- I'm Kimberly from Basecamp's Customer Success Team and today I wanna talk about when is the best time to use the different communication types in Basecamp. We often have people writing in to ask when should I use the Message Board versus Campfire or why would I use the Campfire instead of just sending a Ping? The communication tools in Basecamp are intentionally different from one another. In this video, I'm gonna walk you through the three main types, and when you might wanna use each one. And make sure to stay until the end, because I have a little quiz to make sure you really understand the three different tools. First up, the Message Board. In many cases, the Message Board can replace emails. If you need to make an announcement, pitch an idea, or ask a question, and you want that message to have a fairly permanent place to live, the Message Board is where it should go. Just give your message a title and type in your message just like you would an email. You can include links or attachments and there's some formatting options available as well. You'll be able to decide who gets a notification, and when your message is posted it will stay on the Message Board indefinitely unless it's archived or deleted. Any comments or responses on the message stay all in one place, connected to the message. To keep things organized inside your Basecamp project, I think it's incredibly helpful to have conversations related to specific to-dos, directly on that to-do, and conversations related to a document or file directly on the document or file. But the Message Board is great for more overarching communication within a project, or discussions that you wanna have a more prominent and permanent location. Okay, so if the Message Board replaces email then Campfire is the equivalent replacement for a quick communication tool like group texts or something like Slack. We like to say that Campfire is for more casual communication and it works great for real time chats. Because Campfire messages present themselves in a linear, rolling timeline, just like a group text, it can be hard to quickly catch up if a Campfire has been busy. So if there's something really important and it's imperative that it doesn't get lost, I'd suggest you post it in a more permanent way, like the Message Board. On the other hand, Campfires are great for short, quick, to the point group communication that you likely don't need a permanent record of. It's the perfect spot for that well-placed GIF or is it GIF? Now Pings are similar to Campfire, in that they follow the same visual rolling format but unlike Campfire, which exists within Basecamp projects, Pings are not tied to any specific project at all. Instead, think of them like direct messages with a person completely separate from a project. You can send a Ping to one person or a group of people, and that conversation is only visible to the people you select. This makes Pings an ideal way to communicate when you don't wanna bog down everyone in a project with details that only apply to one or a handful of people or when you wanna discuss something a bit more privately. The one thing to know is that even though Pings aren't part of Basecamp projects, you do have to share a project with someone in order to be able to Ping them at all. So for example, you have multiple clients in your Basecamp account. You could send a Ping to client A and you could send a Ping to client B, but client A and client B won't be able to Ping each other unless they're both on a project together. So if you want everyone on your company to be able to send Pings to anyone else, you'll wanna make sure you have at least one project that everyone is invited to. The exception to this is account owners and admins who can Ping anyone they want to in the account. So unlike Message Board and Campfire notifications which show up in your Hey! menu, Ping notifications have their own section of the navigation bar. This is where you'll get any notifications about Pings and also where you can start a new Ping conversation. So three communication tools, three different purposes. Let's wrap this up with a quick quiz to make sure it all makes sense. First question one, I wanna let my team know I'll be stepping away a little early to head to a doctor's appointment. There's nothing for them to do, but I just wanna send a quick message to everyone in the group, just as an FYI. Should I (A), post a message on the Message Board in our team's project titled, 'Heading to Doc in the Box," (B) Post in the Campfire for our department's shared project, or (C) start a group Ping with everyone on the team? The answer is B, post it in the Campfire. This sort of quick communication doesn't need a permanent Message Board post. And if everyone on the team is already part of a team project, you don't need to start a separate Ping with all the same people. Question two, let's say I have a question for Andrea, the head of our people department, about my 401K contributions. Should I (A) go to a company-wide project and post a message on the Message Board titled "Will I Ever Retire?" Option B, post in the Campfire of a company-wide project and @ mention Andrea or (C) send Andrea a Ping? The answer is C, send her a Ping. There's no reason anyone else needs to be looped into my communication with Andrea about this topic. To keep it private, keep it a Ping. And just to be clear, the Basecamp account owner ultimately owns all the content in the account, much like how a company email address works. For highly sensitive conversations that you don't want anyone to be able to access, ever, you should just pick up the phone. Question three, it's time for the annual Basecamp Chili Cookoff, and I've started a Basecamp project for it and have included all the contestants. I need everyone to know the rules to this very competitive event. Should I (A) post a message in the Chili Cookoff Project titled "Chili Code of Conduct." (B) post in the Campfire, spelling out all 37 rules, or (C) send a group Ping to just the eight people I'm pretty sure are gonna participate? The answer is A, when you want everyone on a project to have access to a communication and for it to be saved in a prominent place they can easily go back to, the Message Board is where you should post it. I hope you aced that exam and if not and you have any questions, let us know. You can always reach our team with the question mark in the bottom right corner of your screen. And one last thing, there actually is one more way to communicate in Basecamp that we haven't talked about, and that's Automatic Check-ins. If you wanna pose a recurring question to your team like a status update on a project, and then gather their answers or their individual progress all in one spot, the Automatic Check-ins tool is something you should consider. I made a separate video all about it and I hope you'll check it out. (upbeat music)