Basecamp vs. Ventiv IRM

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

Ventiv IRM works great for companies with a large number of sources of data, record management, and reporting needs. The system will be able to handle multiple users, processes, or other functions that a large company may need. Ventiv IRM would not be a good fit for companies that may not be large enough to justify the cost of a powerful platform like IRM.

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

• Support Portal allows direct access to support tickets, their status, and having programmers/developers reach out directly to me to clarify my requests.
• Taking a big project and putting it into smaller, measurable pieces that move the project from beginning to end.

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

• Setting up a new Advance Query report - sometimes I run into glitches
• When creating/implementing a match merge, the two claims that are set to merge, need to be typed EXACTLY the same (UPPERCASE & lowercase matching on both, if one is all caps and the other is lowercase, the match merge is not successful)
• I do wish there was a way to self-match two claims instead of waiting for the match merge.

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 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

Very usable. The team is always suggesting "tweaks" that allow for easier flow, better understanding of the information needed. This even includes in moving categories/sections in a records around so that the flow of the record is better

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

Support will reach out to me and I LOVE that. Often I want to show them what I see and they have always been willing to jump on a Teams meeting so I can do that. This has also helped me understand how to explain things better (support speak). This has led to closing tickets, completing projects sooner.

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)

The actual implantation was not good. The system is fully customizable so Ventiv was ready to give us what we wanted; however, we never had a system so we didn't fully understand what we wanted. Since then, we hit "reset" and we are steadily moving forward.

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

While Ventiv IRM is a bit more expensive than another platform we have used and evaluated, we get a lot of value that helps us make informed risk management decisions. The system works for us, and not the other way around. We're able to use integrations from other sources (such as Navex for reporting and our TPA, and Gallagher-Bassett for financial claim information). The system is easy to use, update, and manage, which is helpful too.

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

• Effective Data Management and Governance.
• Increased Productivity and Efficiency.
• Improved Risk Grading and Analytics.

Incentivized