Basecamp: My Cloud Collaboration Toolbox
As one of two administrators, I use Basecamp to support professional, personal and volunteer projects. The range of projects that I've …
Starting at $15 per month per user
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What is Basecamp?
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool. Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, as well as mobile accessibility, unlimited users, and 3rd party integrations. Basecamp is priced by space requirements and concurrent projects.
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Popular Features
- Task Management (117)4.848%
- Team Collaboration (117)4.242%
- Document Management (109)3.737%
- Resource Management (98)3.737%
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Author, Analyst, Editor, Researcher
Self Employed (Information Services, 1-10 employees)
Pricing
Basecamp Business
$99
Cloud
Per Month [Unlimited Users]
Basecamp Personal
Free
Cloud
Limited Capabilities
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://basecamp.com/pricing
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $15 per month per user
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Basecamp - 2-minute Demo
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Basecamp Project Management Review
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- Competitors
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What is Basecamp?
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool developed by 37signals in Chicago and launched in 2004. The Ruby on Rails framework was extracted from the Basecamp project.
Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, including to-do lists, wiki-style web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking and a calendar, and a messaging system. Mobile accessibility is supported. Notably, it supports unlimited users. It also offers integration with 37signals' own Campfire product, which expands the group messaging functionality of the core platform. Customization, accessibility, and functionality are extended further by the broad range of apps available for free from 3rd parties. A 2-month free trial is available. Pricing is dependent upon space requirements and the number of concurrent projects, not the number of users.
Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, including to-do lists, wiki-style web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking and a calendar, and a messaging system. Mobile accessibility is supported. Notably, it supports unlimited users. It also offers integration with 37signals' own Campfire product, which expands the group messaging functionality of the core platform. Customization, accessibility, and functionality are extended further by the broad range of apps available for free from 3rd parties. A 2-month free trial is available. Pricing is dependent upon space requirements and the number of concurrent projects, not the number of users.
Basecamp Integrations
Basecamp Competitors
Basecamp Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Basecamp is a web-based project-management tool. Basecamp offers features standard to project management platforms, as well as mobile accessibility, unlimited users, and 3rd party integrations. Basecamp is priced by space requirements and concurrent projects.
Basecamp starts at $15.
Reviewers rate Quotes/estimates highest, with a score of 8.3.
The most common users of Basecamp are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Recommendations
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Basecamp:
-
Learn and Utilize Basecamp's Features: Users recommend taking the time to learn about all of Basecamp's features and functions. They suggest getting training or working with someone experienced in Basecamp to fully utilize the platform. This recommendation helps users make the most out of their Basecamp experience.
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Set Up a Standardized System: Many users suggest setting up a system or process that everyone can follow when using Basecamp. This recommendation helps to ensure consistency and streamline project management within teams.
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Consider Other Tools for Advanced Functionalities: While users find Basecamp handy for organizing projects, offering instructions and feedback, some reviewers suggest using a more advanced tool, like Monday.com, for large teams collaborating on projects. They advise evaluating additional functionalities and comparing prices before deciding on Basecamp.
Overall, users recommend considering Basecamp as a low-cost option for small teams with straightforward projects. It is recommended for organizing projects, managing workflows, facilitating team cooperation, linking departments, coordinating tasks, and storing data. However, users caution against using it for purposes other than its intended use and highlight that compared to more advanced tools, it might seem basic and limited in benefits. It is also suggested to stay updated with appropriate titles and efficiently organize projects while using Basecamp. Additionally, Google Drive is recommended for file management purposes.
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Reviews
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November 21, 2017
Best way to work with projects and events!
We currently using Basecamp in our department. Basecamp is type of project managing service that lets you do almost every kind of things about your work. So, the main reason to use it is its simplicity, Basecamp is a well designed and easy program which provides your work with all projects. As a software developer, I always need project management software to collaborate with my staff and also work with my projects and events. And Basecamp suits me perfectly.
