having to download them.
 
Update I thought you guys would like - especially since it's free - not just for Basecamp users either.

Feeds - A Mac menu bar app for tracking RSS feeds and activity on web services like Dribbble, Basecamp, Github, and more.

Connect Basecamp, Zendesk, Trello, GitHub, any RSS feed, and more to get desktop notifications and see a recent list of notifications for those API's. I used to use Headquarters for this, but it's only for Basecamp. Feedsapp is free and provides more API's.

I just added the RSS feature this morning to see if I can get anything cool for brand mentions or just something simple like new blog post on my site and being alerted.

Also, updates on my PM style:
100% do not invite clients to Basecamp anymore and just keep it all through emails and calls. Clients that were already on it I am slowly starting to phase out 1-by-1 with emails. No one is heart broken, I just promised more emails/meetings.

Hired local project manager to deal with internal work. Now a general process is like:
  1. Client/me sends project idea directly or there's an issue which we/they agree to fix.
  2. I tell client I got it and we're on it and will let them know if it's a longer TAT. I BCC project manager and Basecamp project to forward.
  3. Project manager assigns out to the correct people on team and creates Basecamp tasks necessary.
  4. Pings me when it's done to notify client, pings me again later to make sure it's sent or not.

Still haven't had time to implement Zendesk like in my previous thread, which I've been itching to badly to get a ticket system up for clients. Which would take care of step #1 and #2. There's plenty of Zapier connections there to help a lot to make it a time-saver for everyone.

After getting Zendesk settled it's creating a dashboard for API's: PayPal, Zendesk tickets, Basecamp to-dos, Google Analytics, and more..

Mitzousa (I sent you a Skype message to update you with results from your help - figure you're busy), and BoFu have been an immense help in me further planning these systems so growth/scaling is easier. You'd be shocked how much poor systems and organization hold you back, and people don't take biz development seriously at this level (from what I see in this space at least).

I'm such a nerd about this stuff now, from not giving a shit about it before.
 
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