Basecamp vs. TimeClock Plus

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

I think the best place for TimeClock Plus to work would be at a restaurant or a busy business that has a lot of people to track and needs a robust dashboard to keep things in order. For my organization, we only have around 10 people max per location and it was a bit too expensive and complex for our needs. We could use a simpler system.

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

• Employees' time goes straight to the database we use. No having to manually enter time.
• No one can clock anyone else in or out at the time clock. We love that security feature.
• It exports easily into the payroll system we are using.

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

• Email notifications for entered requests do not always work, and the system will not send notifications from a manager user to a manager user.
• We set up schedules to run each morning to populate timesheets, but there have been many times when the schedules did not run, and hours were missing.

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's robust and does what we need it to do in terms of tracking worked time, also unworked time. It has a detailed Employee Profiles section but mostly it's because it keeps track of hours

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 absolutely love the ability to customize TCP to what you need it to be. There's lots of settings and areas where you get to decide how to want the system to operate. For every situation our team has said "I wish TCP would do it this way" we have been able to find a setting to adjust to make it do that. There are very minor adjustments I would like to make like hiding drop down menu items that we won't ever use.

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

It has never been unavailable when I've needed to use it.

Incentivized

Great performance, pages load quickly and reports generate quickly. They do take some time to complete if they're covering a large Start - Stop date, eg months but that's not an issue, they still complete fairly quickly.

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

• The support representatives respond quickly and work hard to resolve every issue. They are always friendly and courteous.
• The email notifications are our most significant issue, and they are still not entirely resolved.
• I dislike having to sign forms to allow them access to the databases routinely...it seems this could be an annual document.

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

TimeClock Plus is extremely easy to use for all employees!!! We want platforms that every employee feels comfortable using. Again, it is effortless to log hours on a day-to-day basis. I love that our employees have the ability to keep track of their hour details, such as paid time off, volunteerism, holiday, etc. This portal helps our team to stay compliant!!!

Incentivized

It's consistent and easy to use.

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

• At the time that we needed it, the system did what it promised, it kept track of team members' time.
• We were able to pull reports to see hours worked for payroll.
• It could be easily used by the staff.

Incentivized