- It is good to see all information in one place.
- Doesn't need too much time in first use.
- You can work with unlimited projects and events.
- It designed so perfectly, so Basecamp does not need to improve or update its design. It is just awesome.
- Sometimes there can be scrolling problem. They must work on that problem.
- And I think if they added a customer section to Basecamp, it would be much better.
October 26, 2017
Real Review of Basecamp
We use Basecamp to communicate with a range of subcontractor and to manage workflow both internally and externally. Basecamp was key to our successful growth from revenues of under $500k per year to over $12.5M in a little more than 4 years. With that kind of explosive growth, it's very easy to lose track of how projects are progressing. If this happens clients aren't happy we all know what happens next, they leave.
- Wonderful having all of the information in one platform that is very easy to search and extract exactly what you need
- Great insight into project progress
- Short learning curve
- Flexible
- We had some minor issues with outside vendor employees not understanding how to use the system
- Some outside vendors were slow to adopt but that's not really a Basecamp issue, it's more of a bandwidth issue and willingness to try something new on their part.
April 11, 2017
Great Project Management Tool for Small Businesses
Our company uses Basecamp as a Project Management software to keep our entire team in communication of on-goings and happenings. Our whole team uses this application to solve communication issues and staying on task when our whole business is run remotely. It's been very helpful for us thus far and we plan to continue to use it!
- Keeping your entire team in the loop of projects.
- Working in unison with email to get projects accomplished quickly.
- Having a company-specific area for content and information.
- Integration with HubSpot.
- No Client Area where you can host specific clients, just projects.
- Hard to work with multiple systems that have basecamp and run them in unison.
April 04, 2017
Basecamp - a home for group projects!
We use Basecamp to manage long-term projects amongst certain subsets of people, such as committees and task forces. It helps us keep everything related to the project in one place--emails, to-do lists, conversations, brainstorming sessions, schedules, calendars, documents, and files, etc. It not only helps us stay organized, but it can help keep us on track with our progress by sending reminders of upcoming deadlines, tracking progress, etc.
- It's super easy to use and has a very friendly user interface.
- It's simple yet can do many things.
- It keeps all materials related to a project in one place.
- It provides a nice visual for what has already been completed and what is still yet to be done.
- It streamlines processes and keeps everyone on task.
- I would like more options regarding notifications that people receive. Sometimes I want to make a change in Basecamp without everyone in the group receiving an email notification and clogging their inboxes, but I can only adjust my own personal notification settings. Some things in Basecamp, such as adding an event to the calendar, lets you choose who you want to notify, but this is not always an option.
- Some options are somewhat hidden in menus, and you have to search to see if they're available. They're usually pretty easy to find once you start searching, but it would be nice for this to be more obvious.
- When you send an email to everyone through Basecamp, it would be nice to be able to reply to only certain people instead of the whole group.
April 04, 2017
Basecamp is better when doing it with others.
Basecamp is used as an external collaboration tool set for working on small to medium sized projects with external vendors as well as internal controls to ensure the project is within scope and on schedule. One of the important factors that Basecamp can provide is to allow the use of communication and collaboration that can take out most time wasted in meetings and sometimes all remove the need for a meeting. Meetings are however still integral to kick off or engaging in very critical functions such as; resolving immediate issues, elaborating on complex topics or problems. However, much of that can be recorded or accomplished within Basecamp.
- Ability to login without the use of a password, as in, input your email address and a link will be sent to your mailbox to access the site. This improves usability and lower resources needed to administer lost or forgotten passwords or user account management.
- Promotion of success within Basecamp through applauds really helps stimulate positive feedback when a milestone is met, or someone completes a minor task to a major task.
- Free use of messaging on the message board and daily feedback from the site on activity from the previous day to all participants which helps streamline the communication and reporting to all rather than one person collecting reports or reliance on a few to report back.
