Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the main event of the night…In the red corner we have Basecamp, and its opponent in the blue corner is TeamworkPM. We've updated this review to include stats as of October 2014, which should give it value well into 2015.
A review of Basecamp and TeamworkPM is important if you want to determine which project management software best suits your agency's needs. In this matchup, you'll see that Basecamp handles project management and that it focuses mainly on collaboration and communication, while TeamworkPM was created to allow you to run your business in a much leaner manner, especially when your existing software is too basic.
Let the battle begin...Ding, Ding.
Basecamp
Basecamp has a great reputation for being a user-friendly project management software that is perfect for taking care of smaller projects. Some of Basecamp's features include:
- Active Projects Presented: 10 to Unlimited
- Contract Agreement: Month to month, Annual
- Data Storage: 3 to 500 GB
- Free Trial offered: 60 days
- Monthly Rate: $20 to $100
- Number of Users: Unlimited
Easily share your ideas
Basecamp offers an easily accessible discussion area where questions can be asked and where you can give any personal opinion on a project. You can comment on any item directly as well, which helps with keeping the communication streamlined and all your information in one place.
Work directly from your email
A Daily Recap email is sent to you from Basecamp each day. In this email, they let you know about any updates made and the status of your tasks and projects.
Adding another task or providing task updates to your team can be done via sending an email as well. It will appear in the system afterwards and everybody will be able to view it.
Find files effortlessly
You'll never lose a file. Ever. Again. Basecamp offers a very powerful search tool that searches all your tasks and projects for the terms you specify. A list of all the files that you uploaded can be viewed for every one of your projects. The search tool makes your unorganized team members look like champions!
Recurring tasks
Several of your tasks probably recur each week, month or quarter. With Basecamp, you can schedule these tasks to recur at certain time intervals. It saves you a lot of time, because you don't have to re-enter all the data for these tasks.
The first time you submit a task, you have the option to select how often you want the task to be repeated. You know how sometimes tasks seem to slip through the cracks? Look professional and like you have it all under control by keeping them up to date.
Manage your user permissions
You can select, as the admin, who is able to view what project and decide what each user can and can’t do. You can grant certain people more power by giving them permission to handle billing, create their own projects or become an admin too. The power is in your hands, use it wisely.
Restore any deleted items
It sometimes happens that you or one of your team members accidentally deletes an item, such as a file, and the world as we know it seems to come to a halt. With Basecamp, you are able to go into the trashcan to restore any deleted items with ease. It might not be a feature that you will often use, but it will definitely come in handy when important files vanish into thin air.
What Basecamp's Missing
Time tracking is difficult
Basecamp offers no real-time management tool, which is a substantial problem when you count on setting yourself project completion milestones. In addition, they don't offer Gantt timeline charts, which are incredibly efficient for scheduling. If your company deals with many projects and a very tight schedule, then you might not be 100% satisfied with Basecamp as your project management option.
You have no way to analyze data
The lack of any reporting tools is going to be a problem for quite a few companies. You can’t analyze any of your data, which is imperative when making informed decisions for upcoming projects. There’s no way to analyze how you utilize the tool in order to make improvements for the future.
Milestones are missing
The Basecamp project management software doesn't support milestones. Therefore, you can't track any of your major events from within the Basecamp system. Milestones are helpful when it comes to staying on track with each of your projects. Brace yourself, this may cause some major time management mix-ups.
The layout can't be customized
Your project workspace or dashboard can never be customized with Basecamp. If you like your projects to be laid out in a specific manner, then you may find Basecamp frustrating, even though their design is extremely easy to understand and use.
On to the next contender...
TeamworkPM
TeamworkPM offers excellent web-based project management software that is ideally suited for small teams and freelancers that mainly do client work. Each of your projects can have its own tasks, milestones and task lists. Plus, you can send messages between team members as well as clients. You can share files, group edit documents and track time accurately.
Web Based and Fully Hosted
TeamworkPM is a fully hosted, subscription service that doesn't require you to download or install anything. When you create an account, you are given a sub-domain for your company.
Pricing
Their plans are limited according to file storage space and projects. Each plan presented allows for unlimited companies and users. If you pay annually, you are eligible for a discount.
- Free plan: 2 Projects (Includes 5 MB storage)
- $12/month: 5 projects
- $24/month: 15 projects
- $49/month: 35 projects
- $99/month: 100 projects
- $149/month: unlimited projects allowed
Features
- Projects - Each project is allocated tasks and task lists, milestones, time tracking, notes and file uploads. You can handle company and user access at the project level.
