Field Guide: Students

Welcome to Basecamp 👋

Projects, tasks, homework, schedules — whatever happened to the days where choosing what to watch on T.V. was the hardest to-do item of the day? Well, Basecamp can't help bring you back to that time of your life, but! It can help manage your school work so you can have more time to do things you want 😊

As a student, you may have been invited to work in your Teacher’s or another student’s Basecamp account or maybe you’ve created your own to manage all of your school work. Or, maybe all three!

When you have access to multiple accounts using the same email address, you’ll see icons for each when you log into Basecamp using a web browser:

Every account you have access to are completely separate, i.e. the work in one account cannot be accessed from another account’s Home screen. So if you need to see what your Teacher has posted, you’ll need to click the icon associated with your teacher’s account. In the example above, that’d be the Rydell High School account ✨

Oh! If you’re already in an account and want to switch to another, just click the Basecamp logo on the top-left and select the account you’re looking to work in:

Switching between accounts on an app will look different. More on that here.

Now that we’ve got that account bit squared away, let’s dive in to see how Basecamp can help you with your school work in your own account.

Jump to:

• Projects
• Message Board
• To-dos
• Card Table
• Schedule
• Docs & Files
• External Doors
• Chat
• Email Forwards
• Automatic Check-ins
• My stuff
• Boosts
• Notifications

Projects

Projects are the ❤️ of Basecamp. Each project will have tools within to help you get your work done!

In your Teacher’s (or another student’s) account, there’s likely a shared project they’ve created for you to work in. If you have any questions about the project setup, just post your question within the project's Chat (if it's available), or send them a Ping.

In your own Basecamp account, you’ll likely have two types of projects — when you're working alone and when you're working with others.

Here’s an example of a solo project:

And one for a group project:

Both projects look somewhat similar at a glance, but take a closer look — the project tools being used vary between the two. Let’s take a deeper look to see why 👀

Message Board

The Message Board is the tool you'll want to use in projects you use with others. Why? Because this is the ideal spot to post announcements, ask one-time questions, and share any important information you’d like your team to know.

In this example, Rob posted a message introducing his Basecamp (and Basecamp in general) with all the folks on the project:

You and your team can discuss any message by leaving a comment below just like Min did 👩🏻‍💻

To-dos

To-do lists are best for tasks that can be marked either done or not done, e.g. scheduling a meeting or complete a reading assignment.

In solo projects, you may want to get in the habit of assigning the to-dos to yourself. That way, you'll see them in your My Assignments page and get notified when the due date approaches. We'll learn more about the My Assignments page later in the guide. For now, we'll take a peek at Rob's to-do lists in both his solo and group projects.

In Rob's solo project, he decided to group to-dos within a list like this:

The highlighted headers within his to-do list are helpful to see each assignment's associated unit. These to-dos aren't dependent to each other, so if Rob wanted to read the chapter on "The Brain," this list isn't going to stop him from marking it as complete. Go for it, Rob!

Alternatively, you can make separate lists like Rob did for his group project — each project member has their own separate to-do list:

Each of project members can group their to-dos if it makes sense to them.

As you get started on your projects, you may find yourself asking, "to group or not to group to-dos?" Well, that really all depends on what works best for and your team. Play around with it, you'll figure it out 😊

Card Table

Do you have tasks that require multiple steps/phases before you can mark them as completed? If so, you'll want to use the Card Table tool for these types of assignments.

Card Tables is Basecamp's take on the Kanban and, like To-do lists, can be customized to fit you and your team's needs. You can rename the tool itself and the columns. The colors of the columns can be changed too! You can see these changes in the Card Table Rob created for his research papers:

And is his group project:

Often times, a Card will be comprised of multiple steps like this:

Hopefully, Cindy can help with those missing parts 🤞 Someone better add 'reach out to Cindy' to their to-do list before it slips through the cracks!

Schedules

The Schedule tool will automatically pull all dated assignments in the project, and you’ll have the option to also add any events relevant to the project as well.