- Latest Activity gives a nice timeline view of the activities occurred throughout the lifespan of a campfire or within the Basecamp instance itself.
- Samepage really has a better collaboration messaging system with channels and integration with other systems.
- There is some functionality with linking google docs but would like to see better integration with a more wide range of applications or office suite products since we mostly use this for working with external vendors that use a vast range of products as well.
- To Do lists are great, but would like to see better linkage to the messages, schedules and files. Sort of an overly complex request to a very simple process.
April 27, 2016
Basecamp Meets Higher Ed at UCF
We use Basecamp on projects and ongoing work at the Center for Distributed Learning for communication, collaboration, and to break down tasks into component To Do items. We find that the To Do lists provide a simple "eyeball" method for judging the completeness of tasks.
Our organization consists of various functional teams that are not required to Basecamp. Its use is completely optional but judging by the number of projects currently using it (43), our teams find it a valuable tool.
Some of the projects we are involved in tend to be long-term, slow progress efforts. It would be quite difficult to stay in touch with them without having a record of the goals, desired outcomes, and activity toward those goals. Basecamp solves this problem for us.
- For us the strength of Basecamp is the To Do list. To Do lists help us in three ways: 1) They help us document how work breaks down into component subtasks; 2) They provide a simple means of tracking work (eyeball method); 3) After the work is complete, the To Do list along with all the comments and notes attached to it provides a means to help predict the level of effort for similar tasks that may need to be done in the future.
- I personally use To Do lists frequently when reviewing media for online courses like software demonstrations, videos, stills, and any other content that might be included in the course. Each error, be it a typo, flaw, or design issue is documented a single line item. The To Do item is the assigned to a team member to be addressed. Basecamp notifies them via email. These completed lists provide us with a kind of measure of the initial quality of our alpha-level work.
- I like to refer to Basecamp as "Project Management Lite". Basecamp plays that role well and needs little improvement if used as a project accessory and not as a formal management tool. If I were to wish for one thing it would be that there be some sort of native reporting tool that would help in understanding the level of effort for tasks. I have investigated a few of the third party tools powered by the Basecamp API but have not been satisfied with any so far.
- For our needs here at the University of Central Florida it would be nice to have expanded options for managing user roles that include a wider range of "Super Powers" as Basecamp calls them.
- If you have certain projects that contain sensitive data or other information that must remain totally under your own control then you should probably avoid Basecamp since it is hosted entirely on their facilities.
November 11, 2015
Best tool for managing Client - Agencies relationship
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Basecamp is the main communication tool between different departments (marketing, PR, customer care) and our agencies (creative, SEO, social media). It really helps us to stay organised and save capacity of our mailboxes.
- Connecting all people involved
- Great project management
- Accessible from all devices
- Voting feature
- Instant messaging
Basecamp was used to manage projects by teams. We were able to solve the problem of not having a central server to store documents on, by collecting notes, documents and design files in one accessible location.
- Very simple to upload notes and documents.
- The whole interface is very easy to pick up.
- Managing multiple projects at one time was easy with dashboard view.
- The calendar could be more robust. I'd like to be able to see what a specific user is doing across multiple projects.
September 30, 2015
Getting Organized and Keeping On Task with Basecamp
As a freelancer serving a variety of clients, I needed a way to organize each project. After looking at different options, I settled on Basecamp for several reasons. First, is has a tiered pricing structure that will allow my business to grow when needed. Second, it helps prevent the dreaded lost/buried email problem. When you're corresponding with over a dozen different clients in any one week, it can be impossible to keep tabs on the important emails even with a convoluted system of folders and starred items. Basecamp keeps everything organized and in one place. Third, it allows me to set deadlines that are integrated with my calendar, so I get notifications on my phone when items are due. Finally, the document storage and ability to have comment threads attached to documents is extremely useful. I can post draft design options and the client can give feedback in the same spot, rather than needing to refer to an email attachment or download from remote storage.
