New in Highrise: Faster contact info with the Quickcard in the sidebar

We just added a convenient new feature to Highrise. Now when you view a company you'll see a little contact icon beside each person in the sidebar under "People in this company." Hover over the icon to display a Quickcard with that person's contact info. The Quickcard is a really fast way to check someone's contact information. We also added this feature to Cases and Deals, so you can easily see contact info for people involved with a Case or Deal.

Here's a screenshot showing the contact icons on the "People in this company" section of a company page:

When you hover the icon, a Quickcard appears showing any contact info your team has entered for that person:

This improvement makes it a little bit faster and easier to look up contact information in Highrise. We hope you enjoy it!

Entrepreneur magazine: Basecamp keeps everyone on point at college startup

Basecamp gets a shoutout in this article in Entrepreneur magazine: Looking Fly on the Cheap (subtitle: "Some surefire methods for polishing your college startup's appearance").

As a student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Ryan Durkin felt the frustration among peers having to juggle online college resources like social networks, the university homepage and course websites. So in 2007, he partnered with Jared Stenquist and Boris Revsin to start CampusLIVE, a web portal dedicated to the college community. Durkin and his team decided to turn to web-based project collaboration tool Basecamp to keep everyone on point. Now, at a cost of between $24 and $149 per month, Durkin can have employees across campus working on projects ranging from designing new campus features to connecting with local charities. Says Durkin, 23, “CampusLIVE needed a tool to inexpensively and effectively communicate within the company.”

10 key takeaways from Getting Real

Todd Garland of BuySellAds.com recently published 10 Key Takeaways from Getting Real:

The book is AWESOME. Really, if you are building, have built, or work on ANY product (web-based or not) you must read this book. I could have titled this “50 Takeaways” and gone on much longer, there is just so much good content in this book. It’s short, to the point, and is a great way to find some inspiration and new ideas to give you a little extra hop in your step. Please, go read it now: Getting Real.

One takeaway Todd mentions is "Constraints force creativity / Stay lean"...

When I first launched BSA I was working another full-time job. And, being the honest chap that I am I could only work on BSA before 9am and after 7pm (I was at another startup that I was truly passionate about too, so it wasn’t the standard 9-5). That meant waking up at 5 or 5:30 and answering support emails, all of them, and then working on the site late at night. Having those time and bandwidth constraints forced me to be really good at solving problems quickly. Which, in turn, helped set the pace for quality support here at BSA.

Another: "Don’t sweat the small stuff at first, just get something live"...

Who cares if it’s NOT going to scale - worry about that when you get there. Surely, if you need to scale your app because it’s growing quickly and bursting at the seams, you will figure it out. Do you think we planned to serve billions of impressions per month when we first launched BSA? No way, but it became a possibility very quickly and we then figured out how to scale (and we’re still figuring out how to scale it beyond that now).

Read the full piece for more.

Good citizen update: Now all Basecamp plans include SSL security

Last night we rolled out an update that may not make short-term financial sense for us, but it's the right thing to do. Now all Basecamp plans — including the free plan — include SSL secure encryption (what's SSL?). Prior to this update only Plus-and-higher plans included SSL.

How to enable SSL

Existing customers on Basic, Personal, and Free accounts can turn on SSL by clicking on the "Settings" tab on the Dashboard and scrolling down to the "SSL 128-bit encryption" section. SSL will be off by default for you. If you choose to turn it on just click the "On" button. Note: SSL is a bit slower than non-SSL so if you value speed over security you are free to keep it off. It's your call.

A new position

SSL was initially positioned as an upgrade driver to higher plans. And while we don't know what percentage of people considered SSL a key reason for upgrading, we believe everyone is entitled the best security we can offer. There shouldn't be first class or second class customers when it comes to security. It doesn't matter if Customer A is paying us $149 and Customer B is not paying us at all — they are all customers and their data is equally important.

Step one

This is the first step in our renewed focus on being a better corporate citizen. We plan on rolling out similar SSL upgrades across our entire product line (Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire). We're also examining additional good citizen initiatives beyond security. Profit will be considered (we are a business, after all), but it won't always come first.

