Review of Basecamp Project Manager

Basecamp is an online project manager for small businesses. It helps organisations manage their projects by creating to-do lists keeping track of what needs to be done and who is responsible, sharing files within the organisation and with external clients, recording how much time people spend on different tasks and letting team members talk on message boards.

To review Basecamp, I will set it up to help manage one of MUBS' current projects, a student to student tutoring program.

I am working on this project with the Education Officer, so to begin I clicked a tab called People, and I was able to add him to the project.

I then clicked the messages tab, and added a description of what this project actually is. There were some simple checkboxes on the screen that let me notify the other team members that I had posted the message. One weakness I noticed in the messages section is that the post message form is on a separate page from the view message page. The user experience could have been improved if AJAX had of been used to allow the user to view and edit the message on the same page.


Next, I clicked the to-do tab to create a plan for the project. I gave the to-do list a name, "Set up tutoring program", and then entered in to-do items one by one. I specified who was responsible for completing each item, and was given the option to notify the person by email. I was glad to see that this time Javascript was used, and I didn't have to wait for new pages to load every time I made a change. I was able to drag and drop tasks into the correct order, and edit them where they were published.


Next stop: Milestones. The to-do list doesn't record deadlines - that feature is separated into the Milestones tab. To create a milestone, I was asked to enter a due date, a description and a person responsible. There was a checkbox offering to email the person I specified now and 48 hours before the task is due - a nice touch. A feed was automatically created to import milestones into iCal or Mozilla Calendar. I did have a strange feeling I was double handling the items I had entered in the to-do list though.

The next feature on the tab list is the Writeboard - a basic wiki. When I created a new document, I was forwarded on to the Writeboard website (which is made by the same company as Basecamp). Basecamp and Writeboard have been integrated quite effectively, and most users probably wouldn't notice they are moving between two websites. Unfortunately Writeboard is a very basic wiki; nowhere near the likes of Google Docs.

Being an internet website has both advantages and disadvantages for Basecamp. The file sharing feature is a good example. The fact that Basecamp is online makes it easy to keep colleagues and clients updated on your progress. However, if you are working with large files, it is just not practical to upload them to the internet to share - especially in countries like Australia with slow internet.

The to-do list and milestones were very nice to use, and although there were some problems with the website, I would love to use it in MUBS. I won't though, because I already introduced a wiki this year and I'm having enough trouble getting people to use that!