Topic: How are you using Basecamp? / Blackberry Access

I am partial to Freerange for this on my Blackberry.

Topic: How are you using Basecamp? / Employee Adoption

Adam,

I think your suggestion about todo lists could also go a long way for getting people to use BC. I have a project that only I can see for this very purpose. I think other employees could benefit from being able to put their own info in a private list, it might help them use BC more. Otherwise people are maintaining actions in BC as well as their PDA’s, e-mail programs, whatever.

Or…if users could set up a personal backpack page w/in the BC account…

Topic: Tips & Tricks / Mobile RSS

Thanks Jon, I loaded freerange up and I do like the look and feel of it. I think I’ll stick with it for a while.

My only issue is that it does not pick up on who posted a comment. (This was my big problem with litefeeds as well)

Topic: Tips & Tricks / Mobile RSS

Has any of the Blackberry users out the found an RSS reader that works well with bacecamp? I am currently trying out Litefeeds, but find it limited?

Topic: Feature Requests / Comment emails on/off

I love the digest idea. While I am a big fan of RSS, but not everyone wants to learn another computer tool. I keep e-mail notification off on all projects to keep the system noise down. A periodic update email would be great. Vox does something like this by telling you what your “neighbors” had updated in the last week and I always like getting it.

Topic: How are you using Basecamp? / Completed To-do's = Messy Overview

I agree with Mike. I am just as interested in when something is completed as well as when something is assigned.

Topic: Feature Requests / show to-do list name in time tab

+1 on this.

Does anyone know if any of the 3rd party billing products pull the list name with each time entry?

Topic: Miscellaneous / Using Basecamp on phone/blackberry advice

Slapshotw,
Maybe you should ask jcostech for the $599 instead of the chocolates ; )

Topic: Feature Requests / Sunday-to-Saturday calendar

Good call Scott. +1 for shading Sat & Sun.

Topic: Feature Requests / Linking URLs in To Do Items

Jeff,

Benjamin is right. I would throw in that I find it a lot more user friendly when you set the target into a new tab. like:

<a href="www.msn.com" target="_blank" class=""> MSN </a>

Topic: Tips & Tricks / To Do list order in Overview

If possible I would actually rather that the overview (and more to the point the RSS feed) simply posted “to-do template _ created”. We use several templates with 10-15 items in them several times a week and it posts each item on the list individually.

IMHO, This creates a lot of noise for what really could be condensed into a more elegant signal.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Global RSS Feed vs. Project RSS Feed

Update Jamis tried to recreate this on his end last night using a login from one of my clients and couldn’t. I came in this morning and was able to recreate the problem.

I then grabbed a laptop that had not been used with basecamp and tried to recreate the problem & everything worked the way it should. I cleared the Cache & Cookies off of my box and everything worked properly.

So I don’t think there is a big problem here unless you are accessing feeds from other people’s boxes. There is the potential of leaving you access behind with Firefox Being spread across several buildings this is something I do from time to time so I need to cover my tracks better (or change my habits).

Jamis, thanks for the quick response!

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Global RSS Feed vs. Project RSS Feed

Richard,

I just e-mailed support, I let you know when I hear something.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Global RSS Feed vs. Project RSS Feed

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!! +1

I just tried logging in on an old client log in. When I got the global RSS through IE it asked for authentication and worked fine.

I tried it through Firefox and got everything!!!! oh yeah, without asking for authentication…

edit: my internal user’s rss seems fine (sage / firefox / XP)

Topic: Tips & Tricks / Global ping for clients?

Does Highrise have an e-mail all contacts feature? If so you could export your users to a highrise account and send out an e-mail notice that way?

Topic: Tips & Tricks / RSS Feed

No, your not missing anything. Sage is very light weight, it doesn’t pick up on the creator tag in the RSS.

If this is important to you you might look at Newsgator’s feeddemon.. I like it and had both set up for a while, but found I just really ended up using the Sage.

I would really like it if Sage did say who posted a to do (note_to_self: post request on Sage wiki.)

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Alerts for one company

I would strongly suggest this. You can use any RSS reader you like, I think a lot of windows people like Feed Demon. I personally use Sage with Firefox it doesn’t have near the features, but is very lightweight and runs as an add-on to the browser as opposed to having to run another app on your desktop. This will feed out messages to you whenever someone creates a to do item (or completes one) as well as messages, milestones etc.

It makes a huge difference in the usability of BC.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Bug Reports / Alerts for one company

Robert,

Are you using the global RSS feed feature?

Topic: Feature Requests / Links

1) The page your asking for sounds alot like a backpack page. I agree this would be nice to have integrated into basecamp projects.

2) try adding target=”_blank” to your link code (should load the link in a new tab)

for example…
<a href="http://some_cool_link.com" target="_blank"> Cool link</a>

Topic: Tips & Tricks / Global ping for clients?

I have a project setup that I use for orientating new users to Basecamp that has links to handy firefox add-ons & greasemonkey scripts and gives people a place to post questions or just experiment with to-do lists, writeboards or whatever they want. I don’t take active users off this so I use this to send out messages to everyone if needed.

This of course allows all of your clients to see who your other clients are, so that would need to be ok with you to take this approach.

Topic: System Announcements / Forum Update

Take a look at your RSS on the Basecamp forum. It is titled “Highrise recent posts”. (unless of course we are closer to integration than I would have guessed)

Topic: System Announcements / NEW FEATURE: "List view" for messages

Love it!

Topic: Feature Requests / Move items between projects

+1 for being able to move files from one project to another.

I have some general task type perpetual projects that spin off into more discrete well defined projects as users make suggestions. This would be helpful.

Topic: System Announcements / NEW FEATURE: "List view" for messages

Thank you! I think this will be a lot easier to navigate and explain. Up to now I would set up links to specific threads that are active over the entire project in the overview page because things would get lost as random comments pushed the significant threads to the bottom of the screen. I really look forward to trying this out. Most of my users are the antithesis of “webby” and I anticipate that this will be easy to roll out & explain. (famous last words)

+1 to Supriya’s suggestion +0.5 to Michael’s – (I could see liking having this, I just think 95% of my users would just ignore it)

I personally like the “blog” & “forum” titles… They are the right terms ,might as well use them (maybe my users kids will think their parents are a little more hip when they hear them talking about work). Did someone have a alternative suggestion? [Edit: sorry, richallum I missed your suggestion at my first glance through]

Topic: How are you using Basecamp? / How do you organize your projects?

I have several “perpetual projects” similar to what I think you are doing Melvin.

We started using Basecamp to provide a system to better track responsibilities, not so much for traditional project use. I have several committees and departments that have “projects” setup. They are listed by the committee’s name or by “Department – General Tasks” or “Department – function” in some cases where the same department has several projects. We use these to track the many things that we are constantly doing to try and make it clear who is working on what.

It is real easy to have a meeting, figure out what direction you want to go and not have it clear who is actually going to do what. In these cases there are many “sub-projects” that are defined generally by a milestone tied to a To-Do list and a message thread for that particular action.

We also have started to use BC for mare traditional projects, but have not settled into a strict naming system. Right now the project names are 2-4 word titles that give the gist of the project.