Basecamp vs. Wondershare PDFelement

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's a wonderful asset to have when you lose your original Word doc, etc. so you can still edit a document (and not have to start from ground zero). That feature alone is why I bought this product and why I will continue to recommend.

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

• PDFelement provides the same powerful features as Adobe Acrobat, but the interface is easy to learn and use. The product is extremely intuitive, which saves our clients from becoming frustrated as they learn the product.
• PDFelement Pro's ability to create fillable forms with the click of one button is one of our clients favorite features. I was impressed at how accurately PDFelement performed this task and the ease with which these fields can be edited, if needed.
• Security is more important than ever these days and PDFelement provides the encryption and permissions to protect documents quickly and easily. I especially like the batch encrypt feature, this makes it easy to protect multiple files with the same password.
• PDFelement makes it easy to extract the data from form fields. This is a huge plus for our clients.

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 wish there was a lighter program for just reviewing a document and then to transition seamlessly to an editing mode. It takes a few seconds longer to load than Preview on my Mac, and based on that frustration, I use Preview to view documents.
• A lower price for upgrades.

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.

Excellent, easy to use product

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

I am a novice and I am using it like a pro because it is so easy to work with

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

No issues. Works perfect

Incentivized

There is a lot of learning. Although some of the functions you can probably pick up relatively quickly, some of them, including compressing the size or using a different language, remains a myth to me.

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

PDFelement is always in contact with me, by email and by giving constant tips and recommendations. But what makes me give you a 10, was the outstanding support service received on July 9th by one of your support professionals Amanda, who helped me with a tariff issue, and makes me [rate] your product.

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)

Just pay, download, activate and start using it

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

I didn't try or buy other programs, but did a good bit of research on them. I went with PDFelement because of the lower pricing, and because of the rich features I learned it had. I also appreciated the great customer service I received from reps in the community forums, which showed me they have an aim in keeping their customers happy - which is always good to have when using fairly complex technical apps.

Incentivized

Super easy Word style layout and format.

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

• For me, it's been very important to me that my business as a pet sitter and dog walker not leave a negative footprint on the environment. To that end, it's been very important that i'm able to do as much paperwork as possible without using paper. PDFelement is wonderful at helping me meet those goals.

Incentivized