We hope you enjoy the added security and thanks again for being our customer.

-The crew at 37signals

Interview with developers of Ember (Campfire for the iPhone)

Jane at Setting Contexts recently published "Interview: Overcommitted on Ember (Campfire for the iPhone)."

Right after I posted my Q&A with Morfunk’s David Kaneda a couple of months ago (I’m still a big Outpost fan!), I received a great outreach email from Overcommitted, telling me about Ember. Ember brings Campfire (the 37signals group chat application) to the iPhone – and fills a huge gap in my own productivity needs. I’ve been using the new version of Ember for about a week (in fact, a lot of the follow-up questions were discussed in Campfire), and I have to say it’s a noticeable improvement over V.1 in speed and feature set.

The interview discusses how the Overcommitted team got started, how they decided on price, the development process, etc.

> How do you guys use Campfire and why was that the app you wanted to focus on first?

None of us live in the same city and rarely get the chance to work together face to face. Campfire has been invaluable for helping us keep in touch across time zones and work schedules. We use it to discuss iterations for the various apps we’re working on, show sketches and talk through code. We developed Ember first because we knew we could get immediate use for it and felt other iPhone development teams could benefit.

Ember works on iPhones/iPod Touches running version 3.0 software or above and is available on the iTunes AppStore here.

What we're doing to address File Upload problems in Basecamp

Last week we released an update to Basecamp that included an easier way to select multiple files to upload and an improved progress bar to show feedback as files are uploaded. The new features worked really well for the majority of our customers. But as the days went by, we discovered a percentage of customers who simply couldn't upload files anymore.

We worked diligently throughout last week to release fixes and narrow down the problem. On Monday we fixed a bug where existing attachments weren't displayed when editing a Message or Comment. We investigated and successfully resolved a problem where files intermittently failed to upload on Tuesday. On Wednesday we identified and fixed a problem with hanging uploads on Safari 4 and Google Chrome. On Thursday we discovered a subtle bug in the link to switch to the "Basic Uploader" fallback. We located the bug and deployed a fix on Thursday afternoon. Throughout the week, and especially Thursday through Sunday, we collected data from a percentage of customers on Windows who reported that they still cannot upload files despite these fixes.

As of today, we have determined that antivirus software is blocking our file uploader on certain Windows installations, and we have determined how to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the fix will require some time-consuming changes to our code. We basically need to rebuild a sizable segment of the file uploader. It will take time to implement the fix, and in the meantime some customers cannot upload files.

It is crucial for every one of our customers to be able to upload files. So while we continue to work hard behind the scenes to fix this compatibility problem, we believe it is in the best interest of our customers to revert back to the previous file uploader. This change will allow every single customer to upload files again, and it will allow us to work for you behind the scenes to fix this compatibility issue. The improved multiple-file selection and fancy progress bar will be unavailable after the roll back, but the change is not permanent. We'll bring these features back after we have fixed the compatibility issue. The zooming image preview feature is unaffected by this change.

We are deeply sorry for the trouble some customers have had with uploading files, and we're also very sorry that it's necessary to revert some improvements that many customers were happy about. We feel terrible about it. If you were affected by the File Uploading change last week and still cannot upload files, please write support and we will issue a credit to your account. For those of you who haven't had any problems, we truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to bring the improved uploading features to our entire customer base.

We are preparing the roll-back now, and we expect the previous file uploader to be up and running again within 24 hours. Once we again, we deeply apologize and we thank you for your understanding.

UPDATE: On July 6, 10:00pm CST we rolled back to the previous File Uploading system. Now everybody should be able to upload files again.

Slate.com on Ta-Da List: "A dead simple [to-do list] manager...it looks great"

To Do: Make To-Do List (Slate.com) is an article about trying to get organized with Web-based task managers. Ta-Da List gets a mention...

Ta-da List
This is a dead simple manager created by 37signals, the influential Web application company. You create a list (say, "Move to Alabama") and then you begin adding specific tasks ("Hire movers," "Sell snow shovels," etc.). Once you create a task, you can reorder it in the list or check it off as done. That's pretty much it. Ta-da List is free, and it looks great, especially on the iPhone.

