Mailing Lists

The standard edition of the software has had an "Import from Microsoft Project" option for quite some time now. Today, the Basecamp edition gets that feature.

To use it, do the following:

1. Create a project in Basecamp like you normally would.
2. Create a project in Microsoft Project like you normally would.
3. In MS Project, select Save As
4. In the file type options, select XML
5. Save the MS Project file as an xml file
6. Launch AgileAgenda Basecamp Edition
7. Log in and open your Basecamp project (More Info)
8. Select the File->Import from MS Project menu option.
9. You will be presented with a file selection dialog, choose the file you created in step #4
10. You will then be presented with a dialog that lets you match up resources in your MS Project file with people in your Basecamp account.
11. Next, you will be presented with some options on how you want to import milestones.
12. AgileAgenda will then import your project. If you like how it imported, you can click the save button to upload that to your Basecamp project.

Some notes on the import:

Here's what Step #9 from above looks like. This is a dialog that lets you map MS Project resources to the people and companies in your Basecamp account.

Here's what Step #10 from above looks like.

Some caveats:

The feature set for MS Project, AgileAgenda, and Basecamp are very different. Various assumptions have to be made to massage the data from one format to another. Unfortunately, depending on how you use MS Project, that conversion should be done differently. So what works for one person will be a confusing nightmare to another. Because of this there will never be a "perfect" import from one system to another. We took our best guess to what would satisfy the bulk of our user's needs.

The biggest difference we saw was how milestones should get mapped between the systems. Since Basecamp only has a single hierarchy of milestones, and MS Project has a very flexible hierarchy, there's a lot of room for interpretation. We tried to pick out the three most common mappings that would make sense, and that's where step #10 from above comes from. If you'd like to see a different mapping, let us know, we may be able to accomodate you.

A new version of AgileAgenda Basecamp Edition was posted today with two big changes.

The first is we're using a new authentication mechanism that will become mandatory in the near future for all third party applications that integrate with Basecamp. Instead of using your username and password to log in, you'll use a special authentication code.



You can find that authentication code inside your Basecamp account under the "My Info" link.



The second big change is we now show you the deadline dates for both milestones and tasks in the AgileAgenda task editor. They'll turn red when the estimated completion date is after the deadline to let you know when deadlines won't be met. Editing them in AgileAgenda will update them in Basecamp. There's also a new menu option to copy the estimated completion dates to this deadline field.

--- January 2010 Update
HEY! Coming from the 37 Signals Blog today? They posted a link to this post (which, is informational for-sure) but our actual latest release post is here:
http://www.agileagenda.com/blog/
It's probably just as interesting.
--- END January 2010 Update

We posted a new version of the Basecamp Edition today. It adds a few new big features, and fixes a handful of bugs. You can get it by updating within your current version, or downloading here.

• Open multiple projects at once.


• Manage resource availability across multiple projects.


• New opening/welcome dialog, now remembers credentials instead of connections.


• Application navigation UI improved


• Task editor speed improvements


• Resource availability interface significantly changed.
  


• Now, you can assign tasks to Basecamp companies as well as individuals.


• "Report Basecamp Error" menu option now reports more useful information.


• New highlighted column and tooltip on schedule view to tell exact dates easier.


• New "Getting Started" hints when opening a new project.


• Deleting a milestone will now correctly delete it from Basecamp.


• Fixed bug with schedule calculations

Besides these larger changes, a ton of small changes have gone in.

The Basecamp Edition of AgileAgenda now has a beta that you can download and try. It's available at our Beta download page:

http://www.agileagenda.com/beta/

This Beta includes:

• New Features
  • Open multiple projects at the same time.
  • Assign resources across projects using the new resource time editor
  • Print the GANTT charts in color
  • Updated on-screen GANTT chart.
  • New roll-over on GANTT chart to determine the exact dates of the bars.
  • Uses new streamlined message format for saving configuration data, should make saving faster.
• Bug Fixes
  • Consumes significantly less CPU resources when idle.
  • Previously, If you had a project with no valid tasks, printing would fail. Which would also cause Basecamp uploads to fail. This is fixed.
  • Fixed problem with partial days and scheduling calculations.
  • Deleting milestones previously didn't get rid of them in Basecamp. This now works.
  • Now correctly ignores archived projects.

We're really interested in what you think about the new resource time editor when you have multiple projects open.

As a reminder, this is Beta software. It may be buggy, use at your own risk.

Our next major release is taking a slightly different approach to editing resource availability. Shown above is how it looks in our latest internal builds here at AgileAgenda headquarters.

The two biggest changes:

• Now, projects are listed across the top in columns so you can easily manage what project a person is supposed to be working on.
• You now only specify a "start" date for each line. This is due to the complexity in managing start / end dates across different projects. So now, if someone is taking a vacation you'll need to create one line to start the vacation, and another line to end it.
  

I'm very curious as to see what people will think of that second point. This was the best model of managing these things that we could come up with so far, but are open to suggestions.

You will find a screenshot of the next major release of AgileAgenda Basecamp Edition below. There's a few exciting new features, but I'll let the picture speak for itself.

It looks like 37 Signals has modified the way they handle file uploads. Unfortunately, this has made it so the AgileAgenda Basecamp Edition can not upload your schedule. We're currently working on this and hope to have a solution soon.

Update 6/29 - Everything is working again.

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We've gotten a few emails about this. Our next release will correctly ignore archived projects from your Basecamp list. Sorry for the inconvenience!

We recently started up a Twitter account, follow us if you'd like to keep up on our latest developments or let us know about your day to day thoughts on AgileAgenda.

We've completed all the behind-the-scenes work required to open up multiple projects at the same time. Below you can see a screenshot showing an internal private build of our Basecamp Edition of the software. We haven't done any design-work so it's a bit ugly, but the important part is that it's working!

From here we need to clean up the parts of the UI that are single-project focused. We also want to design an entirely new resource management interface to make it easy to schedule people across projects. Hopefully we'll have a public beta people can try out in the beginning of August. Make sure to sign up for the beta mailing list if you're interested.




One last note, a reminder that we have a User Voice page to make product suggestions.