Tag tab and streams in Highrise

Tags in Highrise are now accessible through the dedicated Tag tab and we've added streams that let you see all the notes from people tagged with a certain tag. This is a great way to get an overview of all the communication you've had with, say, "Leads" or people in "Marketing". Tags now have their own permanent pages as well and will show up as tabs when you access them. Enjoy.

Can constraints make your team better project managers?

If you often find yourself wishing Basecamp offered this or that feature, consider Mike Hargreaves point of view. He recently posted to the Basecamp forum that the constraints of Basecamp have actually made his team better project managers. And he even includes an Einstein quote to make his point.

I (too frequently) find myself wishing Basecamp had some particular feature only to realise that if we’d been working properly or more effectively in the first place then Basecamp’s feature set would be spot on, and I wouldn’t even be thinking about the feature.

1) I recently had to enter months and months worth of timekeeping entries, and could have requested a bunch of features, e.g., make the date drop down lists default to the last-used day, not to today’s date. In practice, though, the pain attached to working adding entries retrospectively helps drive the behaviour you’d prefer to see, namely keeping track of your time each day.

2) We’re currently dealing with a lot late milestones in our projects, so I’m tempted to support feature requests asking for planned v. actual milestones. In theory, it sounds like a good idea; in practice though, I’m not sure it helps us get the job done. (Albert Einstein: In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, theory and practice are different.) The better practice has been using the late milestone to spark communication with the client—the earlier the better—then just shift the milestone once we get agreement on the new date...

Failing to take personal responsibility may be a big part of the problem—not getting things done in a timely fashion—and the Basecamp constraint—manually assigning or taking responsibility for a work item—might just help you solve that problem.

It's great to hear one of our customers talking about the benefits that can be found by embracing constraints. In our view, constraints are often advantages in disguise.

Get your Backpack Calendar events on your iPhone (or elsewhere)

I keep all my events in Backpack Calendar because I love the streamlined way to enter dates and times there. But now that I've got a spiffy new iPhone that can sync with iCal, I want my events to show up there too.

Well, good news: It's easy to share Backpack calendars in iCal format and then view them elsewhere (e.g. in an iCal that syncs with an iPhone). Here's how:

1. Go to your Backpack Calendar and click on the name of the specific calendar you want to share in the sidebar.

2. Then click the "Share this calendar" link that appears.

Property management company uses Basecamp to track activities and repairs

How I use Basecamp: Property Management is a blog post about how a property management company uses Basecamp to track and manage activities and repairs at 16 different buildings.

In messages we post relevant information that we are always needing to look up for the building, things such as the physical layout / dimensions / size, the address, billing address, owners, the Tax ID numbers and such.

In To-Dos we have separate lists, Urgent Repairs, Repairs, General. Urgent Repairs and Repairs are where our Facilities Maintenance Company looks to find new things that need to be done at each building, that we have posted. When they finish the task they check it off and we all know that it is done. General we have made private, along with a list that we occasionally have called Tenant Issues, these can only be seen by our company, and revolve around different issues and tasks that need to be done by one of the three property managers that we have.

Milestones are used to track when our contracts expire and need renewal as well as other important date related information. Not exactly what the term Milestones is typically used for, but it works well for us. Especially the 48 hour notification that it gives...

That leaves us with Files, we have a dedicated file server at our office, so this is not where we post relevant info. It is however where we post important files that we may need to access off site in a hurry (not using VPNs and such).

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Networking, "Never Eat Alone," and Highrise

Never Eat Alone (And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time) is a book about establishing a strong network of relationships to help improve your business. Publishers Weekly says, "[The author's] clear and well-articulated steps for getting access, getting close and staying close make for a substantial leg up."

Highrise customers have taken notice too. A recent thread at the Highrise Forum: "Never Eat Alone: Highrise's Companion Book?" There, Ray writes, "It’s as if the book was written to accompany the launch of Highrise. It’s remarkable...The more I read this book, the more I think of inspiring uses for Highrise."

