Basecamp vs. Boardable

Basecamp is a wonderful tool for teams of varying degrees of technical knowledge, teams managing lots of different types of "agifall" and waterfall projects, and teams that are remotely distributed. It's probably less useful for more strictly agile-focused development teams, compared to other more flexible software applications like Jira and Asana.

Incentivized

Boardable is definitely worth the cost. It’s extremely valuable and there are new tools and updates being released all the time. Their staff reaches out for feedback and is easy to reach. It is a great resource for managing our board meetings and being effective, supportive, and interactive for our Trustees. I never want to waste our board members' time and Boardable helps us deliver an outstanding and engaging board experience.

Incentivized

• Task management - It is very easy to add, organize and discuss tasks within Basecamp's interface.
• The "Campfire" function is great for communicating when you just have a quick question for someone on the team.
• Notifications - Basecamp lets you decide how often and about what you'd like to be notified. The ability to respond to messages in Basecamp directly via email saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

• Organize and execute Board & Committee meetings through the "Meetings" which allows you to build your agenda, attach documents, create minutes, and send out a summary of the meeting once completed.
• Provide a very versatile Document Center where you can archive all types of documents for current and future use.
• Polls, Tasks, & Decision-making features. These tools allow for broadcasting to members at large or to committees important information to be acted upon. It also keeps a record of responses.
• Reports--this is an area we are just beginning to appreciate since it provides overviews of board member engagement and progress made within committees and the board at large.
• People Directory--an invaluable tool for orienting new board members to current members as well as allowing for board members to contact each other.
• Goal Setting: this is a tool we are just starting to use. It allows for the tracking of progress for board projects and/or fundraising.

Incentivized

• High Learning Curve. It's true that it can be easy to use, but to use well and effectively takes some time to learn. It's recommended to have an agreed-upon system in your team of what tools to use and when.
• Notification Overload. If people aren't careful they could send a notification to everyone when only a couple people were meant to be prompted. And since emails are sent by default, you could have your mailbox overloaded with unnecessary updates. This is where it takes a bit of training in your team to have an agreed-upon system.
• Lack of organization with Archived Projects. I will often need to reference an archived project to make a new one, but there is only a list of archived projects in alphabetical order, with no way to organize by archive date, or even search.

Incentivized

• Meeting scheduling can be wonky with polling for a date
• A lot of the most valuable features are at a higher price point beyond the basic package.
• Opportunity to improve the minutes builder

Incentivized

When I bring new people onto a project, it's immediately obvious how to use Basecamp. I don't have to worry about teaching them the features or walking them through it, it's just incredibly user-friendly. For this reason, I'll continue to renew my subscription even as new people are brought onto production jobs or the client changes.

If it was solely up to me it would be a no-brainer, however, it has to be a board decision.

Incentivized

It is easy to use, even for clients who have no experience with the platform. It can only get a little cumbersome to ensure that a client can't see certain documents you might want to keep in the Docs & Files folders. And sometimes, getting a client to actually use an unfamiliar platform can be a challenge.

Incentivized

Boardable is very user-friendly, easy to manage, and building agendas and setting up meetings is functionally easy.

Incentivized

I've never experienced downtime while using Basecamp, or been unable to access it when I needed it. That's not to say they've never had downtime, but I've been lucky enough not to encounter any, and I work odd hours, including late nights when maintenance is often undertaken.

Incentivized

For the many reasons I've given, Basecamp is a very strong program. There are a few features I can imagine that might make it even better, but I don't have a basis for comparison to be able to say that there is definitely a better one out there. I've noticed that Basecamp has evolved a bit from the time I started using it until now, so that makes me think that the producer of this program values it and believes in continuous improvement. If you could use the features offered by Basecamp, I would think you could use it with confidence.

Incentivized

Very responsive, but only through a ticketing system at this time.

Incentivized

Decide the process before implementation - i.e. when it's due 8/9 does that mean 8am, noon, 5pm, 11:59pm? Check your to-do list frequently Set-up templates - just not with the dates (they can be funky)

Boardable provides ample videos, information, and support to enable new members to learn how to navigate the platform. However, not all members are motivated to learn a new software system. Lessons learned with onboarding new members is to do a Spotlight meeting with them that utilizes as many of the popular features our board uses so that they shorten their learning curve. As with anything new, "practice makes permanent!"

Incentivized

Pretty good, but [Basecamp] has its drawbacks. Honestly I find the interface non-intuitive and sometimes have trouble figuring out how to change the status of a task. Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was originally set up by the admin, but I'm not sure. I liked Jira's drag and drop obvious functionality, but the project management side of the software was lacking. Smartsheet has excellent project management functionality, but the task management isn't as good.

Incentivized

The main issue is this platform is designed and geared toward nonprofits vs. adapting a for-profit board portal. The second is the price point, while it has gone up significantly, is still in line with nonprofit budgets.

Incentivized

• It has saved me time when having to get the same message out to multiple restaurants
• It has helped us make smarter operational decisions because we can all collaborate on an answer in a shorter amount of time (instead of calling a meeting!!!)
• The calendar function allows us to plot out our marketing agenda for the month and add/change it together as needed. The chef will post his recipe, the managers will cost it out, the social media manager will post pictures on it, and ultimately we will get that information out on an info sheet to the staff by printing the page.

Incentivized

• Allows for a quicker turnaround in getting docs to board members.
• Provides a one-stop location for all board proceedings and documents.
• Pricing plans for getting up and running are easily among the best available with similar tools providers.

Incentivized