Basecamp vs. Microsoft Project vs. Projector PSA

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.

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Microsoft Project Online is suited to Turnkey Projects where more Collaboration is required in Project Progress monitoring, risk assessment and conveying, issue recording and tracking. It is less appropriate when ERP Suites other than MS Dynamics are used, i.e when Enterprises need to integrate Finance / Accounting with It and having straight project management workflow

We think Projector PSA is a great tool to track and manage people in a professional service environment like management consulting. This system is easy to set up, easy to understand and should easily suit the needs of smaller and medium sized firms. It may be less appropriate for firms that rely very heavily on project management through another system (like MS Project) or firms that rely very heavily on a sales pipeline tracking system. While still very much possible to use, you would (I believe) have to do some re-keying between systems

• 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.

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• I love the Gantt Chart that Microsoft Project offers me, because it provides me with a view from various aspects, it provides me with exact details about the fulfillment of tasks over a period of time, it also allows me to make comparisons with the necessary data and the fulfilled data. by the employees, in order to know exactly if the project's expectations have been met.
• I love the Gantt Chart that Microsoft Project offers me, because it provides me with a view from various aspects, it provides me with exact details about the fulfillment of tasks over a period of time, it also allows me to make comparisons with the necessary data and the fulfilled data by the employees, in order to know exactly if the project's expectations have been met.
• The alert system for the fulfillment and delay of assignments is perfect. Microsoft Project allows me to configure the task system, I can assign the necessary tasks to fulfill the project, and the software alerts me immediately if the managers are fulfilling the assignments.

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• Projector is a very well designed tool for project management. It has allowed us to eliminate a number of auxiliary tools for project timelines and WBS for the vast majority of our projects.
• Time and expense entry is intuitive and quick for our staff.
• Our forecasting and resource management capability has improved greatly with Projector and allows us to grow our team efficiently with minimal additional administrative burden.
• Reporting is extremely robust. It does require some time to really get a handle on the full functionality of the reporting tool, but once you do, you can get almost any kind of report you want out of the system!

• 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.

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• Seems overly complicated for users sometimes in using Project and its functionalities
• Hard to share files for those folks who do not have MS Project, and then have to print out for them
• Can be confusing since it looks and feels like MS Excel

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• Release management process needs to be improved. Currently no facility is provided to test the impact of new releases in a sand-box. This introduces business risk if there are interfaces into Projector PSA as part of it's use in the business.

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.

I like using Microsoft Project. It simplifies building a schedule

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We have been using this tool for a year now and find our use of it continually evolves and broadens. We are also very excited about the overhaul that's under way and feel many of the improvements being put in place will help make us that much more effective and efficient. The Projector team is also very responsive and collaborative in terms of user feedback and improvement suggestions, which helps us know they will work hard to help us get what we need out of the tool.

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.

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Microsoft
Project is easy to operate because data could be inserted, changed and
deleted like you are in an Excel timesheet. Besides, it provides a great
level of automation beween his fields allowing few data changes. Also, its
funcionalities are well defined and grouped in upper menus, so you can find a
funcionality quickly

Desktop interface feels complex to new users.

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.

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In 5 years of use we have never experienced an unscheduled outage.

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.

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Microsoft in recent years has transformed itself and gives a positive feeling when one interacts with the company. The company is focusing on its customers and willing to go extra mile to make customers happy.The company continues to invest in its products and bringing new features from time to time. Overall it is a positive feeling to be associated with such an iconic company.

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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)

I wasn't part of it so I don't know

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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.

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While many of the above tools are extremely well-versed, Microsoft Project's largest advantage comes from it being related to the largest business productivity company in the world. Project does have its sharing limitations - but regardless, offers one of the most robust tools in the market today. Microsoft Project is built with large-scale projects in mind but is more than up to the task for smaller projects as well. However, there are options available (especially cloud-based options) that may be more fitting for higher-level projects that do not require going into the weeds.

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We did pursue Quick Arrow another tool that was similar. We found that be in inflexible in use. Projector allows a lot of flexibility in setup. Our organization has very specific business processes and we were able to set up Projector to work with those processes. Several other systems we tried were not as flexible in allowing set up to our needs.

• 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.

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• Project saved me, as the project manager, countless hours of digging through tickets and schedules to plan everything out. It also saved me time in adjusting the project triangle as needed, since it does so much automatically.
• It is costly, and since it requires extensive training to master, it's not just the high licensing cost that you need to take into account.
• The reporting features - even just printing out Gantt charts - makes it far easier to communicate with stakeholders. That means less time for PMs doing all of this manually, and it means less follow-up questions and delays moving forward.

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• Even in the small time that I stayed to see Projector PSA reporting I saw ROI projections become more realistic. There was real data to analyze that proved we were spending way too much and charging way too less on some projects.
• Although employees were not used at entering their hours, this single reporting improved operations management and validated employees concerns that more people were needed to manage workload
• Project proposals were more realistic because they were driven by real data.
• Decision making overall for the department became more efficient and effective

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