I try to figure out Basecamp issues on my own so as not to bother folks, however I am finding that approach increasingly frustrating.

Case in point, (one of many unfortunately); at my lowly Basecamp account level of BASIC ($25 month) can I add “Client” users who can login but see only one project? How do you add “Clients” and what are they really in comparison to my regular users? Can my Basecamp BASIC account define multiple “Companies” so that I can organize groups of my users into teams working on a smaller project or two, or is everyone who I want to allow access to our grouphub going to startout with the same permissions and access to all projects unless I manually go thru all our projects and change the permissions?

The help system for general users seems fairly good. My compliments, as this is a difficult thing, however when I try to use the HELP system for administration tasks to configure our Basecamp grouphub the experience is rather frustrating. I have been designing, building and programming small computers (embedded control systems) since 1976, so I have worked with a modest number of new admin tools.

Doing a HELP search on the keywords “company..companies…client…etc” gives very little relevant help information for fledgling admins like myself. The search comes back with every little instance containing these words with no apparent weighting and certainly no references (that I could find) to an overview on the topic of “Clients” and/or “Companies” with information about how to create them in the first place or why this would be a good/bad idea. Try seeing this issue and others like it from a new admin’s perspective. An awful lot of Basecamp admin info seems self-referential and circular. If you do not know the terms and feature structure in detail it is hard to infer it from the sparse documentation.

My users are getting increasingly frustrated with Basecamp and using it less and less even though I am trying to maintain their enthusiasm for the product (since our existing email/listserv method is such a hassle).

Mark in Seattle, keep it simple: You can add as many companies—and people in those companies—as you need (regardless of your plan). Keep companies for external businesses, like clients or contractors. Add your own team members to your own company, then manage their permissions. You can choose to add them automatically to all new projects, or only to the projects you specify.

Yes, as Mike said—just add as many companies to each project as you want, and then if a client logs in that’s on more than one project, they see all of them.

The Basic account doesn’t change how your clients can access the program, so I wouldn’t worry about that.

As another new user, I too have been confused by occasional references to clients and contractors in the help pages. I assume that Basecamp does not actually have entities called “Clients” and “Contractors”, but that it’s simply a question of setting up Companies and People, and giving them the appropriate privileges. Is this correct?

Yes, chazzo, you’re correct: Use Basecamp’s Companies and People entities for external businesses, like clients and contractors.

Thank you, Mike. Basecamp seems to me so well thought out that it doesn’t need much explanation. But the references to clients and contractors in the help pages gave me the impression that these might be specific entities within Basecamp.

And what about the FAQ on Can I change a project from an internal project to an external/client project ? Surely I can add new companies to a project? In fact, I’ve already done it.

Yeah, I’m not sure what that FAQ is about. Best way to think about it is that the project is internal, until you add a company (and then it’s external.)

Contractors used to be an actual “thing” in basecamp…a kind of entity you make. That’s all been changed for at least a year, though.

It would be nice if contractors came back.

I have the issue of certain contractors I don’t want to give access to everything in a project e.g. just messages not writeboards

I find I have to set them up as clients then the job defaults to their company

BRING BACK CONTRACTORS!! :-)

Thanks

The functionality they had is the same as far as I remember…it was more of a naming convention. I could be wrong, it’s been a bit. Read the old forums about it, there was some heated discussion.