Basecamp vs. Traqq

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

Traqq is a great system when you are in the field of education. In my experience, it has saved me countless hours of figuring out how to remember the timezone my employees and students are located in. I used to use a written spreadsheet of each employee's timezone and one of those random timezone calculators. Being able to modify Traqq based on my employees' timezone, my timezone, and our company's timezone (the technical "working hours") has been a game-changer.

• 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

• Gave me a detailed report of my daily activities, even hours of productivity.
• My clients were not left behind every step of the way in my project. They had access to my activities and knew the periods I was inactive and even the apps I visited (although they blurred the screen, my clients were aware along the line, I visited a couple of applications) I loved that Traqq is conscious of its user's privacy. This is something you don't see in all Tracking apps.
• Helps me track my hours effectively. This way, I had no issues on paydays because I was receiving the exact money for the exact time I worked. This is the big deal for me because no one like to work really hard and be underpaid, and neither does anyone want to overpay a lazy freelancer. I really love this about Traqq.

• 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

• Lack of a clear option for dark mode, which would be useful to reduce eye strain as the app is predominantly white.
• No options to increase or decrease the level of detail in reports, which would be nice to change depending on what kind of report is being sent.
• Whilst the timeline is clear, it would be nice if it was a bit bigger, and perhaps if it highlighted key parts of the day.

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.

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

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

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

So I have used Jibble and Time Doctor for time tracking, but none of these would reflect the reasons for low/high performance of the employees as Jibble is just a time clock, and the Time Doctor won't yet make reports and send them to superiors right away. Traqq solves it. Honestly, I have never come across any software competing with functionalities like Traqq yet.

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

• I've been able to get things done faster with Traqq. One of my clients made a comment a while back(I asked for her permission before posting this). She said, "I loved how I don't get to pay freelancers for doing nothing, now I pay employees according to the quality of work I receive". We both laughed about it though, but I believe that's a positive impact on her.
• I've been able to write more, knowing that my clients can see my major moves. My main aim is to impress my employers to get good feedback in return and Traqq helps me greatly in that area.