Adrian Jones of Eido Public Relations on how the team at EIDO uses Basecamp:
Eido Public Relations is an international technical PR agency with offices in London and Tokyo. Despite our modest size and the fact that our team is literally spread across the globe, thanks to Basecamp we are able to operate a completely seamless and highly-effective service to our clients, who are equally widely dispersed around the world.
Working with a local intranet
Basecamp has been a mainstay of our business for several years now and we use it in conjunction with an intranet system that we developed ourselves to create a multi-layer project management and reporting tool. The system links our team and internal administration systems with client-facing areas that allows everyone to track progress of each project and collaborate effectively from wherever they happen to be in the world.
This intranet picture shows a typical "local" view of the system. (Click for larger version.)
Beginning a new job
In our implementation of Basecamp, each client becomes a Project. There is also a Project for our own company that allows us to share files and create To Do's internally. When we begin work on a new job - for example, a press release or a case study - that task is created on our intranet system. The Admin bot creates the project file on our server and assigns a job number to it.
At the same time, a milestone is created in that client's Project on Basecamp, with a comment appended automatically, which is then emailed to everyone concerned via Basecamp to let them know the job is "live".
Naturally, using Basecamp allows everyone connected with that job to check progress, share notes and review drafts as we go along. Our intranet system also creates a text-based internal "Project Notes" file which is held on our server and provides a means for the team to share notes privately and to keep a permanent record of that job.
What the client sees via Basecamp. (Click for larger version.)
As each job progresses through its various stages - draft version, client amendments required, final copy approval etc - the Admin bot automatically posts notifications in the internal Project Notes file and as a comment in Basecamp. As these are time-stamped, everyone can see exactly how the work is progressing and what remains to be done. If needs be, we can create To Do's and Messages using that job's unique job number. Basecamp is both incredibly versatile and yet makes it easy to keep track of everything.
"A far closer working relationship"
The combination of Basecamp and the Basecamp API has taken our ability to project manage, collaborate and interact with clients to a whole new level. But more than that, the degree of transparency that we now have allows clients to feel far more engaged with what we're doing, which in turn helps create a far closer working relationship. Basecamp has been a big success for us and we are currently looking at ways we can further exploit the power of the API to create even closer intergration in future.
This system report shows an example of a real-time report generated on demand from our admin system and delivered to the client via Basecamp. Clients never need to ask us for an update on any particular project because it is generated for them automatically from the data we ourselves are using. (Click for larger version.)
Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting way? Let us know.
