Teamwork Project Manager

Basecamp is a software service from 37signals that was launched in 1999 and enjoyed great success due to it's simplicity and for being one of the first of it's kind.

However over the years a number of shortfalls in the Basecamp software have come to light and have been continually requested, by it's users. These shortfalls include an overall calendar, highlighting of upcoming tasks, regular software updates, multiple language support etc.

TeamworkPM launched in 2007 and comes with a more up-to-date user interface and a number of important features missing from Basecamp including a calendar facility to help see what your team are doing at any one time.

About.com wrote in their review of Teamwork Project Manager, More Features Than Basecamp - There are many upstart services trying to copy Basecamp. Teamwork PM is one of the better ones.. You can read the full review here

Top Reasons to use Teamwork Project Manager instead of Basecamp

We think Basecamp is good software that will serve a lot of businesses well but these are the top reasons we think you should consider using TeamworkPM instead of Basecamp.

1. The cheapest Basecamp account is their Basic 24/month plan. We have a 12/month Personal Plan
2. Project Templates : Teamwork allows any project to be used as a template and includes Files, Notebooks, Comments, People and Permissions. Basecamp only allow Tasks, Milestones and Messages.
3. Recurring items. You can create recurring events on the Teamwork calendar and set reminders for yourself.
4. Assign Tasks to Multiple People: This is a massive feature that Basecamp don't have. You can assign multiple people from multiple companies to a single task and choose whether everybody or anybody in that list of people have to complete the task.
5. Time Tracking Time tracking on Basecamp is only available on the 49/month plan. We offer it on all our plans, even our FREE Plan
6. Custom Domains & Transparent Branding Basecamp has now only one domain. BasecampHQ.com. There is quite some controversy over this Transition but we are not going to do this. We have 8 domains to choose from and if you don't like ours, why not use your own? You can get all the benefits of a hosted application but people access it from your company domain e.g: projects.mycompany.com We also remove any mention of TeamworkPM if that's what you want. Basecamp heavily brand their application.
7. Better permissions. The project permissions in Basecamp are limited; you can only give project access to a user with 4 settings - No access, Messages & Files…plus To-dos…plus Milestones. TeamworkPM on the other hand has a powerful hierarchical permission system with fine grained options that include Access Allowed. View Messages & Files , View Tasks & Milestones , View Time Log , View Notebooks , View Risk Register , Can access invoice Tracking, Can add/edit milestones , Can add/edit task lists , Can add/edit messages , Can add/edit tasks , Can add/edit files , Can log time , Can add/edit notebooks. And our customers tell us that this is great but they want even more permissions(!) so we are looking at adding even more fine grained permissions which would be turned on only if required. Our permission architecture is a nice bit of database-driven software engineering that gives us flexibility going forward. All this said, you might think that managing permissions is difficult in TeamworkPM but give it a go and you'll see that we have made the interface really intuitive and easy to use.
8. Flexible Payment Options - Don't want to use Paypal? Don't want to use a credit card? Want to pay for a year ahead and get a discount? We understand. Contact us on support@teamworkpm.net and we will arrange a payment method that suits you. Basecamp only accept credit card payments on a monthly basis.
9. Calendar - TeamworkPM provides your company with a powerful calendar that can be used to track everything. Basecamp doesn't have this despite their customers repeatedly asking for this in their forums. So there is no way in Basecamp to plan your teams holidays on a visual calendar or to let people know that you are out at a meeting or remind people that they have an event tomorrow. The calendar we have also sends reminders via email and SMS text message (for free) to remind you that you have an event.
10. Project Resources - You can embed 3rd party apps and links within your Teamwork projects.
11. A nicer interface - OK, this is a matter of user preferences but from the comments we are getting from ex-Basecamp customers (see below) we think it is safe to mention this. This includes things like more Ajax around the place for faster updates.
12. 24 Languages. if your users or customers speak another language, TeamworkPM can probably display the entire interface in their language making it easier for them to use. Teamwork currently supports 24 languages. We have volunteers around the world helping us fine-tune the language settings. Basecamp have started to add languages (May 2010) and currently support 8 languages in Beta.
13. We listen to our customers - One of the key complaints is Basecamp does not believe in sharing their roadmap with the public. One disgruntled user even made a website (whybasecampsux.org) about their attitude (we have absolutely nothing to do with that website). We consider our customers to be our business partners and listen to their needs. Send us an email and you'll see just how down to earth and friendly we are. At the moment, many users on twitter have messages saying how impressed they are with our responsiveness.
14. Set percentage of task complete - In TeamworkPM, you can set how much of a given task you have completed.. just to let people know. Basecamp doesn't have this.
15. Set priority of tasks - In TeamworkPM, you can set the priority of each task and sort the task lists by priority (and by date or by person responsible)
16. Options - We actively listen to our customers and we know that businesses have different needs. So we offer options that can be turned on or off as you need or as your company's need grow. An example of this is the Enhanced Security option which prevents users using weak passwords. Another example is the ability to turn off the "Remember me" option on the login screen.
17. A more generous free version. We give 5megs of file storage space and room for 2 projects with all free accounts. Basecamp don't give any storage space and only 1 project with their free account. We also allow Time tracking on our Free account.
18. Nicer Customization - instead of just the ability to change a few colors in the header section of your site, which Basecamp offers, Teamwork Project Manager allows you to customize colors that affect your entire screen layout. TeamworkPM also gives you a real time preview of how the colors will look as you change the colors. Basecamp just gives you a small sample as you change the colors. in addition if you upload a logo with a white background to Basecamp, it doesn't look great (even with their option to put it in a while box), especially on the login screen. in Teamwork, your logo is always presented nicely.
19. Privacy - There are certain things you can't make private in Basecamp such as Milestones or Client Details etc We added this. You can hide client details from other clients if you want. Milestones too can be made private.
20. Our Roadmap is public and driven by the community. Basecamp does not believe in sharing their roadmap with the public. We do. And our feature direction is driven by responses and comments from our users. Typically this is done through the Feedback feature within the project where any user can submit a bug report or a feature request. We try to listen to everyone, reply to everything and get essential items done as fast as possible. You can see the daily progress including new features and bug fixes on our roadmap page.

Note that as the time of writing, this list is accurate but if you spot any inaccuracies, please just let us know..

What has Basecamp got that Teamwork Project Manager doesn't

Basecamp has been around over 6 years and we are just coming close to 3 years old so naturally they have some features that we don't yet. And we want to be completely honest with you. These are the features that Basecamp has that TeamworkPM doesn't (yet):

1. WYSIWYG Editor on Comments and Messages. Basecamp recently (May 2010) added a simple WYSIWYG editor to help with Textile formatting. This is on our Roadmap.
2. Start Message by Email : Basecamp have added a Project Email Dropbox which allows you to email a message to a project. This is something on our Roadmap.
3. Publicity. The team at 37signals have done a great job promoting Basecamp. We are working hard on this and are continually developing our website. Will will also be releasing an affiliate program soon.
4. Multiple Companies can be marked with permission to view private items. We have plans to make this a Project Specific feature.

How to make the switch?

Just sign-up and then you can use our "import from Basecamp" option that is available on your Site Settings page. it will pull in all your users, projects, milestones, tasks and time logs.

Not Convinced?

OK, don't just take our word for it - the latest testimonials we received that mentioned Basecamp are listed here.. (See all testimonials). Finally we invite you to just give us a try.