We just launched a feature that makes posting messages to Basecamp more convenient. We think you're going to find it really handy.

You can now email a message directly to a project. This means you can post messages without even being logged in. Just send a message via email from your desktop, web-based email client, or mobile phone, and it'll post right to Basecamp as a message.

Here's how it works

Each project has a unique email address. And each email address is unique to each user. This is how Basecamp knows which project you want to post the message to, and who's posting the message.

So go into a project and click the Messages tab. Then check the sidebar. You'll see the list of categories as well as a new link at the bottom that says: "Post a message via email". We've highlighted it red in the image below:

Clicking the link takes you to a dialog that gives you your own unique email address for that project, along with some details about how the feature works:

You may want to copy that email address to your address book so you have it any time you want to post a message to that project.

Remember, every project and every user have unique inbound email addresses. So don't share the email address with anyone else. Everyone on your project will see their own email address when they click the "Post a message via email" link. If this email address ever gets spammed, there's a link on the "Post a message via email" screen that lets you generate a new email address.

A few more details

Messages posted via email aren't categorized. If you want to categorize the message you can go into the project later, edit the message, select a category, and save the changes.

Files attached to the email will show up as file attachments on the message. This only works on pay plans - free plans don't include file sharing.

And finally, whenever you email in a message everyone on the project will receive an email notification letting them know a new message has been posted. If they don't want to receive email notifications on that message thread in the future they can opt out by clicking a link at the bottom of the email notification.

Thanks

We hope you find the new feature really useful. Thanks again for using Basecamp!

In a few weeks we'll be launching a completely new username and password system we're calling 37signals Accounts. This means that everyone who uses a 37signals product will need to pick a new username and password. You'll only have to do it once, and it will only take a few seconds.

We recently linked to the 37signals Accounts detail page and now there's also a letter to our customers explaining the rollout schedule, full list of benefits of the new system, and additional information. The information on these pages should answer any questions you have about the transition.

The new 37signals Accounts system lays the groundwork for a variety of enhancements you've been asking for. We'll be working on these in 2010. Thanks again for your continued support.

What the "pick a new username and password screen" will look like.

We're getting really close now. Back in August we previewed 37signals Accounts — our new single sign-on system for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. Today we announced that we're just a few weeks out from official release.

We just put up a 37signals Accounts pre-launch page detailing the basics, the benefits, a few screenshots, and FAQs.

Read this post at Signal vs. Noise for additional details and a couple of highlights from the new system.

Basecamp has always had an "add 10 milestones at a time" feature, but the date picker wasn't the easiest to use. We had three pulldowns - one for year, one for month, and one for day. It worked, but it wasn't optimal.

Today we launched a nice improvement we think you'll like. Now just click a "Pick a date" field and up pops a calendar. Click the day and it's set. That's all there is too it. Faster, easier, more contextual, and more fun to use.

Thanks again for using Basecamp.

Today Basecamp suffered the worst outage / slowdown that it has had in a very long time. We're very sorry that this disrupted your day. We know that you depend on Basecamp and any downtime, no matter how rare, is a serious problem. That's why we want to share all the details with you, so we can be as transparent as possible and you can trust that we're doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again.

If you don't care about the technical details, the summary is that a server went down and our redundant backup server wasn't operational as fast as we expected it to be. No data was lost. We're making sure that both issues are taken care of and will not be repeated. If you do care about the technical details, read on.

It all started when we ran what should have been an innocent diagnostics tool to check the configuration of some hardware on the main database server. This tool wasn't so innocent after all and somehow managed to crash the server. (We're still investigating the root cause to find out exactly what happened).

This shouldn't have been a problem. We run a big, beefy slave database that's supposed to be ready at a moments notice. It has all the latest data, so even if the main machine is nuked out of orbit, we don't lose any customer data and can go straight back to trucking. Or so we thought.

The problem with this is that it's been way too long since we last had to failover to the slave server and in the meantime we've grown a ton. So while the slave database server has all the latest data and is just as beefy as the main machine, the read cache was cold because it's not being used to feed live requests. That means it has to build up the appropriate cache when we switched over to the backup server and that took way longer than we anticipated (last time there was much less data) and made everything painfully slow while it happened.

The solution is to make sure that the slave server sits with a pre-heated cache at all times, so it's ready to take over from the master immediately. There are a number of options available for this and we're looking at all of them to pick the best one.

Once again, we're really sorry for this. It was very painful to watch Basecamp be unavailable or slow for that long when we knew what we had to do to prevent this in the future. Please accept our apologies. Thanks for being a Basecamp customer.

This one's been a long time coming. It's been our top request for quite a while. Now you can add due dates to to-do lists in Basecamp.

