Basecamp vs. ClickUp vs. Solutions2Share Teams Manager

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

It has been great for all of my needs - tracking elaborate tasks/subtasks and their timelines, instructions, time spent, reporting on time, etc. I did try to use it for lesson planning and time tracking for homeschool and it got too hard to view and keep track of all the automations I had set up and if they were firing at the right times. But that's the only time I can think of where it didn't really work for what I needed!

Incentivized

It's well suited if you or your organization performs tasks incorporating other Microsoft programs such as OneNote or Planner. Teams Manager allows for easy management of that software usage; if you do not use any of those, I'm not sure if there is much advantage in using it to manage workflow.

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

• Visualizing your work in a digestible way, far better than the default tools my company suggests we use.
• Easy intake of projects/tasks and working on the fly in conjunction to desktop work.
• Cleanly structuring knowledge bases and being able to use that info in your projects and tasks/deals.
• Flexibility in being able to build the workspace around your personal workflow, without it being fragmented or confusing.
• Keeping all context about deals/tasks/projects intact and easy to access with simple workflows.
• Being able to run the same abilities of so many other business tools, all in one place, in a far more connected and simplistic way.

Incentivized

• Handles different teams and teams members
• Giving them permissions as per their job profile and necessity
• Seeing the projects' progress through one platform

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

• I would like to see when scheduling a task for someone, their available hours, as I am scheduling instead of having to go back to the workload view
• I'd like easier UX and understanding of what all of the different levels of folders, lists, tasks, can do and what they should be used for
• Notifications can be cleaned up

Incentivized

• user interface can be enhanced to seperate the color coding for different channels
• It would be great to receive notifications in Outlook for Shifts and be able to approve/deny requests and schedule changes there while it's synced with the Outlook calendar.

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 has been a game-changer in terms of project tracking, as animation is a demanding product that requires multiple layers of analysis, revisions, tracking, scheduling, etc. ClickUp simplifies many approvals as anyone can easily add items, and you can tag the people who need to look at them.

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

In general, I think the usability is probably great. The reason I didn't give it as high of a score is because at the last 2 companies I worked at, they each used different software. So I was already used to those. Learning their UI isn't hard, but always a little annoying to learn something new.

It is a well-designed and polished application on Teams. Most of its issues stem from Teams UI and UX, which could be improved further. However, if you can fit the team manager to your needs, it can become a very powerful tool to manage data flow.

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 over a year ClickUp was unavailable to us just twice for a couple of hours. I would say for a system this big and working globally that was a minor issue. They managed to fix all the issues within a couple hours and then it was back up and running perfectly fine.

Incentivized

The speed of ClickUp is average to be honest. This is one of the biggest flaws of the system, sometimes it's also lagging a little bit but we also have a lot of documents, lists etc. on our workspace. However, with the next version of ClickUp I've seen they are planning to increase the speed by almost 500%, probably by changing the technology, so I am more than looking forward to it.

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

I started using ClickUp when it was what most would consider a baby company. There were the occasional bugs that made working in ClickUp a little bit of a headache, but the support feature allowed me to chat with a real persona and communicate my issues. I would always get prompt support and someone willing to really help me, not just point me to FAQ pages. Not feeling like a number really makes a difference.

Incentivized

There are multiple guides on literally all of the functions you can find within the system, therefore it's easy to learn anything you'd really like to use, starting from project and people management, down to Gantts, mind maps, time tracking, inviting Clients as guests to work with you on the projects and so much more.

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)

Start small. Don’t try to build the most elaborate plans first. Resist the urge to get into Gantt charts if no one is used to them. Just get work written, add dates and assignees, and start getting used to it. If you did not use a work management tool before, you need to be gracious with yourself about the fact that you likely do not have the muscle memory for working this way yet. But you will get there.

And leverage people who know it if possible. Look for ClickUp experts and vendors. They can really supercharge your effectiveness at building the tool out and speed up the process.

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

For me the customizability of ClickUp was unmatched. It really felt like there was no limit on what I could use it for and how I could organize things. For specific features, their Docs are really my favorite part. The customizability and ability to directly link to related tasks/docs/etc. is incredible. The closest I've found to it is Notion, but Notion is not as user friendly and doesn't offer all of the other capabilities that ClickUp does. When I first started using ClickUp, their pricing played a huge factor too. I thought their pricing was the most reasonable given the number of capabilities it came with. However, that's definitely changed over the years. They have a bad habit of moving certain functionalities from one tier up to a higher one. Or they put a one-time usage limit on a certain feature and once it runs out, you're forced to upgrade. Their pricing has become less competitive because of it

Incentivized

We still use it for our one-off situations, but mostly stick to Teams as it is much more user-friendly and allows better sharing capabilities through virtual meetings. Skype is not as easily customized, so it's a no-brainer to use Microsoft Teams and Team Manager for all of our instant messaging and virtual meeting needs.

Incentivized

Scaling with ClickUp is superb. If you create a workflow best suited for your organization then it's all about creating new accounts and teaching the new employees the workflow you're using. It's that simple. There is no black magic when it comes to Clickup.

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 us to meet from anywhere in the world.
• Allow us to provide reports and updates via computer to leadership.
• Leadership in our organization have praised IT for the use of ClickUp because the tool is exactly what was needed. Before, we were depending on spreadsheets to keep track of work.
• ClickUp brings organizatins together in ways that other software has not. It provides everything we lacked and needed to get out organization up to the standard as other large universities.

Incentivized

• Positive in regards to easy access to quick answers through instant messaging
• Positive in that the Managers have a secure place to go to retrieve sensitive information.
• Negative in that we do not fully utilize the tool.

Incentivized