The message feature is nice but it would be great to initiate one via email. Backpack offers an email per page. Why not offer an email address for each project? so project@mysite.projectpath.com would also archive the message under messages and any files attached will then be in the Files archive? Sounds good, no?

+1

yes, please. i was amazed, after using Backpack prior to using Basecamp, that this great features was not included.

Yes, I find that a helpful and even essential feature in highrisehq…. so it would be great to get the same functionality in basecamp as well.

They started with the direct e-mail feature in Backpack, and then created it with the inception of Highrise. My understanding is that they might be working on a solution for Basecamp. However, I know that it has added complexities since each user has multiple projects, and each project has messages, to-dos, milestones, writeboards & files. So as much as it would be a great feature, I don’t envy the amount of labor involved to make this feature viable.

Actually I don’t see this being that complicated. Let’s say I have a project called “Relativity experiment”. In the settings, there would be a new field called project nickname (just one word to describe the project; So in this case I would choose something like say “relativity”). Then the email for that project becomes nickname@projectname.sitename.com.

This will only work for messages (not todos, milestones etc.; or maybe it could, who knows). So an email to this adress (or a cc) will achive the message only and copy any files to the files folder. It can also include a check that only email from project members will pass through. Any thoughts, Jason?

achive = archive

Please Please… with projects like ActiveCollab catching up with the relatively stagnant features of basecamp, this is THE killer feature. The hardest part of using any online collaboration tools is getting people to use it. Allowing participants to CC an email to basecamp and have a record of their thoughts with the rest of their project notes would be amazing.

Ummm, as I recall activity on ActiveCollab effectively died when they announced it would no longer be free.

I don’t know where you got that impression Michael. There will be two versions of ActiveCollab, one which will remain free as I understand it. The “pro” version will require purchase but won’t be a recurring monthly fee like Basecamp…. as I understand it.

I got that impression because I had been tracking it quite closely until this January past. I saw the posting activity fall of the chart after they made the “No longer free” announcement (except the occasional whining “I call foul … phrrt, booo, capitalist pigs” post; slightly embellished for entertainment value).

Personally I’ve no problem with people making money, or using other’s products as the stepping stone template to improved products (with all due attribution), but I witnessed neither with the ActiveCollab (AC) product. My experience includes installing AC on a server and running it for awhile.

While Basecamp needs to intelligently and strategically evolve to address REAL emerging needs and shortcomings whilst avoiding bloat, suggesting AC is a threat is laughable (dead or not). To wit, I still have the same Basecamp accounts (yes, that’s multiple) I had before trying AC.

Am I some blind 37 Signals fanboy delirious from too many glasses of the Basecamp kool-aid? You’ll have to check my posting history for that answer.

:)

We could use this feature just about every day, forwarding emails from clients who don’t get in the habit of logging directly into their projects. For them, email is still their preferred communication tool; for us, Basecamp has just about taken over completely. Personally, I’d rather not use email at all, but this request is more for their benefit than ours.

Specifically, I’d love this to work the way Highrise does: the forwarded email looking like a new message from the original sender (not the forwarder.)

This is the exactly the feature I want most and I miss from backpack.

Mike,

Agree entirely with you. We still get clients replying to our basecamp messages via email either because ‘they can’t be bothered to log in’ or ‘it’s easier’ or ‘I don’t get it!’

We then have to cut and paste etc etc.

Being able to fwd or cc to a basecamp project would be great but even I can see the problems in making it happen right.

E.G. Will each mail be added as a new message or will it ‘intelligent’ identify if it is a comment to a message thread and itself as such? If not, we are going to end up with hundreds in some cases of unconnected messages which will make it a nightmare for us to monitor what is going on.

If it can be done, please bring it on! In the meantime, being able to select file categories when attaching files to messages would be great!

+1 for this feature.

A very basic version of this could be done with the API. You wouldn’t likely be able to get intelligent comment posting, but you would be able to specify the category for the project.

If there was something that would let you set up an “email import” account, which would use the API to allow you to forward messages into the system, would it be good enough to start using?

It’s clearly not as clean as a 37signals provided mechanism would be, since we can’t do things like post a message from a given user (without knowing their credentials.)

Interested?

Rich, it’s not always a case of ‘can’t be bothered,’ ‘email’s easier,’ or ‘I don’t get it’ for some clients. They work in email, and Basecamp is just one more thing they have to deal with. (I understand their reasons, I just don’t agree with them ;-) Now, the adding replies as comments thing couldn’t be that hard, because the email already contains the message ID … surely it’s just a few lines of code. (Running, ducking.)

There is another HUGE issue related to this that I don’t think has been mentioned. It is that many people now live by their Blackberry’s. We work in the construction field and many of the people involved in a project are in front of a PC a very small portion of each day, yet they are very E-mail savvy and respond to most E-mails almost immediately with their Blackberry. Others use Blackberry’s (or equivalent device) for the majority of their E-mail because are constantly traveling. For them it is impossible to (easily) work within Basecamp and not only that, it is actually a step back for them to try and do so. That is another reason a project E-mail would be a nice feature. I have a major project I am working on right now that I would love to use BC on and I’m not even going to try because the two major participants answer 80% of their E-mails from their Blackberry’s.

Interesting observation, David. I wonder what percentage of Basecamp users are also mobile device users today? And what the Basecamp UX will be like when the majority of users use mobile devices (which aren’t PCs)? Do you work on integrating and synchronising messages, milestones and to-do’s with other organiser systems, or do you hack together solutions like Highrise’s task+nextweek arrangement?

I use my BlackBerry with Basecamp. It’s not perfect but it works. You see all the hidden div stuff all the time though, which can get a bit weird (it gets even weirder on highrise).

Although I like the idea of emailing into a project, I don’t like the idea of allowing people to reply to comment notifications to do that.

I like the idea of emailing to respond.. and actually blackberry users (both myself and my clients) are the primary reason I want it.

We also have hit a brick wall in terms of clients in the US who travel, and use Blackberrys. They do not want to use Basecamp!!! (Sadly).

It seems that Blackberrys (or crackberrys as I have heard them called) are quite a big thing in the States?

Yes, they are quite a big thing. In a way, because of the same reasons that Basecamp is popular. The interface is well designed and makes sending E-mail when on the go very easy and quick.

+1 for this, or something along these lines.

After years of using basecamp, and constantly refining the spiel I use to introduce my clients to using it, I still every now and then get clients who will attempt to respond to the notification emails, and then don’t notice the bounce (if they get one). I posted several pleas about this in the old forums, and it’s still the bane of my BC existence.

Just happened again today. Me: “why didn’t you send that list you promised me?”; client: “I sent it two weeks ago! Why didn’t you get it?”

You might accuse me of being remiss in my BC training, or my clients of being idiots (I’ve heard both these things in the past), but I don’t think that’s true. It’s just a hole in the system that ought to have been plugged long ago.

I had a new idea: if you don’t want us emailing message replies directly into BC (something you said you were seriously considering like 2 years ago, 37s) at least do something creative with the bounces. Like how about bouncing back a reply that has a link “click here to post this reply to <project name>”, and link will take you to the comment form with the text of the email pre-filled? Or, as has been suggested, send an email to the project owner alerting that a bounce has happened, along w/ the text of the email sent? Or just forward to the message author?

Please do something about this! the “DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE” may work 95% of the time, but the other 5% are a continual ongoing problem.

+1

We need this feature to get people off email and on to Basecamp.