Read the full article.

Using the Basecamp API to create project reports

Bill Breen, Director of Web Development at SmartMoney.com, writes about using the Basecamp API to create project reports.

We have a weekly managers meeting where we briefly run down all our open projects and their status. The responsible party can then update and if necessary elaborate briefly on specific items within their project. It is a great meeting to have because it gets all parties from various groups in one room where we quickly keep everyone abreast of the projects being worked on. People in theory can get all the same information from Basecamp themselves, but reality is this is not always the case. Having the meeting lets us discuss small items with other groups and departments without having to have a longer time consuming meeting.

To create a report for this meeting, I decided to try the Basecamp API. I figured a quick report that can generate a concise PDF to print out and bring to the meeting will work best. I sat down and used my regular tech community channels to see if anyone has created a Basecamp API module for ColdFusion. Sure enough, I found baseCamp.cfc from Terrence Ryan. It was exactly what I was looking for. It was written for the older Basecamp API, so I had to plug in some new methods, but it was a real time saver because it handled all the requests, and parsing of the responses.

Read the full post for more details.

Report2Base lets you analyze Basecamp data from different perspectives

Report2Base is an add-on to Basecamp that can be queried for milestones, tasks, messages exchanged and hours clocked for a given project or a given client. According to the Report2Base site, features include:

• Intuitive, 'wizard-like' interface for query construction
• Rich, tabbed UI for simultaneous viewing of multiple reports
• Facility to save frequently used queries
• Exporting of reports as PDF / CSV files
• periodic dispatch of reports to specified email contacts
• Charts for visual representation of project data

Learn more.

Highrise helps Inchoo follow-up with prospects

In "Manage your contacts effectively – where have all my post-its gone?", Aron Stanic of Inchoo discusses Highrise.

Let’s say I’ve just received an email inquiry from a new prospect. When sending a response, I can instantly Bcc the email to my Highrise dropbox making the communication transparent and easily trackable for myself and, most importantly, for the rest of the team as well.

I’m able to upload and/or import basic contact information about the new client together with her/his picture (sometimes being good with the names simply doesn’t cut it), corporate information, other notes and – yes – even feed the profile with their Twitter updates so I can see what the client is up to in real time.

While some of these features can strike you as purely cosmetic, there are others that really stand out. I can create task lists for each contact (making sure I don’t forget sending that quote or a follow-up email), add pending and any previous deals to them and tag them accordingly.

It happened a couple of times that I’d make a follow-up on a prospect who needed some small Magento tweak a month ago and decided to go with another developer. He had experienced some problems and was very much relieved to hear back from us and ask for our help with a larger deal that we would then land. Who knows if I’d have remembered to make that follow-up had I not created a task two months ago.

Read the full post.

Burndown: Generate burndown charts for Basecamp milestones and to-do lists

Burndown is a simple tool that takes your Basecamp milestones and to-do lists and generates burndown charts with them.

With Burndown you don't need to repeat yourself. A simple synchronization process is all you have to do to keep daily track of your iteration and generate helpful burndown charts. Forget about bloated so called "agile" software, that requires training to be used. If the "agile" tools you're using require a certification... well probably you're not being as agile as you think.

New File Uploading features in Basecamp

We're excited to announce a batch of improvements to File Uploads in Basecamp. Now it's easier to attach multiple files at once, we've improved our progress bar to show you as each file is uploaded, and you can click thumbnails to zoom image attachments without leaving the current page. These new features make it faster and easier to attach, review and discuss files in Basecamp. Here's a demo video to show you all the improvements.

We hope you like the new file upload features in Basecamp. Thanks as always for your support!

UPDATE: On July 6th 2009 we temporarily rolled back two of the features mentioned in this article because of compatibility issues with Windows. Please see this post for an explanation.

Timy: "An easy-to-use desktop application to fill out your Basecamp timesheet"

Timy is "an easy-to-use desktop application to fill out your Basecamp timesheet."

Complete your timesheet the easy way!
Completing your timesheet can be time-consuming. But no more!
Timy is an easy-to-use desktop application to fill out your Basecamp timesheet.

