Basecamp 3 Review

One of Basecamp 3 most appreciated feature, “Work can wait”.

Since 2004 Basecamp has been one of the most famous and most used online project management tools, made by one of the most opinionated software houses in the industry. In 2015 they released the third version of this professional project management tool, shaped as always around their simple and minimalistic approach to work. We have to emphasize a fact: if you have experienced some complex tool such as Microsoft Project or similar software, and – most of all – if you like this approach, Basecamp is the farthest thing on earth from you. Everything’s boiled down to its essence, and there’s no space for fuss or redundancy. If you don’t like opinionated software house, able to make a decision on your behalf, that’s another reason to stay away.

Basecamp 3 doubles down on its predecessor (Basecamp 2, introduced in 2012), trying to keep everything simple and succeeding with no hustle. It gathers many features such as to-do lists, chat, calendaring, scheduling, documents management and creation – you can also attach a Google doc. Chatting and communication, in particular, are features where the team sweated over, integrating Campfire (a long-gone chat system they used to sell as a separate product) into the SaaS. They added a panel called “Hey!”, where you can find all the latest news about your projects.

Automatic check-ins, “Regularly scheduled questions and answers”.

Among the improvements, you can now assign tasks to multiple people, which comes very handy when programming a project. There’s a “Report” tab which gathers many interesting shortcuts to tasks overdue, new, to be done, and so on. Everything’s in flux: so you can begin a message, or a document, and leave it as a draft until you complete it.

Maybe the biggest improvement has been on the client side: now your clients won’t see every step of your work, but only what you choose to show them. It’s very efficient in reducing chaos and getting the right feedback from your clients.