Basecamp vs. BoardPro

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

The best scenarios for the use of BoardPro are highlighted when there is planning, development, coordination, execution and monitoring of projects and activities, in addition to being an information panel for all the members of the different teams of the organization, it provides the ability to hold meetings, an integrating element that stands out from other software. The management of the boards is exceptionally intuitive and easy to use, in addition to simplifying its content in a way that is easy to understand for all people, granting continuity and consistency to the work or works to be developed. An area of opportunity where it could be developed in a better way is offline work, since it will not be possible for your team members to work in this way.

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

• Agenda-setting and writing minutes is very easy with the built-in structure offered
• Compiling and distributing Board packs with BoardPro takes a fraction of the time it used to - and updates to papers are so much easier
• Ability to hold all governance documents in one central repository is useful for external Directors
• Directors find the Board paper annotation feature very useful. New updates to this have made it an extremely powerful tool.
• Flying Minutes feature is very useful for obtaining formal decisions between meetings and then automatically adding them to the next set of minutes.
• The ability for Directors to update their own interests in the Interests Register is efficient and puts the responsibility on them to ensure this is up to date - this is automatically included in each Board pack.
• The actions feature is fantastic - allocating a person responsible and an action deadline which then is followed up by BoardPro email reminders keeps people on tasks and allows the Chair to stay on top of actions as they are reported in the Board packs each meeting.

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

• development of an Android app (at the moment available only on the Apple store)
• a section for the Q&A answer for users at the beginning level
• upload also excel format documents

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.

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

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

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)

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

BoardPro is on a different playing field than monday.com, in fact, BoardPro is in a league of it's own. I used monday.com at a different organisation board and actually found that I did not use it. I found it easier to download and read the PDF board pack that was provided to me. The user interface of BoardPro is such that the software is easy to navigate and use, it is intuitive and such a delight to use.

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

• It has made meetings more enjoyable and flow faster
• We are able to get through the formal agenda quickly and focus on strategy
• The strategic decisions that have occurred as a direct result of using BoardPro have added real value to Search Republic

Incentivized