Efficient and with surprisingly clever features, using a quick and simple interface. Time tracking in 7th gear, so to speak.

Timy is a free downloadable product.

How to adapt Basecamp to an agile methodology

High Notes offers a blog post called "How to do SCRUM with Basecamp?"

About 2 years ago we were sitting at the office trying to figure out which tool to use for project management. I mean, being agile is about being simple, but index cards were starting to get messy...

Of all the tools we tried, the one that gave us the best results was Basecamp. These are the two reasons that we believe make Basecamp great for agile project management:

Simplicity: There is no need for training when you start using Basecamp. In essence Basecamp is a set of message boards, blogging tools, calendars and to-do list trackers. All these tools combined in an intuitive way is what Basecamp is all about. If your team can't figure out how to use Basecamp... you're in troubles. Being agile is about using the simplest tools available.

Interactions instead of Process: The purpose of Basecamp is to promote and enhance collaboration between a team. Basecamp doesn't try to force you into a specific workflow as most project management tools do. You can pretty much do whatever process or workflow you want, and still, Basecamp is going to be helpful. Guess what's the first line of the Agile Manifesto? Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. So instead of thinking "Is ticket 4137 assigned to David or to Paula?", you will see the discussion of a real issue between your team.

The post goes on to give a detailed explanation of how to adapt Basecamp to an agile methodology (they use a mixture of Scrum and XP). Check it out.

Backpack is used to publish points of contact and resources during Toronto's garbage strike

There's a garbage strike currently underway in the city of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. As expected, the citizens of Toronto are left with only questions about what to do about the garbage that is piling up. Luckily Danyl Sobolev used Backpack to quickly publish a list of useful contacts and resources for this difficult situation.

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

Basecamp: Keep track of the hours spent on a task with time tracking

Basecamp time tracking lets you keep track of the hours spent on a task or a complete project (for plus or higher accounts only).

Watch an audio/video tour of Time Tracking to learn more.

Always remember with Backpack Reminders

Backpack can send reminders to you via email or as a Mobile SMS/text message. That means you won’t ever forget to attend a meeting, make a call, or any other task that you have to do. You can even set and schedule reminders for your co-workers too.

You can schedule reminders for you or your team by clicking on the Reminders tab in your Backpack account.

1. Give the reminder a name.
2. Choose a time for the reminder.
3. Select the people to notify.

Backpack will automatically send an email message or mobile text message to the people that you selected on the time and date you have chosen.

Watch a quick video on Reminders.

Getting Real is one of Tim Ferriss' five must read books

Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose Discuss Their Top 5 Must-Read Books:

On Ferriss' list: Getting Real. He says, "It has the potential to change your life and your business...It does have a software focus but all of it can be applied to entrepreneurs in general."

Seth Godin: "Basecamp is the perfect tool for coordinating"

Seth Godin recently launched an alternative MBA program. Unaccredited, residential, free and six months long. A new way to learn about a new way of doing business. One of the lessons of the experiment: Use Basecamp.

Another lesson: We used Basecamp. It’s the perfect tool for coordinating this sort of work.

Read more of the lessons Seth learned from what he called "an extraordinary learning experience."

"Getting Real was a pivotal read for me and my business partners"

Justin Wills on how Getting Real influenced him and his partners at Society6:

I just wanted to drop a note and thank you for writing Getting Real. I can't say I've ever been someone to champion a book or to change the way I operate based on one. That said I have to say that Getting Real was a pivotal read for me and my business partners. The first time I read the book I had many a tearful laugh, having experienced the pitfalls of not Getting Real first hand.

As my partners (Justin Cooper and Lucas Tirigall-Caste) and I developed our new enterprise we were able to adhere to many of the precepts of the book, from both the business and software standpoint. At crucial points in the development of our platform we held true to much of the great common sense in it.

Recently we launched our new company, a platform to create unique opportunities for artists and creative people, called Society6. Our proudest moments have been when new members tell us how simple the site is and we remark to one another about how many features we were disciplined enough to NOT put it into it.

Read Getting Real.

