how to create a new basecamp project

Teams and Projects

Learn more about:

Teams
Projects
Changing tools
Adding multiple tools
Inviting people
Switching a team member to a client (and vice versa!)
Settings
Closing comments
Turning a project into a team

Teams

Teams are where people in similar roles share things with each other and stay coordinated. Think of them like mini-HQs. Use them for ongoing groups or departments like Customer Service, Marketing, or Sales. Clients cannot be added to teams.

If you don't see the Teams section on your home screen, click the 🔑 Adminland link in the top right corner of the Home screen, and then choose "Set up what's shown on the Home screen" and flip the Teams toggle on.

Add a new Team

To create a new team, click on the + New button in the teams section, name your team, and you're done!

Projects

Projects are the heart of Basecamp. You can make projects for every major thing you have going on — like a marketing campaign, a new product launch, or a project for a client. Inside projects, you'll post announcements, chat, organize and assign work, set deadlines, share files, and present ideas.

Add a new Project

To create a new project, click on the + New button in the Projects section. Then type the name of the project and hit the Save button.

Once that's done, you're in! Click on the project and you'll see the six tools that are part of every project by default: Campfire, Message Board, To-dos, Schedule, Automatic Check-ins, and Docs & Files. You can organize these in the order you want them in.

If a project or a team doesn't need all of the tools in it by default, you can turn them off. Click on Change tools link in the ... menu.

Any changes you make will be reflected to anyone else on the project. For example, if you turn off Automatic Check-Ins, it turns them off for everyone in the project or team.

Then toggle the tool off that you don't need it.

Below your tools, you'll find the activity timeline, where you can see all the updates that have been made to this project!

You can add more than one of each tool to a project by clicking on + Add another:

This comes in handy if you'd like to to have different to-do sections for unrelated tasks, like marketing and bug reports:

A couple of caveats:

Additional campfire rooms will not include everyone in the project by default when they are created. Folks will have to choose to follow the campfire, or be @mentioned in it in order to be notified about updates in it.

Message categories are unique to each Message Board section. Additional Message Boards will include the categories that are configured in Adminland, but these can be edited from the project's ...menu.

Inviting people

When you're ready for other people to join the project so you can work together, hit the Invite people to the project button at the top of the page. Read more about adding people to a project.

Switching team members and clients

Sometimes a client joins your organization, or a team member is accidentally added to a project as a client user. It happens! But don't fret, there are ways to switch a user's type. The important thing to remember is that folks in Basecamp can't be a team member in one project, but a client user in another. They can only be one type of user in the account.

An account owner or an admin will need to make this change in Adminland. If that's you, please follow the full guide on that here.

Settings

Click the ... toward the upper right corner to update the project's name or description, change what tools are visible, or archive/delete it. We've got a couple of Developers' Tools included there too.

Tip: If you'd like to assign a team or project lead, include that info in your project description. It will show up on that project's page, and on the project card.

Folks can close comments in content they created themselves, and account admins can close comments on anything in the account.

When comments are closed boosts are also disabled. You'll be able to see older boosts but not add any new ones.

When comments are closed or enabled, it will be logged in the item's change log.

Turn a project into a team (or vice versa)

Have a project that would be better suited as a team (or vice-versa)? No problem! You can swap it over. Click in the ... menu to Edit name, description, or type.

Then you'll see an option to switch it to a team.

If you don't see the that option, your project probably has clients. Teams can only have team users, so remove the clients from the project, and the option should appear.

Next up: Organizing your Home screen →