Imagebox recently made the switch from the classic version of the project management tool Basecamp to the newest, and I’m trying to decide whether or not I’m happy with the change. The early indication is a thumbs down. I’m all for upgrading, but only when the pros outweigh the cons. Allow me to explain.

As a project manager for a company that has anywhere from 40-70 active projects at any given time, software like classic Basecamp was a real lifesaver. It gave me just about every tool I needed in order to do my job effectively: I could easily create a production schedule, quickly review employee time tracking and easily send/receive files and emails, to name a few. “New” Basecamp, on the other hand, seems to have made each of these tasks much harder to complete.

Here are a few of my frustrations with new Basecamp:

Production Schedules

Classic Basecamp included a simple calendar from which I could create and manage my client production schedules. If I needed to move a milestone… no problem, a few clicks of the mouse and it was done. In “new” Basecamp, calendars are now events, and you can no longer adjust an entire schedule by editing one milestone (each would need to be done manually). This left me with two options: spend all my time managing production schedules, or stop doing them all together. For now, I’m trying out option two, but we’ll see how that goes.

Time Tracking

Time tracking inside of new Basecamp is no more! The only way to track time in new Basecamp is by installing an add-on called Harvest, and the two pieces of software only play nicely right now in Chrome. Since this was my company’s only option, we signed up for Harvest. I will say though, that I’m actually digging Harvest so far… check back in the future for a post on this topic.

Privacy

No more private messages or files in new Basecamp! This was an awesome feature because it allowed us to house all of our internal files (meeting notes, emails, files) in one centralized place. It’s not the biggest inconvenience because we just use regular email now, but it was nice to know that whenever we needed to reference something, we knew where to look.

As I mentioned before, we just made the switch, so I’ll admit that I may be a little biased, because, so far, I’m not in love with the change. That said, in time I’m sure I’ll find that new Basecamp has a number of features that classic Basecamp doesn’t, so keep an eye out for an updated review.

Have you used the newest version of Basecamp? How do you like it?