New Basecamp feature: The Daily Digest

We're excited to announce a great improvement to Basecamp. The new Daily Digest feature makes it easier than ever to track the progress of your projects. The Daily Digest is an email that Basecamp sends you once a day. The email tells you about any to-do items or milestones that were checked off or added in the last day. Daily Digests are per-project, so you can subscribe to the projects you really care about without being distracted by any unnecessary information. Now you'll always know day-by-day as work is completed or new work is assigned. It's a really powerful feature.

To subscribe to the Daily Digest for a project, first load the project and click on the Overview tab. You'll see a link to subscribe in the upper-right of your screen:

After you click "Turn on email updates" the following screen will confirm your details and remind you how the Daily Digest works:

Now that you're subscribed, you'll receive an email once each day at 9am. You'll only receive an email if there was some activity on the project in the last 24 hours. Here's a sample of what the Daily Digest email looks like:

We think you'll love how the Daily Digest keeps you on top of your projects step-by-step as they move toward completion. Thanks as always for your continued support and we hope you enjoy the new feature!

Jamie Pittock of ErskineLabs: "Basecamp’s beauty is its simplicity"

In "Project management is easy," Jamie Pittock of ErskineLabs talks about how his team uses Basecamp to manage projects.

THE PROJECT BACKLOG – create a list that you can use to store everything you might need to remember during the project.

WEEKLY REVIEW MEETINGS – at the start of each week get the project team together, review the items in the Project Backlog, and convert the ones you need to work on into actionable tasks.

WEEK-BASED TO-DO LISTS – move these actionable tasks from the Project Backlog into a dedicated to-do list for that week’s work. Make sure anything in these lists are assigned to the person who’s responsible for making sure it’s done.

That’s it for now, if you take anything away from this take the following three points.

1. Don’t fight Basecamp
2. Write everything down
3. Focus on the actionable

The post is filled with good tips. Check it out.

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

"Run your home more like a business" with 37signals tools

101 Tools to Run Your Home More Like a Business:

Home life seems to get more and more complicated as days go by. There are chores, paperwork, and lots of maintenance to deal with, but your home doesn’t have to take over your life. By using tools that streamline the work of businesses, you’ll find that it’s easy to get things done. Read on and you’ll find 101 tools that will make your home run like a business.

Included on the list: Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, Campfire, and Writeboard.

Import Clients, Contacts and Won Deals from Highrise into Harvest

Harvest lets you and your staff track time, log expenses, and create invoices in one simple, integrated workflow. Now you can quickly import Highrise contacts and won deals into Harvest to track time and invoice clients.

Here is a short, 2-minute video to show you how the integration works:

Learn more about Highrise and Harvest integration at the Harvest blog. Sign up for a free trial of Harvest today and give this new feature a spin.

The Star-Ledger: Highrise is a a new breed of CRM that emphasizes simplicity

"New programs can help firms rid themselves of their Rolodexes" [The Star-Ledger] says that while you might think of CRM software as being a tool for mega-corporations (or costing mega-bucks), relatively affordable web-based versions of CRM software are now available. Along the way, Highrise gets a mention.

For many businesses, especially small businesses -- a law firm, say, or a niche retailer -- the idea of embarking on an effort to move to a CRM system can seem like a daunting task. Yet with a new breed of CRM, the emphasis is on simplicity and ease-of-use, as well as helping you run a business without the need to configure and install complex software. You pay a monthly fee, and then you can forget about the technical end of maintaining the CRM software...

Highrise, offers a free plan, for two users and 250 contacts. A $24-per-month plan provides up to six users and 5,000 contacts, while the $149- per-month plan allows for unlimited users and 50,000 contacts. I particularly like the description used by 37 signals, the makers of the Highrise CRM: Highrise is a great way for business to keep track of who talked to whom, what was said and what needs to happen next. The software excels in the way it blends contact management, to-do lists and other features. You look at a contacts page in Highrise, and you have a window into your communications with that person, notes from meetings, background and any tasks related to the contact...

If you're working on your own, you can certainly try to make do with sticky notes, a simple address book and your memory. But if multiple people are working on projects together, maybe even in far-flung locations, then coordination becomes essential. Given that an increasing number of small businesses now operate in a virtual environment, or have telecommuters, the need for tools to know who's doing what is even more important. Just beware: Even these streamlined CRM services won't do much for you unless you actually use and update them.

