Basecamp

Feature Freeze

Due to inconsistent REST API access conditions flex.bi is unable to provide consistent data import from Basecamp. We will continue supporting current customers using Basecamp data source while we announce a feature freeze for further feature development for Basecamp data source.

Basecamp is an easy-to-use project collaboration application that is used by many small businesses as well as departments in larger organizations. But Basecamp provides just very simple reporting capabilities and if you need more powerful project progress reporting and analysis then you need to use some external tool.

flex.bi has a standard integration with Basecamp and you can import all your Basecamp data into flex.bi for analysis just with couple clicks. 

Basecamp Classic, Basecamp 2, and Basecamp 3

flex.bi supports BASECAMP CLASSIC, BASECAMP 2 and BASECAMP 3 (please see below features that are specific to the corresponding Basecamp version).

Basecamp authentication

During initial data import you will be redirected to Basecamp application and you will need to authorize flex.bi to import your Basecamp account data. It is recommend to create a special admin user, who can generally access all API resources, that can be used to authenticate flex.bi. Further manual as well as regular scheduled data imports will use the same authorized access.

Imported data

flex.bi imports the following Basecamp data (measures) and dimensions:

• Measures
  • To-do items created (by creation time and creator)
  • To-do items completed (by completion time and completer)
  • To-do items due (by due time and responsible person)
  • To-do item comments (by creation time and creator)
  • Milestones completed (by completion time and completer) BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • Milestones due (by deadline and responsible person) BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • Milestone comments (by creation time and creator) BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • Events (by event time and creator)
  • Messages (by creation time and creator)
  • Message comments (by creation time and creator)
  • Estimated hours (extracted from to-do item description, see description below) BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • Actual hours from time tracking (by time and person) BASECAMP CLASSIC
• Projects and Tasks dimension has the following hierarchy levels (all measures can be viewed at detailed levels as well as summary levels)
  • Company (projects are grouped by main company for project) BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • Project (only Active and On hold projects are imported)
  • Milestone BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • To-do list
  • To-do item
• Message dimension has the following hierarchy levels (all measures can be viewed at detailed levels as well as summary levels) BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3
  • Project
  • Message
• People dimension has all active persons and has levels BASECAMP CLASSIC
  • Company
  • Person
• Assignee dimension has all persons with assigned To-dos BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3
• Creator dimension has all persons that created To-do, Message, Event or commented any of these BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3
• Project status dimension can be used to filter projects by status (Active, On hold or Archived)
• Completion status dimension can be used to filter milestones, to-do lists, and to-do items by their completion status (Completed,Open, Overdue)
• Time dimension has
  • main hierarchy with levels Year, Quarter, Month and Day
  • weekly hierarchy with levels Year, Week and Day

Estimated hours convention 

BASECAMP CLASSIC

Basecamp does not have a separate field for entering estimated hours for to-do lists and items and therefore it is not so easy to compare planned vs actual effort spent on to-do items. The most common recommendation is to enter estimated hours for to-do item at the end of a description. Here are examples of to-do item descriptions with time estimate (in hours) that flex.bi will recognize and import as Estimated hours measure:

• first task 1h
• second task 2.5h
• third task [1]
• fourth task [3.5h]

Estimated hours import is not available for Basecamp 2 and Basecamp 3 as there is no time tracking.

Calculated measures

You can define simple and complex calculations using calculated member formulas. After the initial import, the following calculated measures will be created and you can use them as examples and modify or create new ones:

• Project (displays project name for milestone, to-do list or to-do item)
• Status (displays project, milestone, to-do list or to-do item status)
• Due date (displays milestone or to-do item due date)
• Responsible person (Assignee in BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3) (displays responsible person for milestone or to-do item)
• All responsible persons (All current assignees in BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3) (displays one or many responsible persons for project, milestone, to-do list or to-do item)
• Actual / Estimated hours % (displays actual vs planned effort in percents) BASECAMP CLASSIC
• Start date, End date (calculates range of milestone and to-do item due dates at project, milestone, and to-do list level)
• Task created date, Task updated date (displays project, to-do list or to-do creation/update date) BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3
• Task completed date (displays to-do completion date) BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3
• Duration in days (calculated as difference between end date and start date)
• Tasks completed % (To-dos completed % in BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3) (calculates percentage of completed tasks or milestones)
• Due and completed items (total amount of due and completed milestones and to-do items) BASECAMP CLASSIC
• Due in days (calculates difference from today until milestone or to-do item due date, calculated only for open and overdue items, can be used in reports to filter upcoming items)
• Open and Overdue (total amount of open and overdue milestones and to-do items) BASECAMP CLASSIC
• Message created date, Message updated date (displays message creation/update date) BASECAMP 2 BASECAMP 3

Gantt chart

Projects, milestones, to-do lists and to-do items can be displayed in Gantt chart using calculated Start date and End date range and Tasks completed %. Overdue tasks are displayed in red color, completed tasks in green and upcoming to-do items and milestones in blue. Timescale can be switched to either monthly or daily view. To show just open and overdue milestones and to-do items select Open and Overdue instead of All Completion Statuses in page selection list.

Go to source link

If you click on project, milestone, to-do list or item dimension member then in action list you will see Go to source link - when clicking on it new Basecamp application page will be opened with the corresponding project, milestone, to-do list or item. It can be very useful to see a summary overview of your project status in flex.bi and when necessary you can go to detailed Basecamp page for selected item.