Basecamp vs. Dotloop

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

In Real Estate sales and property management, Dotloop will be your best friend. When you need clients or tenants to sign a lease or a contract, sending through dotloop is extremely easygoing and keeps everything organized pertaining to what you name the loop. I think I speak for my whole office when I say that without dotloop, our lives would be a disorderly mess, and we would find ourselves losing papers and becoming confused. Dotloop really helps our office like no other and has great support along the 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

• Dotloop has a great user interface. The features that seem small but are a huge help such as automatically scrolling to where the person needs to review and sign is very creative.
• It has been great to be able to pull documents from the app on a mobile device to a web browser on a desktop.
• It is very easy to organize documents (add, remove, arrange, edit, etc.)

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

• The viewing could be a bit more user friendly when opening from different types of devices.
• It would be nice if there was an alert that clients don't need to try to login when opening a document since they don't have an account.

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

The Brokers I've connected with that used Dotloop in the past have also had the same issue I had. Their relationship with "thousands" of MLS listing services is not true. No one took responsibility for not communicating this early on. Everyone just pointed the finger at other departments and did absolutely nothing to alleviate the situation.

To add insult to injury, the system crashes during peak usage, making it near impossible to submit offers promptly. If requested I am more than open to provide the video showing both when the system crashes and the aforementioned issue

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

Good support but onboard training could probably be a bit better as well as documentation. But we rarely need support as the software works flawlessly once you know how to use it. Very happy with support so far and I recommend the product.

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

I personally feel that Dotloop is much more organized and easier to use. It feels more efficient to use and I have noticed the majority of the people I work with are more aware of Dotloop and trust it more

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

• Great at allowing our management to see what is going on within the office
• Great at quality and compliance with the submit for review function

Incentivized