Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

UglyAmerican

Sign me up too! We are having the same issues.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

I agree…. we have contractors, vendors, clients and we want them all to access different things…. more user access control please!

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

The ability to view and work with multiple clients, projects and contractors is not a strong point for Basecamp. We have recently rolled out a sub-contractor permissioning scheme that addresses the issues raised by arodriguez. If anyone is interested I would be happy to post a link to it.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

“One to One Mode”
(BCC: For Basecamp)

Add a feature that allows the admin to enable a one to one mode for the project that would allow multiple external participants to view, post, and comment. Admin would have standard view with all participants and posts listed and visible.

The sub-contractor/client participants would not see any other companies, contact info, or their posts – only their own and the Admin company’s info and posts would be visible.

Staying true to Basecamp philosophy it has to start simple. One box checked would initiate the one to one mode which would basically put blinders on the external users. When admin posts a new file, message, etc… they just check mark which companies can see them in the permission page. If 5 companies were involved, the default will be checked – enable all companies to view post. De-select any companies you want excluded. In all cases no external particpants see other companies involvement – kind of like a BCC on an email.

This doesn’t answer all needs posted, but would be a simple starting point to work out the kinks.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Nevermind. It’s tied into the permissions. Don’t you hate when you have those OMG moments?

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Hmmm – something just occurred to me. I run an rss feed for basecamp. That means I can see all messages, to-dos, files etc that are posted, even if I am not notified on the message itself. I am the main admin for basecamp, so that’s fine for me, but it makes me wonder if my clients can do the same thing. Anyone know? I think I’ll set up a fake person and try it.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

I agree. I think this problem could be solved best in the simplest manner – checkboxes for each person and for each company for every area of Basecamp (similar to the ones for projects). In most cases, they “remain” checked, but if I want to post a message, or a task, or my timetracking(!) or a milestone, and I don’t want certain people or companies to see these, I should simply be able to “uncheck” people at the time of posting.

This seems like it could be a simple fix?

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Yes, this is a problem with Basecamp. We use sub-contractors, too, and find it very difficult to setup and manage in Basecamp right now. Private needs to be more granular so it can be applied to specific items within Basecamp on a case-by-case basis. Right now, Privacy is too broad and can’t be controlled very well.

For example, when adding a new Message, I’d like to specify who can see it, much the same way you can specify who is to receive Notifications. That would be a LOT more useful than simply flagging it as Private.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

I came across this rather glaring problem myself last week when I took on a design company to sub-contract my extra graphic design work to.

I set up their company and relevant staff, and added them to the project. Then I added my company and the actual client company.

Problem
Clients can see the list of all other companies ‘on the project’. This is undesirable when you want your sub-contracting to be transparent, or you don’t want to lose your client to the cheaper sub-contractor!

Solution
Add an option at the time of adding a company to a project which will make that company look like YOUR company to the client (other companies on the project that do not have this switch turned on). You should retain all other settings such as their access level and ability to view private items.

The sub-contractor company should also optionally be either allowed or not-allowed to see who the client is (mask all client company names, just show personal names in comments/messages, etc. In my case I would just let them see the client as they are designing the web site for them anyway and would see the logo!

Result

• When I view the project, I see things arranged by company as they really are (client, sub-contractor, our company).

• When the designated sub-contractor views the project, they will see either the same as me – or, if set this way, they will see a ‘limited’ view of the client (mask all contact details and company name, showing only a username for the client staff).

• When the actual client views the project, they will not be able to see the contractor company, and all messages, files, comments, etc from the sub-contractor will appear as if they are from my master company.

Hope that explains the problem and goes some way to helping solve it!

Any idea if a solution to this problem is going to be implemented?

Matthew

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

I have tried setting up a separate company just for contractors, but there are two problems with that:

• I need for contractors to log their time in basecamp. Currently, only company employees are allowed to log time, so I have to put the contractors under my main company.

• Because they have to be listed under my company, they can see all private messages. There are some private messages they need to see, but some need to be for the core company only. Right now, they can see everything and we have to do much of our internal back and forth via email.

Other than that, basecamp is great!

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

We’ll be watching this topic and hoping for a better solution. Taking the sub-contractors offline defeats the purpose of having Basecamp, so the question is this. What’s worse, allowing the subs to view all client/company correspondence, or allowing the client to see all sub/company correspondence? For now, we’re disallowing the latter.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

The “globalness” is the problem when you have competing contractors working various projects. There just isn’t a ready solution within BC at this point.

I’d vote for ‘linked projects’ that provide a master project with links to sub-projects. Then include object options to make them private to that project or visible to the master. However, I don’t think that’s within BC’s scope and don’t anticipate it happening. If not too complex, it may be a candidate for the API and link them on the local server (or a web service).

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Did you know that when you edit a company, you can select an option to give access to private items?

We have created a company called “Contractors” that we allocate all our freelance designers, programmers, copywriters etc who work with us on our team on client projects. The “company” has the Private Items Viewable setting turned on.

Remember that this is a global switch, so everyone in the company can see private items on any project they have access to.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Same issues. Had to take sub offline from Basecamp for dialog and use only for ‘shared’ communication. Bummer.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Had the same problem ourselves; but it can get more complex. What if you want to share info with C but not SC? There’d be too many permutations (Private, You + SubContractors, You + Clients, Public)

Maybe we need categories for companies, with SubContractor and Client as initial ones and the ability to create new ones. Then for every message / milestone one can select Public / Private / Custom. The latter would show a row of tickboxes or something.

Topic: Issues including sub-contractors

Current situation:
While Basecamp allows several companies to be under one project, messages and milestones can only be marked either private for all companies other than the main one, or public to all.

Issue:
When one of those companies is a sub-contractor (SC) and the other is a client©, there is no way to share information privately to SC while excluding C. On the other hand, adding SC to the main company, in order to make information private, grants an undesired level of access to private company information.

Result:
Basecamp is not fit to communicate with sub-contractors and clients within one same project.

Possible solutions:

a) A third “middle-ground” access level could be implemented for sub-contractors, where they could be privy to certain items, but not to all.

b) An option to exclude certain contacts could be included on items.

c) Items marked “private” could allow for exceptions to certain contacts.

Thanks for your attention, and for continuing to make Basecamp a great tool!