- Austin Iuliano Last Update: April 28, 2016

 

 

 

Basecamp: Your Business Organized

Have you ever wished all those papers on your desk could be organized?  That is the inspiration of Basecamp, a way to organize all those papers and documents about all the projects.  Organizing a team on many projects can be strenuous at times.  As a designer having 10 redesigns of a clients project can get confusing.

 

Basecamp allows us to communicate and organize with everyone on the project.  The design team, the client, programmers, and even the dog if needed!  Basecamp is designed to organize all documents in one central location.  Basecamp is a 37 signals product and integrates with many great programs including campfire another 37 signals product.

 

 

Creating projects in Basecamp is easy! Just add your project, give it a name or title, and then begin adding your discussions, lists, files, text documents and even events. There’s also a calendar to sync up all the projects you’re working on.

 

Adding to do lists is easy. Simply begin by titling your list. Then list off each item that needs attention followed by hitting enter. You can assign specific people, clients or team-members to the tasks and even give them deadlines. Choose for the client to see the list, or you can “hide” it from the client if it’s specific to the team. Choose to email your members immediately upon adding the lists and assigning the tasks.

 

 

There’s also a feature to write documents directly in the program with a text section. Upon publishing, team members and clients can add comments, suggestions and discussions below. This keeps everyone on the same page and encourages collaboration.

 

 

Basecamp includes a feature to upload files and documents. Add labels to the documents to find them later in searches. You can choose to email certain members of the team after uploading the files.

This Web portal acts as the central place where all activity around a project occurs. Each user, they can be internal to the company or an outside partner, has their own login credentials, profile, and dashboard that show only information that’s relevant to them. It’s what keeps communication clear, tasks consistent, and just makes the project completion easier. Thus with this fully functional and interactive tool, teams can stay on track.

Basecamp is a great tool for collaborative projects, some of its key features which make this tool so accessible:

• Basecamp has a designated discussion area where you can go to ask questions or give your opinion on a project. This helps to keep all information together and streamline communication within Basecamp.
•  Basecamp sends you a Daily Recap email, thus keeps you up to date on project happenings via email. If you are accessing the email on the go, it will directly take you to a mobile optimized site you don’t need to download an app for it.
•  If someone has deleted an important file by mistake, you can easily retrieve it by undoing it.
•  You can loop someone in for a question or comment on a project, even though they aren’t part of the project team. Basecamp sends them an email with the question. Their reply becomes a part of the archive, but you can control their access to the project information.
•  There is also an option to catch up, if you weren’t able to work a particular day, this tool will give the play-by-play of what went on within the project.

 

 

Do you have any tips for using Basecamp? Please add them to this list. Please vote up or down any tips that are already here. Thank you!

Do you know any Basecamp alternatives? Please add the names of each tool to this list and help others to find them and try them out. Please vote up or down any alternative so we find the most popular ones. Thank you!

How to use basecamp by @jaymar008 #basecamp http://www.slideshare.net/yahj008/how-to-use-basecamp-35192070 via @SlideShare

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