Laura R concurs, "I had the same thoughts while reading Never Eat Alone (which I LOVED by the way and was very different from what I expected). The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking has this guy discovered highrise yet? It definitely inspired me to take better notes about people and conversations and add them to highrise immediatly."

After the jump: some quotes from the book along with Ray's commentary.

Web Worker's Daily: Time to give Backpack another look

According to 37signals Updates Backpack for the Better at Web Worker's Daily, the new Backpack gives web workers "good reasons to give the online organizer another look."

The new Backpack now lets you dump text, images, links into a single “Collection” page when you’re in a hurry, and then relocate them item by item to organized pages when and how you prefer...It’s the primary reason I have now come back to the service.

The review also mentions Backpack's new search, OpenID Support, and 3rd party tools like PackRat that can customize the Backpack experience.

Search all your Backpack pages easily.

Read the full review.

Basecamp messages now include year of posting

Do you have a project in Basecamp that has been running for a year or more and need to know exactly when a message was posted? Now you can. On the permanent/comments page for a message, we're now including the year in the date stamp as per popular request.

Now you'll always know the year a message was posted.

Highrise hits 2,000,000

Highrise was released less than five months ago and today turned 2,000,000. Huh? Collectively, our Highrise customers have entered over 2 million contacts entered into their accounts. We're thrilled to see such rapid uptake and thank everyone for their continued support.

Remember, Highrise makes it easy to import from Basecamp, Outlook, ACT, and vCard, so why not bring your contacts into Highrise and keep track of who you talk to, what was said, and what to do next.

Save time with To-Do List Templates in Basecamp

Are you a Basecamp customer who performs the same tasks regularly for different projects? If so, save time by using To-Do List Templates. This handy feature lets you create to-do lists and then add them easily to any project.

To give you a taste, here are a couple of reusable lists that we've found useful...

Our book Getting Real is being translated into dozens of different languages. This handy template shown above saves us time in tracking the translation progress. We pop it in for each different language, add in the name of the translator for each chapter, and check off each one as they're done.

Above is a template that includes a list of questions from the Visa CISP PCI self-assessment questionnaire. Entering this every time would be a big pain in the neck. Templates save the day again.

The Basecamp Help FAQ Can I save and reuse to-do lists? offers screenshots and an explanation of exactly how to create and use these handy templates.

Highrise or Backpack as alternatives for lightweight project management

Basecamp delivers major project management mojo which means it may be overkill for some. In that case, consider using Highrise or Backpack as alternatives for lightweight project management.

In a recent forum post, customers discussed how they use Highrise as a Project Management tool.

Brnbrks wrote:

If you don’t have any need for time tracking or client extranet, then Highrise works great as a project management tool. I’ve signed up with the Highrise “plus” account that has unlimited number of cases. Cases are thought of as “Projects”.

Everything is in one place...instead of going back and forth from Basecamp to Highrise.

You can assign tasks to people, enter notes. Need a Writeboard...no worries, just enter the writeboard URL into the notes section.

Gobstopper replied:

I’m using Cases for simple project management too, and am getting more and more at ease with it. It may be that they weren’t intended that way (hence some gripes) but HR are just going to have to go with the flow.

Being able to create a case from within a Company is very neat, which allows a sequence like:

• Get incoming order
• Go to relevant company
• Paste order as note
• Attach to case >> Create new case >> Cut/paste order number
• Order fulfillment can then be managed as a Case with tasks, notes, emails, people etc attached as required.

Works great.

Highrise cases can be used for simple project management.

In a different thread, Laura R wrote about how she uses Highrise as a new business system and then uses Backpack to manage projects:

I signed up for basecamp and while I really like all the functionality I don’t need most of it. I’m a one-man show and my projects are pretty simple...So what I’m trying out now is using highrise as my contacts/leads/new business system and once I have a client create a page and calendar for them in backpack. I can use the backpack page for the task lists that I need and it gives me a calendar option.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.