We spent a lot of time working on the experience, the interface, and flow, and the speed of this feature. Countless variations and hundreds of little tweaks later, we think we nailed it. We hope you'll agree.

Here's a video showing you how it all works:

This is phase one of this new feature. We have some additional features rolling out for to-dos shortly. The next major feature will be showing dated to-dos on your Dashboard and Overview calendars. Currently those calendars only show milestones due in the next 14 days. Soon they'll show to-dos as well. We'll also be revamping and modernizing drag-and-drop reordering. We think you'll really like that as well.

So thanks again for your patience while we developed the due date feature for to-dos. We took the time to get it right. We think you'll agree it was worth it.

Thanks again for using Basecamp!

Check it out: MacAppStorm has posted a great piece on "The Ultimate Collection of 37signals Mac & iPhone Apps." It offers summaries and reviews of over 25 Mac and iPhone apps designed to work alongside Basecamp, Backpack, Campfire, and Highrise.

Today we added a new feature to make organizing image files in Basecamp even better. Now files such as JPG, TIFF, PNG, and GIF images uploaded to Basecamp show a thumbnail preview on the Files tab. You can click the thumbnail to zoom-in for a larger preview. This makes finding files easier and brings image zooming available elsewhere in Basecamp to the Files tab.

To see this new feature, go to the Files tab in any Basecamp project.

Click any image thumbnail to zoom-in for a larger preview. You can then click the link at the bottom of the zoom window to download the full-size image.

We also reduced the clutter on the Files list view by only showing the edit and delete file controls when your mouse is hovering over a single item. This is similar to how you can already reveal the controls on to-dos and milestones. Just place your mouse over the file to see the edit and delete links.

Click "edit" to change the file's details.

We think these improvements will make the "Files" tab in Basecamp even more useful. Enjoy this new feature and thanks again for using Basecamp!

We're excited to announce the return of a set of improvements to File Uploads in Basecamp. These updates include an easier way to select multiple files and a new progress bar that gives feedback as your files are uploaded.

We originally released this update in June 2009 and shortly afterward we discovered some compatibility problems that required us to temporarily withdraw the update. We worked hard to solve those problems, and today we are happy to announce that all the File Upload features are working perfectly and the compatibility issues are fixed.

The improved file selection and progress bar are back on all Basecamp accounts as of today. We'd like to sincerely thank you all for your patience, help and feedback throughout this process. We hope you enjoy the new features!

Here's a video demo of the File Upload features from the original post:

Thanks again for your support. We wish you the best success on all your projects!

We just launched a brand new set of icons for the files you upload to your Basecamp projects. These icons are displayed on the files tab and messages/comments.

Some of the benefits of the new icons include:

The new icons are platform agnostic. The old icons were a combination of Windows and Mac desktop icons. We weren't technically supposed to use third party icons in our products. Now that we have our own icon set we're clean and clear.

The new icons have a consistent shape and presentation. They're all the same width and same style. The file extension is also written below. You don't have to guess what kind of file it is.

Desktop application icons often change with each new software version upgrade. By creating our own standard set of icons we don't have to update Basecamp each time a new Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word version comes out.

We hope you like these improved file-type icons. Thanks again for your continued support. We'll be rolling these new icons out to Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire shortly.

Sherpa is a Basecamp companion app for the iPhone. Sherpa utilizes publicly available API's that are provided by 37Singals in order to provide "a quick and convenient way to access your project messages from Basecamp."

Access Multiple Accounts Does every client you work with have a separate Basecamp account? Sherpa makes it easy to access multiple accounts with a single application.

Contact Your People Need to call or SMS someone about a project? No problem. Sherpa will auto-dial your contacts by simply choosing a number listed in their profile.

Quick Access Sherpa gives you quick and organized access to your Projects on Basecamp - even while your in line at your favorite coffee shop.

Let's Keep it Simple The one aspect that the Sherpa team wanted to capture was "ease of use." Feel free to let us know how to improve the experience for you.

Download Sherpa [iTMS].

We're excited to announce a batch of improvements to private messages, to-do lists, and files in Basecamp. Now it is more clear when you've made an item private and easier than ever to see who can view it. We know private items are important so it's vital that you get clear visual feedback when you mark something "private". When creating a message, a to-do list, or uploading a file, clicking the private checkbox will turn the entire message form light red.

Here is a message that has been marked private. The message box has turned light red and the only parties who will be able to view it are listed:

Once saved, the private flag that appears next to private messages, to-do lists, and files now shows you exactly who can view the item when you place your mouse over it.

