Hi all,

I’d like to know something, and it’s not usage based, it’s product offering related:

• Who is interested in 37Signals maintaining the FTP Storage feature originally offered to Basecamp users?

• I am a very satisfied user of Basecamp, even considered an evangelist in my company… But: data access restriction and banking laws are pretty strict, and storing sensitive information on US-based servers via a service provided by 37Signals, which in turns outsources operations to 3rd party vendors… that is a tough sell to auditors, regulators, managers… actually it is not sellable, full stop.

• So I understand this STP feature was some extra work for 37Signals, but I’d like to know if it is worth it? or if the decision to silently decommission this feature if not already used by their customers, is economically wrong?

Anyone who’s facing the same issue as me (bring the data back under one’s own control or stop using this tool), please speak up!

Thanks in advance

P.S.
If you found a way around the legal and regulatory hurdles, am equally happy to learn about it. I am based in Europe and work for a bank whose customers are only banks, hence the very strong FTP storage need

FTP remains an option for those who’ve used it in the past. It will not be an option moving forward for new customers or old customers who never used external FTP as file storage.

FTP file storage has been permanently replaced by Basecamp File Storage which is included with each account.

This has been covered before in other threads, but here is the official answer again:

The feature is file storage, not ftp

One of the reasons we removed FTP is because we replaced FTP with Basecamp file storage. FTP was originally conceived as a temporary hold-over to allow people to upload files until we were able to offer our own hosted file storage system for all paying plans. Over a year-and-a-half has gone by since we introduced Basecamp file storage. We’ve phased out the old feature (FTP storage) and replaced it with the new feature (Basecamp file storage). We’ve also increased the file storage limits on Basecamp File Storage significantly since we released it 1.5 years ago.

Tiny usage, huge frustration

Another reason was that the percentage of support resources dedicated to troubleshooting and continuing to support the old FTP feature didn’t make sense any longer. FTP has been the most frustrating thing for our customers. It’s frustrating for us as well, but we don’t want to offer frustrating experiences and broken features that we can’t correct (almost all of the FTP problems were related to the FTP server configurations on the customer’s end that we have no control over).

Decision based on numbers, backward-compatability, and customer behavior

Businesses of all kinds have to make decisions about backward-compatibility and what they choose to support when a newer, more modern feature/version has been introduced. FTP was used by a tiny minority of active customers and an even smaller percentage of new customers were choosing the FTP option as time went on. A year-and-a-half later, we’ve made the decision and phased out FTP.

Current ftp users grandfathered in

In fact, FTP isn’t entirely phased out. Existing FTP users are grandfathered in. If you were using it you can continue to use it. New customers or people who’ve never used it will no longer see the option.