- I really enjoy the ability to pick and choose which participants of a particular Basecamp will get each conversation thread and reply.
- The To-Do list feature is one of the most useful that I've found anywhere, with the big plus that I can subscribe to the feed from my Google calendar.
- While this feature is only for Gmail users, I'm a big fan of the new "View on Basecamp" button that appears in the preview of every email from Basecamp. That way I don't even need to open the email, I can just click the link and reply directly on the thread itself.
- Many of my clients enjoy the ability to reply to threads via email, rather than needing to login to their Basecamp account just to send a quick response.
- Basecamp's search feature could use some filtering. For example, I should be able to just search files or to-do lists.
- I wish that the main projects page had more information about each project, specifically what date it started, how many people are in the project, and if there are any upcoming deadlines. While you can find this information currently, it's in several different areas. The start date in particular is a pain to find.
- For projects with a lot of files, I would appreciate a feature that allowed sorting them into categories or some sort of hierarchical grouping. Currently they are all together with the most recently-discussed files appearing first and older ones one another page.
September 25, 2015
Basecamp - a perfect way to manage activities in the company
Basecamp is used by all departments including Meetings, Communication, IT, and others. It's a perfect tool for organizing projects, creating tasks, and managing activity. Basecamp allows to create a task, assign it to a specific person, set a deadline, track this task and report when it's completed. Also, users can create projects and invite people to participate.
- Beautiful web site with good instructions and tips.
- Tasks and projects are easy to create, manage and track.
- Users can leave comments and discuss projects.
- Everything is so great, that I can't think about any possible improvement.
I'm part of an IT team and our department uses Basecamp for IT team tasks and also with other departments to manage communication and tasks for (1) weekly on-boarding of new employees, (2) large on-boarding events, and (3) longer term projects like installing new tech in schools. There are about five to six teams, around 50 people total in our Basecamp environment.
- Basecamp is relatively easy to use. Some of our users are not especially comfortable or adept with technology, so having a relatively simple tool was important for us. Project Management tools are tricky, they are only useful if everyone gets on board. Basecamp's ease of use helps everyone get on board.
- Since Basecamp is pretty widely used, there are a fair amount of online resources and training available. As IT people, we didn't want to implement a system we would have to train everyone on and support constantly. Our Basecamp users can get a decent overview and have their questions answered really easily by searching the web.
- It's quick and cost-effective. You can set up an account and start using it within a few minutes. Since it's priced according to how many "projects" you set up and not how many users you have, it's really cheap to use. We never have more than 10 projects going at once, so that means we pay $20/month *total* for unlimited users. We're a non-profit and didn't really have the resources to devote to more sophisticated (expensive) Project Management tools, so this was a big deal for us.
- My biggest overall complaint with Basecamp is that, although the interface is pretty simple, it's also pretty clunky. The point of Basecamp is to keep teams organized and working fluidly, but sometimes the rigid simplicity of Basecamp is as frustrating as it is useful. The project pages can start to look cluttered if a lot of people are involved in a project and they're creating a lot of discussions and posting a lot of files. If you have a lot of people to invite at once (like us, 50+), the interface for inviting them to Basecamp and organizing them into teams and groups is tedious. If you don't keep up with this tedious task as new users are added, then you risk having them lose out on communications. Some level of Active Directory integration or even just a simple email list import function would be a welcome addition.
August 19, 2015
Projects of all sorts enjoy camping here
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Basecamp directly to manage and share projects we're developing for clients — in order to gather feedback and create a consistent platform for reviews. Many talents involved in projects are distributed geographically and Basecamp makes it easier for all involved to have a single access point to one or more currently-open projects. Similarly, we have worked with other vendors who have set us up in Basecamp as "clients" so I've experienced Basecamp both as an "end user" and also as "administrator".
- Flexibility in posting various file types and the ability to preview files "in-line" is a great asset. (the ability to download assets is provided but is not "required" for those who simply want to review work.
