Hey there, I’m Kimberly with Basecamp’s
Customer Success team and I want to walk you through
how to work with clients inside of Basecamp.
We hear from a lot of customers who are using Basecamp
just for their internal team,
but are still using other tools like email
to communicate with their clients, and I get it,
but I have to be honest, clients with Basecamp
is one of my favorite aspects of the product.
I’ve mentioned it before, but prior to working at Basecamp,
I was an event planner and each of my clients
had their own separate Basecamp project
that they had access to.
Other than in-person or online meetings,
Basecamp was really the main way I would communicate
with our clients about their event,
don’t send me an email, don’t send me a text,
put it in Basecamp.
It’s so helpful for storing everything in one place
and keeping all communication with clients on the record
so you can easily find it and refer back to it if needed.
In this video, I’m gonna show you not only
how to get your clients into Basecamp,
but also how you can control what they see
once they’re there.
Before we get started,
I think it’s most helpful to get your project
set up the way you want it to be structured
before you invite your client into your account.
So, figure out what tools you want your project to have.
You can change, rename, and duplicate tools
with a three-dot menu at the top right
from inside a project.
Your client won’t be able to change the project tools
or rename them so you’re totally in control
of how your project is structured,
and not to worry, if you decide to add a tool
or rename a tool later, you can totally do that too.
Now, to get a client into your Basecamp project,
you need to first give your project client access.
You’ll click Add some people, and then from this screen,
select Add a client to this project.
You’ll type in the name of the client’s company
and select Next.
If you already have clients
added into your Basecamp account, you can select them here,
but if this is the first time you’re adding someone
to Basecamp, you’ll have to first invite them
into your account before you can add them to this project.
Click invite people to your account from the popup
and just a note here, you can add people to your account
from your home screen as well
with the green Invite People button.
From either place, you’ll end up right here
where you’ll choose who this person is you’re inviting in.
You’ll wanna indicate that the person you’re adding
is a client you’re working for.
This is the most important part of the setup
as this is the only option where you can control
what this person sees.
If someone is added into your account
in any other way, they have full access
to all parts of the project;
they can see all the messages, all the to-dos,
all the everything, so if you’re wanting to hide anything
from a client or have conversations with your internal team
that the client can’t see,
make sure you have them identified as a client
when you invite them in, you’ll enter in their name,
email address, and the client’s company which will pop up
as you start to enter it
since you’ve already added it into your account.
You can add more than one person at a time
with a green plus button.
Click email invitation now
and Basecamp will send an email to the client
so that they can set up a password to access your account.
While that’s happening, you’ll want to select
which projects your client can access.
You’ll check the project you want them to see and then save.
Just to note here, only projects
that have client access turned on will show up here.
So if you’re wanting to invite someone you’ve identified
as a client into a project and you don’t see that project
on the list, you’ll need to go back a step
and turn on client access for the project.
On your home screen, you’ll see the client’s company name
on the project card just above the name of the project
so it’s easy to see that that project
has clients invited to it.
When you open the project,
you’ll also see the client’s avatar at the top,
an indication that they are the client
as well as a yellow circle around the avatar.
Now, at this point, you’ve given your client
access to your Basecamp account
and you’ve added them to a project,
but they can’t see anything,
and that’s because everything in a project
is private by default, you have to flip a switch
to let the client be able to see it, lemme show you.
Let’s start with the message board.
When you post a new message, you’ll see a note at the top
asking who should be allowed to see this message.
It’s automatically set to private,
but if you’d like the client to be able to see it,
you’ll select Allow the client to see this too.
The yellow indicator at the top lets you know
that it’s visible to the client.
From the message board tool,
you’ll also be able to tell which messages
the client can see.
Any messages without the yellow highlight
are private to your team only.
With to-do list, the process is the same.
When you add a new to-do list, you’ll see the area
at the top where you can change the to-do list
from private to shared with the client.
This works really well if you wanted to have a to-do list
for tasks the client can see
and then a private to-do for internal task
like onboarding the client or even accounting tasks.
When a to-do list is private,
the client can’t see if someone adds a to-do to the list,
comments on the to-do, or completes a to-do,
they only see the to-do list
that have been shared with them.
Let’s look at docs and files.
When you upload something to this part of a project,
you’ll see an area at the top
asking who should be allowed to see this file.
If it’s private, the client won’t ever see this file
or even know that it exists.
If you share it with them,
they’ll be able to comment on it, download it, the works.
When you add an event to the schedule,
you’ll have the option to show it to the client
or keep it private with your team.
You won’t even be able to add a client
to an event on the schedule until you switch that event
to being shared.
From the schedule page, you’ll see
that yellow indicator again
so you’ll know what the client can see and what they can’t.
Let’s head over to the Campfire.
One thing to know here is that you can’t make
individual comments in a Campfire
either private or client-facing,
but you can select the entire Campfire tool
is private or not.
So if you wanted to keep the Campfire chat
just private for your team, you can do that.
Or, if you want clients to be able to chat with you,
you could open up access for them,
you could even add a separate Campfire
to your project if you wanted to,
one that the client can access
and one that’s completely separate for your team.
That yellow indicator carries over
throughout your Basecamp project,
so there’s no confusion on what the client can see
and what they can’t.
Now, before I wrap up, I just wanna clarify
that even though we use the word client here at Basecamp,
you can really invite anyone into your account
with this client category,
if you wanna control what they can see
and what they can’t inside of a project.
For example, we’ve seen teachers
who are setting up their students as clients,
or company staff adding executives into the account
as clients.
Or, let’s say you’re a non-profit
and you use Basecamp to manage your day-to-day tasks,
you can set up your volunteers in Basecamp as clients
and control what parts of the project the client can see.
That client category simply lets you limit visibility
to parts of your project
so don’t let that title get you stuck.
Now, I hope that all helps,
if you have any questions as you’re getting started
and adding clients into your account,
you can reach out to me or the rest
of the customer success team by sending an email
to guides@basecamp.com.
(gentle upbeat music)