Hey there, I’m Kimberly from 37signals,
and today I want to show you several ways
Basecamp can give you a big picture view into everything
that’s happening across your account.
Maybe you manage a team
that’s working on multiple projects at the same time,
or maybe you’re working on multiple projects yourself
and need a better way to get a handle on all the
activity that’s happening.
There are several ways that Basecamp can help you do that,
so let’s jump right in.
It’s often helpful to see when one project ends
and another one begins,
especially if you’re planning out your team’s workload.
Click on Lineup for a bird’s eye view of project timing.
You’ll see what projects just wrapped up,
what’s currently in progress
and what’s coming up in the future.
The vertical green line marks today
and clicking the buttons at the top moves you forward
or backward in time.
For projects to show up on the Lineup, they’ll need
to have a designated start and end date.
Click the three menu at the top of your project page
and go to Edit project details.
Adding start and end dates
to a project will display a tracker at
the top of the project.
And just like on the Lineup,
the green line represents today letting you easily see
where you are in the project timing.
With dates added to the project,
it now appears on the Lineup.
The Lineup becomes even more helpful for planning.
When you use markers
to highlight significant company-wide dates or milestones.
Account owners
and admins will see the Add marker button
at the top of the page.
Give the marker a title
and date, then save.
Here at 37signals,
We use markers to highlight our work cycles
and cool down periods as well as company meetups,
but you can use them to highlight any milestone
or event that’s date specific.
When you need to quickly see the overall status
of a project, not just your to-do list,
there’s Move the Needle.
From the top of the project page,
you can see at a glance how far along a project is
and see if it’s on track, slightly at risk,
or if there are bigger concerns.
To make updates, click
Move the Needle and slide it to a new position
as the project reaches completion.
Assign the needle a color
to show how things are going
and add notes to share additional details.
A simple click just below the needle takes you
to the full history where you’ll see every move
to the needle position, change in color,
and notes all on one page.
When the needle is updated regularly,
you’ll never be left wondering, how did we end up here?
So Move The Needle gives you a quick big picture view into a
single project when you want this view across multiple
projects all at the same time,
there’s Mission Control.
Under activity in
your navigation bar.
Click Mission Control to see all the needles
for projects you are a part of in one place.
Projects marked red for concerned, or yellow for at risk.
Stay at the top. So those troubled
projects stay front and center.
Clicking on any of the needles from Mission Control takes
you to the full history
so you can easily catch up on what’s been going on.
The activity tab in your navigation bar shows activity
across all your projects,
but when you need to focus in on a handful of projects
or wanna see what specific people are working on,
you can filter that activity.
From the top of the activity tab,
choose how you’d like to filter the report, either
by projects or by people.
Start typing what you’re looking for
and when you’re ready, hit Filter to get an abbreviated list
of recent activity.
Filtering by people works
with individual names and with groups.
So if you need to see what an entire team
or department is working on, just enter that group name.
Now, if you’re using Stacks on your home screen
to group similar types of projects together,
it’s even easier to see the activity
and progress for those projects.
First, create a Stack by dragging one project on top
of another and giving your Stack a name.
Once your projects are stacked, just click on it
and you’ll see a link to see the activity
for just those projects.
And if Move The Needle is enabled for any
of the projects within the Stack, you’ll also see a link
to see the needles for just those projects
in Mission Control.
We hope these features help you better manage your projects
for yourself and for your team.
And as always, if you have questions
as you’re getting your Basecamp account set up,
please reach out to our team at guides@basecamp.com
and thanks for watching.