ActivityOwner.Com

Basecamp is a popular web-based collaboration tool from 37 Signals that enables project teams to create to do lists, set milestones, and share files over the internet. Basecamp doesn't have the flexibility, power, or GTD-focused design that ResultsManager provides, but it does appear a bit more easy to use for web-based collaboration.

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While evaluating BaseCamp for use by ActivityWife in her consulting work, I noticed that it allows the primary account holder to export all project information contained in the tool to XML format. Using an approach similar to the recently posted nactionr import macro, I wrote a new macro that will import the exported BaseCamp data from this XML file into a MindManager map.

Projects are grouped by the company they are associated with. People listed in the basecamp file are enumerated in the "resources" branch of the map by company and associated with the tasks they are assigned. An In-Tray is added to allow use with GyroQ. The import is set up to be compatible with ResultsManager if you have it installed, but it is not essential. Each project is assign a Project icon and each set of to-do list items are set as tasks under a subproject with the to do list's name. Milestones are also imported with associated to-do lists added as prececessors to them instead of the to-do list name.

• If you are currently a Basecamp user, this macro could provide you with a method to quickly migrate your project data in order to evaluate or convert to map-based project management.
• If you are on a team that is using Basecamp, but prefer the ResultsManager environment, you could use periodic exports to pull your commitments into your ResultsManager dashboards. Subsequent exports will augment the previously exported map rather than overwrite it.

For more information, see this AO Basecamp Import page on the wiki.