Pro tip: You may have noticed that more than one company can view the private message in the example above. The default is to share private items only with your company but did you know that you can choose additional companies to see your private messages? This is great for collaborating with a sub-contractor or partner company on a client project. To allow another company to see private messages, visit the "All people" tab from Basecamp's dashboard and edit the company. Click the checkbox shown below to let that company see your private messages.

We hope you like the ways we've improved handing of private messages, to-do lists and files. Thanks for using Basecamp!

Last night we rolled out an update that may not make short-term financial sense for us, but it's the right thing to do. Now all Basecamp plans — including the free plan — include SSL secure encryption (what's SSL?). Prior to this update only Plus-and-higher plans included SSL.

How to enable SSL

Existing customers on Basic, Personal, and Free accounts can turn on SSL by clicking on the "Settings" tab on the Dashboard and scrolling down to the "SSL 128-bit encryption" section. SSL will be off by default for you. If you choose to turn it on just click the "On" button. Note: SSL is a bit slower than non-SSL so if you value speed over security you are free to keep it off. It's your call.

A new position

SSL was initially positioned as an upgrade driver to higher plans. And while we don't know what percentage of people considered SSL a key reason for upgrading, we believe everyone is entitled the best security we can offer. There shouldn't be first class or second class customers when it comes to security. It doesn't matter if Customer A is paying us $149 and Customer B is not paying us at all — they are all customers and their data is equally important.

Step one

This is the first step in our renewed focus on being a better corporate citizen. We plan on rolling out similar SSL upgrades across our entire product line (Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire). We're also examining additional good citizen initiatives beyond security. Profit will be considered (we are a business, after all), but it won't always come first.

We hope you enjoy the added security and thanks again for being our customer.

-The crew at 37signals

Last week we released an update to Basecamp that included an easier way to select multiple files to upload and an improved progress bar to show feedback as files are uploaded. The new features worked really well for the majority of our customers. But as the days went by, we discovered a percentage of customers who simply couldn't upload files anymore.

We worked diligently throughout last week to release fixes and narrow down the problem. On Monday we fixed a bug where existing attachments weren't displayed when editing a Message or Comment. We investigated and successfully resolved a problem where files intermittently failed to upload on Tuesday. On Wednesday we identified and fixed a problem with hanging uploads on Safari 4 and Google Chrome. On Thursday we discovered a subtle bug in the link to switch to the "Basic Uploader" fallback. We located the bug and deployed a fix on Thursday afternoon. Throughout the week, and especially Thursday through Sunday, we collected data from a percentage of customers on Windows who reported that they still cannot upload files despite these fixes.

As of today, we have determined that antivirus software is blocking our file uploader on certain Windows installations, and we have determined how to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the fix will require some time-consuming changes to our code. We basically need to rebuild a sizable segment of the file uploader. It will take time to implement the fix, and in the meantime some customers cannot upload files.

It is crucial for every one of our customers to be able to upload files. So while we continue to work hard behind the scenes to fix this compatibility problem, we believe it is in the best interest of our customers to revert back to the previous file uploader. This change will allow every single customer to upload files again, and it will allow us to work for you behind the scenes to fix this compatibility issue. The improved multiple-file selection and fancy progress bar will be unavailable after the roll back, but the change is not permanent. We'll bring these features back after we have fixed the compatibility issue. The zooming image preview feature is unaffected by this change.

We are deeply sorry for the trouble some customers have had with uploading files, and we're also very sorry that it's necessary to revert some improvements that many customers were happy about. We feel terrible about it. If you were affected by the File Uploading change last week and still cannot upload files, please write support and we will issue a credit to your account. For those of you who haven't had any problems, we truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to bring the improved uploading features to our entire customer base.

We are preparing the roll-back now, and we expect the previous file uploader to be up and running again within 24 hours. Once we again, we deeply apologize and we thank you for your understanding.

UPDATE: On July 6, 10:00pm CST we rolled back to the previous File Uploading system. Now everybody should be able to upload files again.

We're excited to announce a great improvement to Basecamp. The new Daily Digest feature makes it easier than ever to track the progress of your projects. The Daily Digest is an email that Basecamp sends you once a day. The email tells you about any to-do items or milestones that were checked off or added in the last day. Daily Digests are per-project, so you can subscribe to the projects you really care about without being distracted by any unnecessary information. Now you'll always know day-by-day as work is completed or new work is assigned. It's a really powerful feature.

To subscribe to the Daily Digest for a project, first load the project and click on the Overview tab. You'll see a link to subscribe in the upper-right of your screen:

After you click "Turn on email updates" the following screen will confirm your details and remind you how the Daily Digest works:

Now that you're subscribed, you'll receive an email once each day at 9am. You'll only receive an email if there was some activity on the project in the last 24 hours. Here's a sample of what the Daily Digest email looks like:

We think you'll love how the Daily Digest keeps you on top of your projects step-by-step as they move toward completion. Thanks as always for your continued support and we hope you enjoy the new feature!