- Speed is great. Basecamp's responsiveness and lean, uncluttered user-experience makes for a product that doesn't inhibit workflow processes on our end.
- The ability of Basecamp to send out communications via email (and similarly in-line them based on emailed responses) is a benefit when working with end users who (for some reason or another) prefer to provide feedback by email alone.
- Basecamp is great for project tracking, but is not necessarily a good platform for project "management".
- When many projects are at play, users begin to get "lost" in the clutter of content, comments, task lists and various items.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
On our team we use Basecamp when designing new products or features. Designers will post comps and the team will provide feedback. Not a very taxing process, but Basecamp handles it well. All interested parties are internal so everyone sees the whole conversation. I'm only every really in the Projects view.
- Provide a central location to provide feedback
- Notify team members of updates to a project
- Add new team members
- Add new comps
- I have none. For my simple use case it is more than enough
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We have serval use cases for Basecamp:
- As a project management tool for software implementations.
- Internal project management tool for our external clients as well.
- Very easy and short learning curve.
- Intuitive UI design.
- Good email notifications/updates.
- No overall timelines.
- No calendar or actionable calendar reminders etc.
- No approval or review processes for non account holders.
- Not a sophisticated platform - straightforward and simple.
We use Basecamp throughout the organization to manage projects and communicate among teams. Basecamp is a lifesaver for us since we all work remotely and don't have a centralized office. With Basecamp we have one point of contact for all documents and assets as well as an accessible record of inter-company communications. The module is simple to learn and makes it easy to monitor and evaluate the progress of multiple projects at one time.
- Project management - easy timeline set up and review, automatic alerts and reminders.
- Document management - one secure, consolidated location to store and reference historical and working documents, organized by project.
- Communication - message boards and notes allow teams to stay in sync when working remotely and even on different time schedules.
- The interface, while easy to learn and use, could be a designed to be a little more intuitive. As it is now, you have to spend some time thumbing around in order to get acclimated with how to locate things you need and work with regularly.
- Some of the lists are a bit redundant - i.e. to do lists. While viewing the main to-do list for a particular project, there is another list immediately to the right that basically re-lists all of the to-do list titles. To do lists would have to be extremely long to need this function. A small calendar or other tool may be a more efficient use of this space.
March 13, 2015
Basecamp helps organize your projects
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Basecamp for file sharing and collaboration on projects across the business and with our external vendors. Basecamp makes it easy to organize our projects and work with large file internally and externally while assigning tasks and responsibilities around each project.
- Notifies selected users of new tasks.
- Easily share large files.
- Combines all work into easily accessible files.
- Better organization of multiple tasks under different projects
March 10, 2015
Basecamp was a great document management tool
Basecamp was used by a Digital UX vendor that we engaged on our project. Primarily the company used the program to store and organize files such as wireframes, visual mockups, project plans, etc.
- The user interface was simple to use.
- I did not need any training.
- Versions were clear.
- User comments as they related to versions were clear.
- Basecamp is a great file storage solution but as a PM I did not feel it covered other areas of Project Management.
- I found it difficult to really understand where a number of items were in the process based on the setup and resorted to using a MS mpp stored in the file storage.
- Ultimately I spent a lot of time looking for information that I thought was pivotal to being a project tracking tool.
March 10, 2015
Basecamp - Project Tracking & Collaboration
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We mainly use Basecamp during project delivery phases for collaboration between both internal and external teams. This aids clarity of communication and ensures that issues, risks and milestones are managed in a transparent manner.
- Issue tracking - having a contact log for issues that ensures tracking to completion.
- Document management - documents such as specification, designs and basic screenshots can be added and retrieved easily.
- User interface - the solution is simple to use and intuitive enough that only the most basic of training is required, even for non-technical team members.
- Multi-media support - it would be good to be able to preview multi-media files.