You can also set it up so that you have two Schedules in a project like Rob did in both his solo and group projects — one for dated assignments and the other for events only.

In Rob's solo project, he renamed the Schedule tool he's using for his homework assignments to "Assignment Due Dates" — this Schedule will auto-populate with all dated assignments from the project's To-dos and Cards:

For his events-only Schedule, he renamed it to "Meetings/Events" — this is the Schedule he'll use to add events:

Docs & Files

The Docs & Files tool is pretty self-explanatory — this is where you'd upload files, link to cloud files, embed videos, or create documents relevant to your projects.

Check out the variety of items Rob's team added to the Docs & Files tools:

And here's how a document with an embedded video looks:

No need to head over to YouTube — you can play the video right in that Basecamp document 🎉

External Doors

Sometimes, you’ll need to access another service that’s related to your project. This is when you’ll want to add a Door.

Both project examples have Doors that open to different services. In the solo project, Rob added a Door to his teacher's most recent slideshow for reference:

In the group project, two Doors have been added — one for the coding program they're using and another for their budget:

Chat

The Chat is another tool you’ll most likely use in a group project and turn off in your solo projects. This is the best place to have casual conversations in real time:

I don't know about you, but I'm curious to see just how "extra" Mr. Y's is being with this new update 🤔

Email Forwards

You'll want to turn the Email Forwards tool on if you want to add any emails pertaining to your project into your Basecamp project.

You can send it to save@3.basecamp.com and select what project it should go to from the notification reply from Basecamp. Or, you can send it directly to the project by using your personalized address.

Here's the email Min mentioned in the Chat:

The group can then discuss in the comments below and if they wanted, they can reply to Mr. Y. there too! Pretty surprised to see just one GIF embedded in the comments there 😂

Automatic Check-ins

If you're leading a project, you may have some recurring questions you'll want to ask your team. So, instead of creating a recurring to-do to ask your teammates, you can use the Automatic Check-ins tool to ask alllll the questions.

My stuff

The My Stuff section isn't a project tool — it's a place for, well, your stuff! You'll find links to your assignments, bookmarks, schedule, drafts, recent activity, boosts, and recently visited pages there.

Remember when we mentioned "My Assignments" in the To-dos section above? This is the spot where you'll see all of your assignments and any dated tasks assigned to you and others across all projects you have access to in one view. You'll even be able to click and drag any tasks you want to prioritize to the "UP NEXT" section:

Every Monday morning, you'll be emailed a report that lists all your open assignments (unless you have completed everything like a boss). This report will also include what's Up Next, overdue, and what's scheduled for the upcoming week. If you don't want this report emailed to you, you can turn it off by clicking that "Emailing my assignments every Monday morning" button located on the top-right of your "My Assignments" page.

Another page you should know about is your "My Schedule" — this is where you'll get a roundup of dated assignments and events you're a part of in the account. You can access this page from "My Stuff" or on the bottom-left of your Home screen. There isn't an option to add new items in this view, you'll need to head to the project's tool to do that.

Boosts

Boosts are great when working with others in a project. With all the writing you already have to do for school, boosts are perfect way to respond to something quickly and directly using 16 characters or less:

Looks like Ted has all the jokes 🤣

Notifications

In Basecamp, you'll always receive notifications in your Hey! menu (unless you've turned on Focus Mode). When something new has happened in the projects you're a part of, you'll see an orange badge at the top of the Hey! menu like this:

You can also set up your notifications so you receive push notifications for specific project updates — you can get them via email (this setting will be on by default), banners and/or alerts in your browser or desktop app (Windows and Mac), and on your phone or tablet.

And! You can decide what kinds of updates will send you push notifications — Everything (messages, comments, to-do assignments, events, etc.) or Only Pings and @mentions. You're in control here!

More on notifications here: https://3.basecamp-help.com/article/86-how-notifications-work

That's it for now! We hope this guide helps you with your school work. And if you need any help, you can check our our learning center, help pages, or hit us up at Support. Happy Basecamping!