Read the full article.

Put your Highrise Dropbox address in the BCC field automatically in Mail.app

Want to put your Highrise Dropbox address in the BCC field automatically in Mail.app?
Easy Automatic Highrise Dropbox in Apple Mail offers a hack that will make it so (requires messing with Terminal.app so "buyer beware"):

1. Open Terminal.app
2. $ defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders
3. If nothing shows up, you don’t currently have anything set and you should be golden to move to the next step.
4. $ defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"BCC" = "dropbox@YOURDROP.highrisehq.com"; }'
5. Restart Mail.app

That’s it. From now on your email should be automatically BCC’d to your dropbox address and you should get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Have a neat tip related to a 37signals product? Let us know.

Improving the Basecamp API

We've been working behind the scenes to improve the Basecamp API. One recent change lets developers know whether the person making an API request is from a client or an internal firm.

This went over quite well. Here's the response from the guys behind Outpost:

Noticed this during testing this morning & did a double-take when I realized there were names appearing in Outpost — much kudos for keeping it in line with the existing API, so all us 3rd parties’ apps will just start working now. Very exciting to see progress on the API end.

Fyi, all communication on this topic was done via the Basecamp forum. We're making an effort to stay on top of API issues reported there. And we've also started a 37signals API developer list which is a great place to get feedback on API stuff.

As we come to expect more out-of-browser experiences, good, well-documented APIs are becoming more important. We look forward to continuing to improve the APIs for all our products.

You can check out the updated API documentation for further details:

People API Calls
Companies API Calls

TUAW: "Satchel is Backpack on the iPhone done right"

Satchel is Backpack on the iPhone done right (finally) according to The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Whenever I'm evaluating a client application that interacts with a web-based service via its API, my acid test is the answer to this question: "Could I fully utilize this service using only this application?". Satchel gets you most of the way there. With existing Backpack pages, you can view all of your notes and lists, edit the pages tags and even view attached images and files. You can also create new pages, but the API doesn't allow for creating anything other than Note and List elements within your new page (though, you can email files, etc. directly to it once it's created). The good news is, Satchel also has a "send an email to this page" button, so you can add content to your new page relatively easily. The Satchel crew also really spent some time on the list interface, making it easy to add, remove and reorder list items in a very iPhone-ish way...

While you may be a little hesitant to drop the $9.99US on this one, I can say that it's worth every penny for the true Backpack fanatic. It's gone a long way to removing the barrier for those looking to embrace Backpack as a service, but feeling a little hamstrung by the lack of a decent mobile interface. If you love Backpack, you'll love Satchel [App Store].

"Create a kick ass intranet app using 37signals"

Travis Vocino, a South Florida based technologist, explains how to "Create a Kick Ass Intranet App using 37signals":

I use three 37signals applications: Backpack, Basecamp and Highrise (go go referral links). With these 3 excellent web apps, I’m able to rock out a seriously awesome complete intranet setup for my business.

Just using them is fine but, as usual, I like to take it one step further into better integration with my desktop workflow. That’s where OpenID and Fluid.app come in.

The article goes on to explain how to use OpenID and Fluid.app to "turn this puppy into a desktop-like application."

Having all of these applications in place really creates a great intranet-type workflow. It’s helpful even when working solo but if you have a small team like me it really shines. I also noticed my people used the various apps a lot more once I introduced them to using OpenID to bring them together — as well as putting it all together in Fluid.app...

It’s great for tabbing to your intranet window, adding a calendar entry, and tabbing back to Photoshop, to give a quick example. This is a process that just isn’t as exciting when you’re stuck in Safari.

Read the whole piece for step-by-step details on how Travis set up his system.

The new 37signals API developer list

The new 37signals API developer list is meant to be the new hub for all things 37signals API. A place where developers can discuss their experiences and challenges working with the APIs from Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, and Campfire. We'll try to make ourselves available as best we can to help answer questions and provide clarification on implementation. Sign up now.