Travis Vocino, a South Florida based technologist, explains how to "Create a Kick Ass Intranet App using 37signals":

I use three 37signals applications: Backpack, Basecamp and Highrise (go go referral links). With these 3 excellent web apps, I’m able to rock out a seriously awesome complete intranet setup for my business.

Just using them is fine but, as usual, I like to take it one step further into better integration with my desktop workflow. That’s where OpenID and Fluid.app come in.

The article goes on to explain how to use OpenID and Fluid.app to "turn this puppy into a desktop-like application."

Having all of these applications in place really creates a great intranet-type workflow. It’s helpful even when working solo but if you have a small team like me it really shines. I also noticed my people used the various apps a lot more once I introduced them to using OpenID to bring them together — as well as putting it all together in Fluid.app...

It’s great for tabbing to your intranet window, adding a calendar entry, and tabbing back to Photoshop, to give a quick example. This is a process that just isn’t as exciting when you’re stuck in Safari.

Read the whole piece for step-by-step details on how Travis set up his system.

Ka Wai Cheung of We Are Mammoth answers some questions about his team's recently launched web-based issue tracking tool called DoneDone that integrates with Basecamp.

What's DoneDone and why did we build it? We built DoneDone because we just couldn't find an issue tracking system that we actually liked (free or paid). To us, they all look like dropdown boxes made babies with an Excel spreadsheet. We wanted something better.

We think issues get solved faster if an issue tracker can delegate responsibility better. DoneDone is about real-time responsibility. It's focused on who needs to do what next. Here’s a post that better explains it.

How does it integrate with Basecamp? That brings us to Basecamp. We love using Basecamp at the start of a project to collaborate with our clients. We love using it during development to communicate and organize our thoughts. But, at the end of a project, when we're tying up loose ends, we need something that feels more dictatorial than collaborative. That's when we use DoneDone.

We're using your API to let users import companies and users from projects in Basecamp over to DoneDone so completing a project is as seamless as possible.

Who's behind it? Our little company is called We Are Mammoth. We're mainly a Flash/Flex-based software shop but we also write other software on the side and blog.

Thanks!

Learn more about DoneDone.

MYeReputation is an eMarketing consulting company that uses Basecamp with its clients. The company created a quite thorough screencast that walks customers through the process of getting started with Basecamp (4 min). Watch it and you may get some ideas for how to increase Basecamp uptake with your clients. If you've created a similar tool to help people get started with one of our products, let us know about it.

We have released two new improvements to Basecamp. Now you can see related milestones on your to-do lists and post messages without specifying a category.

See related milestones on to-do lists

When you edit a to-do list you can specify if there is a milestone related to the list. After you specify the related milestone, the to-do list appears as a link below the appropriate milestone on the Milestones tab. This feature has existed in Basecamp for a long time. Now we have improved on this feature by displaying the related milestone directly on the to-do list. Whenever you load the To-Do tab, you will see if there are any related milestones on your lists and you can jump directly to those milestones.

Here's how it works. First edit a to-do list and select a milestone from the pulldown:

After you have specified the milestone, you will see it linked below the title and description of your to-do list.

While we're talking about to-do lists and milestones, you should know that the new Milestone quick window also displays to-do lists that are related to a milestone. If a milestone is upcoming in the next 14 days, you can click the milestone on the Dashboard to launch the quick window. The quick window shows a link to any related to-do lists directly below the Milestone's name:

To take advantage of this feature:

Set a related milestone on your to-do lists When the milestone is upcoming in the next 14 days, it will appear on your Dashboard. Click the milestone on the Dashboard to display the quick window. Click the to-do list name under the milestone's title and you'll be taken straight to the to-do list itself.

It's a really fast way to jump to to-do lists when you have deadlines approaching.

Post messages without a category

The second update is a minor tweak to the Message section. In the past, you always had to specify a category for each message. The default category was always the first category in alphabetical order (like "Assets"). This situation led many people to accidentally file their messages into a category that didn't really fit the content of the message. Now the default category is "No category." You don't have to file your message into a category unless you want to. We hope this small adjustment helps you to use categories on your own terms with better control.

We hope you like the improvements! Thanks as always for your support.

Toggl is a time tracking tool for freelancers and teams that integrates with Basecamp. Alari Aho, CEO of Apprise (which makes Toggl), tells us more:

Toggl is currently growing fast, and we are very excited to be integrated with Basecamp. The integration works both ways - you can import clients, projects and team members from Basecamp and export tasks back for reports.