Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool. Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, as well as mobile accessibility, unlimited users, and 3rd party integrations. Basecamp is priced by space requirements and concurrent projects.
$15
per month per user
FogBugz
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
A software project management system used to plan, track and release great software with this lightweight and customizable system that integrates into any project management workflow. FogBugz is designed for software development teams and includes all the project management tools developers need straight out of the box. Users can: Track projects from start to finish - With tasks and subtasks for each case with required details and track them to ensure…
I like Fogbugz a LOT because of the compressed list view. This was essential to me when my team and I were working on anywhere between 100 -1000 cases. I can't imagine having 1000 Jira tickets to manage the processes that we were managing. It's much easier to work with a …
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.
FogBugz has been a very useful tool to our organization, and much preferred over other options we reviewed, mainly JIRA. There are still some improvements needed, but with the fairly recent acquisition by DevFactory, we have a great deal of hope for what is in store given DevFactory's focus and transparency. It seems like both DevFactory and FogBugz customers are eager for substantial improvements on the front-end, but there is/was a great deal of backend housecleaning that definitely needed to take place first.
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.
Tasks, Subtasks, and notes. All three of these areas were critical for our team. Tasks in Fogbugz were a bit easier to see than in more bug based software like Trello or JIRA
The entire screen is used to view a task or case. Clicking on a task or case will open up and take up the entire screen, aside from the sidebar nav columns. I like to see details and I think Fogbugz does this very well, using up as much digital real estate as possible.
Flowcharting in Fogbugz with Creately is nice - instead of getting an exterior flowchart software like Lucidchart, Creately works right in Fogbugz.
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.
The simplicity of a single admin type user is not great because anyone who can create a job or client in the system, can also add and delete users. Content and User administrative rights should be separated.
There are ways to change the terminology/lexicon within the tool, but we are not able to get it to work even after reaching out to tech support. So we are forced to use the system terminology that doesn't match up to our company making training a bit difficult.
There is a subscribe function that you can opt into, there should be a way to add subscribers as you create a new task.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Saves time by quickly allowing Developers to make the necessary notes without getting bogged down in bloated UIs
Has allowed us to look back easily and see the exact code changes made for the exact Case to aid in decisions for current changes, increasing the certainty of the decided path, without regression
