Basecamp is one of the most popular light-weight project management tools, and with good reason. But many enterprise users are looking for more powerful project planning and collaboration tools.

As a result, we’ve seen plenty of users who’ve migrated from Microsoft Project and Basecamp to Deskera, looking for a complete solution that meets both their needs of project planning and collaboration.

Deskera already supports import and export of project plans from Microsoft Project. Looking at the sheer number of Basecamp users who wish to migrate to Deskera, we thought it was time to roll out an ‘Import from Basecamp’ feature.

We wish we could bring in your documents as well, but sadly, Basecamp does not support this. As of now, Basecamp does not support importing of project information from any other tool either.

For more details on ‘How to import projects from Basecamp’ you can head over to our support forum. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

• Import existing plans from Microsoft Project
• Sync Deskera calendars to Microsoft Outlook and others using iCal
• Export Deskera project plans to Microsoft Project
• Export plans and reports to .pdf and .csv files
• Embed project plans anywhere on the web
• Import/Export your existing contacts from Microsoft Outlook and via .csv files
• E-mail Notifications for tasks and to-dos
• RSS feeds for project updates

Plus we know that the real way to lock in customers is to give them the keys.

Ready to migrate from Basecamp? Sign Up to manage your projects the way you really want to.

P.S. Also, let us know if there’s any other tool you wish to migrate project data from. We’ll do it.

Or any other feed reader of your choice – Google, Yahoo, Thunderbird, Netvibes, FeedDemon, Krawler[x] and even web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)  is a way for content publishers to make news, blogs, and other content available to subscribers.

Using the Global RSS Feed provided in Deskera, you can get notified of updates across all your projects.

Individual RSS Feeds are also provided for:

1. Individual Project Updates
2. To-Do List Updates for each project
3. Event Updates for each project and
4. Individual Calendar feeds as well

All you need to do is click on the  icon, subscribe directly by selecting your Feed Reader (Microsoft Outlook, Google, Yahoo, etc.) or you can also copy the URI from the address bar and paste it into your reader.

Zoli Erdos, of the highly respected Enterprise Irregulars, echoes our sentiments on Project Management 2.0 at CloudAve.

In the 90’s I worked on a number of fairly large scale SAP Projects in a variety of roles, including Project Manager, and supervisor of several other projects.  The standard tool was Microsoft Project.  It was used for:

• Planning a Project (initial Scoping)
• Selling it
• Periodic reporting to Steering Committee during the actual projects

What’s missing from the above?   Well, how about using it to help the actual daily work of project team members?

Project  team members did not even have access to MS Project, it only existed in a few copies on the PM and Team Lead’s computers. Information-flow was one-way: feed the beast to be able to occasionally print charts that look impressive (scary) enough which Steering Committee members won’t question.

Okay, I am admittedly sarcastic, but the point is:  PM 1.0 was all about planning, reporting and it served Management but did not help actual Project Execution.

My expectation of PM 2.0 would be that it helps all team members involved who can share information, collaborate on it and actually get clues from the system on where they are, where they should be, what their next step is, instead of just feeding the beast.

And that’s exactly what we are trying to do at Deskera. Oh & if you already use Microsoft Project, Deskera is just for you. Deskera lets you work on Microsoft Project files on the web. Really.

Give it a go by signing up for free.