Basecamp vs. Premier Construction Software

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

Jonas is well suited for the construction industry and for trades that work in construction. The functionality and features are set up to streamline the processes that take place daily, weekly, and monthly. You are also able to manage the big picture and track your company's information for multiple years, making it a scalable software. Our administration and project managers can streamline work from the field to the office through Jonas and we feel that is one of the biggest benefits to Jonas

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

• Job Dashboard gives you a great summary of that job at a glance. I can even pull direct reports based on the fact that there are drill-downs.
• I can go right to the receipt with the GL report drill-down capabilities.
• Workflows make the product accessible from anywhere for approval when I have people on the road.
• Dragging and dropping reports to in AP will then go to documents under the job it is attached to.

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.

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• Workflows could be more customized
• Invoice and Subcontractor portals could be easier to use
• Blanket changes across jobs when a policy/template is changed

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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.

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Using Premier Construction Software is intuitive. Most of the modules work the same way, so once you learn to use one, the others come easily.

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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.

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Jonas Premier has some of the best support we've received in this business. Whenever there is an issue or question, we receive a response in a timely manner and get follow up as well. We have never had an issue getting something resolved and our feedback is always taken into account

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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)

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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We came away from Sage 100. We looked at Computerease and Foundation among a few others. These two were looked at most seriously.

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• 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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• Jonas has positively impacted our Accounts Payable and Receivable department by making tracking and processing organized and streamlined. Previously we were having to track invoices and payments through emails and various formats. We are now able to connect each AP or AR invoice to the job and subcontractor, keep track of the billing due dates, and have all the paperwork generated from Jonas.

Incentivized