- Time tracking - Easily log the amount of time that you spend doing each task for your projects. You can mark the logged work as billable, which makes it much easier to invoice your clients.
- File sharing - Upload and share your files effortlessly within each project. The space available to you is determined by the plan you choose.
- Tasks and task lists - All your tasks, or to-do items, are grouped into task lists. Each list can be assigned to a milestone. A great feature is the ability you have to comment on the tasks. This comes in handy, especially when the task turns out to be more complex.
- Notes - Notes are documents that any of your team members can edit. They are useful for the tracking of login information, project specifications or added reference materials for your team. With this feature, you can keep track of those tiny details.
- Messages - Each project has its own message board where clients and team members can communicate with one another. You can email messages out to the relevant team members and their replies will be added to the message board automatically.
Track your time
When it comes to Basecamp vs. TeamworkPM, the latter offers many useful advantages when it comes to handling various projects at a time. Not only does it offer accurate time tracking, but TeamworkPM also helps you add up the time. The timers can be run through a standalone Adobe Air application or via the website. This is incredibly efficient when it comes to accurately billing the work that you complete.
With the timer app, you can pull tasks from the main TeamworkPM program and move them to your desktop as inactive timers. With this feature, you can go from one task to the next during your day, while the time is being counted as you work. Updating your time sheets are just a click of a button at the end of each day.
Dependant Tasks
This might be a feature that fewer people need, but being able to line up your tasks to only be activated after an earlier task has been completed is very handy. It also allows you to “load up” specific jobs without drowning everyone with worthless information.
It can be a highly effective tool when you're getting client approval. When you add a “get client approval” task to a list to make the tasks dependent on that, you don't have to stare at the endless list of tasks that you can’t start yet. Because how depressing is that.
Assign tasks to several people
Unlike Basecamp, you can assign one task to several people. If you want to manage your project professionally and efficiently, this feature will help. When you have a priority job that is pending, you can effortlessly assign it to those that are most qualified to complete it. The first available person could then grab the job and complete it, making it possible for the next task to be completed quicker! It’s all about being proactive.
Recurring tasks
If you deal with many weekly, monthly and quarterly recurring tasks, TeamworkPM will save you plenty of time. You can easily set up recurring tasks for matters as diverse as quarterly server audits and weekly performance checks, for example. This can help you ensure that all your regular jobs are completed promptly, but additionally, it will ensure a more even workload spread, which will prevent those dreaded end of the month panics.
Improve your reporting
Calling up reports and exporting them into either PDF or Excel is done promptly and trouble-free. At the end of the day, you will receive an email that updates you on all your projects, which includes a breakdown of what is still due for the day.
When comparing Basecamp and TeamworkPM you'll find that TeamworkPM offers Gantt charts, which are incredibly useful when managing many different projects and viewing their data throughout the project over time.
Functional dashboard
A lot of software out there tends to overload you with data. With TeamworkPM, you still have access to a full dashboard that shows the most recent projects you are busy with and the relevant items from each project. At the top of the screen, you will find three tabs – Upcoming Tasks, Today’s Tasks, and Late Tasks - that will prevent total panic.
All you need to do to view what tasks are due next across all your projects is to click on any of these three tabs. It allows you to toggle between all the upcoming/today’s/late tasks that are assigned to you or to everyone else.
TeamworkPM gets it
In addition to all the top features this software offers, they make a great effort to understand the needs of their users. They are actually interested in knowing how they could improve their product. You can expect a highly responsive team at TeamworkPM that is always ready to answer your questions and troubleshoot your problems.
So, who wins the battle… What project management software is ideal for your business?
Unfortunately, we can’t just watch Basecamp and TeamworkPM brawl it out. You have to sit down and assess what your requirements are and exactly what you want from your project management software before choosing. This comparison gives you two of the best and most well known options on the market. Once you become familiar with the features that each software offers, it’ll be much easier to make a decision about what will work best for you.
Think about what kind of clients you have, how extensive your projects are and what features stand out to you the most between these two programs. Overall, TeamworkPM has the most comprehensive list of features that make it a more well-rounded software. We believe TeamworkPM has slipped passed the competition and won the battle this time. All hail the ever wonderful TeamworkPM!
What are your thoughts on Basecamp vs. TeamworkPM? Let us know in the comments below.