My introduction to Basecamp was through my position as a web developer at a university. My small unit decided to use it to help manage our tasks and it was extremely helpful, though we didn't use it to its full potential. Fast forward a few years I took on a freelance client who was in another city. I suggested we use Basecamp so we could better track the tasks he wanted me to work on and we could converse about each item and have a clear record to refer to. Now I am using Basecamp with another organization that has a very robust system the relies on Basecamp. We log each task that needs attention and it helps our engineers and developers focus on what needs to be done, ask questions, get answers and log time. I actually can't imagine any successful organization being able to function without this kind of tool.
- Ease of use - Basecamp is very easy to use and takes little training to understand.
- Time tracking - It makes tracking time on each task easy to monitor, record, and report.
- Effectiveness - We are able to track our tasks very effectively and make sure nothing is forgotten.
- Records - It is very helpful to have a record of each discussion and decision made about a project. It also makes referring to older projects very easy.
- The search feature is a little too rudimentary. I would like to be able to finely tune my searches on certain topics - especially with regard to date posted.
March 06, 2015
Basecamp - clean and useful
We utilize Basecamp throughout the organization. It is especially helpful in keeping client projects on track and on time. The ability to integrate a client into the process is a great feature that is useful to avoid having to update the client on progress separately. The consolidation of effort is tremendous.
- Searchability within all projects for information stored within.
- At-a-glance view of where the project stands.
- Email integration is key.
- The calendar could more easily integrate with Outlook calendars.
- Would like to see the ability to 'brand' an account or project.
- Native integration with Slack would be nice.
March 05, 2015
Basecamp, communication management the easy way!
Basecamp has been the de facto project management tool for our company, internally and externally. We use it for all our internal project management but also as a communication and project management tool for our clients. For each client project we set up a different project and handle all related tasks and communication through Basecamp.
- Communication between company and client. All messages are addressed to the right members of both teams and the communication is never lost.
- Easy task management. A simple approach to task management always looks and works much better than complex tools. Each tasked is assigned to the right person and all communication for the task is right under the task.
- File management, related to each task or message. Each message has it's own files attached to it and it's easy to find anything you want based on popular categories. A life-saver!
- The lack of customizations on the tool itself. Only a few features to alter.
- Time tracking is not that robust.
March 05, 2015
Basecamp - Online Project Management Colloboration
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We've setup the sandbox environment and have experimented with the use of it for our Project Management teams internally; and, then with the ability to share it with external clients. During our sandbox testing, it allowed us to replace the use of Microsoft Project locally and allowed us to review and communicate on projects remotely as we do not have Microsoft Project Server in place.
- Resource Management/Planning
- Mobile Device Support
- Team Communication & Task Assignments
- Ongoing Support & Training
- While there is an impressive list of third party integrations, some of the tools we use were not represented.
- Would like to see electronic document signing capabilities.
March 03, 2015
Basecamp is great for design projects!
Basecamp is a useful project management tool that's used by a lot of advertising firms. I'm a big fan of it and how it allows easy assignment of tasks; has a simple and easy to use website; and has a useful and easy to use app. My only gripe is the cost, but then again, companies need to monetize somehow!
- Gaphic design projects
- Web design projects
- Project Management
- Could be a little cheaper
- A desktop app would be nice
March 03, 2015
Basecamp does the job
Basecamp was used for managing projects as well as individual tasks within the projects. I am not sure if the entire organization used it or just our department. We did some research prior to signing up for Basecamp and it seemed to be one of the best solutions available for project management.
- It's very easy to get started.
- Each user sees a different dashboard with information relevant to them.
- No need to exchange emails back and forth. It works very well in a collaborative environment.
- I think there are similar products available for free.
February 25, 2015
Super-solid project management platform
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Doesn't over-complicate things, easy to add team members to projects, UI is clean on the small (mobile) screen, and the large pics of everyone on the project adds a nice personal touch.
- Integration with the Google API would be great, as well as some CRM functionality. I know, I know, I want it all...