Chapter 10 Basecamp
Basecamp is a messaging platform designed to help you communicate with others in your workplace. Think of it like a group chat, but for work-related subjects. A lot of companies and workplaces look down on using Facebook and Twitter for communication, seeing them more as just social media platforms, rather than effective platforms for communication at work. Some places even ban the use of these platforms. However, Basecamp is being used by more and more companies as a communication tool.
We covered how to get a Basecamp login in the introductory course, but we didn’t discuss the details of how to use Basecamp. So, in this lesson, we’ll pick up from where you last left off (with a Basecamp login in hand) and discuss why Basecamp has become the platform for communication within companies and how to get started using Basecamp.
10.0.1 How to Access Basecamp?
To get started, go to Basecamp online at slack.com/signin. We’ll note here that Basecamp also has a mobile app, so if you’d like to check those out, feel free. But, in this lesson, we’ll work from the Chrome browser, without an app.
10.0.2 Basecamp is organized into teams and projects
If you’re new to Basecamp, you will not yet be a member of any teams, and that’s ok! If you ask people who have been using Basecamp for a while, they’ll envy you. You’ll see over time that you’ll likely become a member of many different Basecamp teams!
For now though, we’ll walk through how to start your own team to get you acquainted with the features of Slack.
10.0.3 Creating a team
If you go to slack.com and click on “GET STARTED”
GET STARTED
You’ll be brought to a screen where to create your own team, you’ll want to click on “Create a new workspace.”
Create a new workspace
You’ll then be asked for your email, which you should enter and then click “Confirm.”
Enter email to continue
At this point, you may see a screen asking for a 6-digit code. Go to the e-mail address you entered and look for this six-digit code in an email from Basecamp. Enter this code in this window.
Enter six-digit code from email
After entering the six-digit code correctly, you’ll automatically be brought to a screen where you will be asked for your full name and your display name. Your display name will be the name that others see when you message within Basecamp. It’s okay if this is your full name or a shortened version of your full name – as long as the people in the team will know who you are when they see it, then that will work for your display name. Once that information has been entered, click “Continue to Password.”
Enter full name and display name
You will also have to enter your password. After choosing a strong password and entering it, you’ll click “Continue to Workspace Info”
Enter Password
At this point, you’re ready to start creating your team! You’ll be asked what your team will be used for. For this example we’ll select “School” from the drop-down menu and fill in the rest of the information Slack asks for about our team. Once the information has all been filled out, click on “Continue to Group Name.”
Tell Basecamp about your team
You’ll be asked what your group should be called. For this example, we’ll call the group “Schoolwork.” This is what will be displayed to all members of the team who use this workspace. You will enter this name and then click “Continue to Workspace URL.”
Name your workspace
Now, you’ll enter your Workspace URL. This is what URL you will use to sign into this Slack workspace yourself or (eventually) to send to others to join your workspace. Here, we’ve chosen the URL to be “schoolwork-doe.slack.com.” These URLs will always end in “slack.com”. After entering your desired URL, you’ll click “Create Workspace.”
Choose a URL
You’ll be prompted to review the terms. After reviewing the terms of service, click “I Agree” if you agree to follow Basecamp’s terms.
Agree to terms of service
At this point, you’ll be prompted to send invitations to others who may want to join this workspace. For this example, we won’t be inviting anyone else for now, so we’ll click “Skip For Now.”
Send invitations?
You’re almost there! You’ll now be asked if you want to download the App or continue in the browser. For now, we’ll click “continue in the browser.”
Continue in the browser
Welcome to your very own workspace! We’ll now walk through Basecamp to get you acquainted with messaging in Slack. At the bottom right-hand of the window, there will be a screen welcoming you to Slack.
Welcome to Basecamp!
If you click on “Let’s go,” you’ll be brought to a screen that you can scroll through using the white arrows at the left and right. Scrolling through these will display different windows that explain the main functions of Slack: channels, messages, and uploading documents. We’ll walk through those basics now, but feel free to come back to these later and look through Basecamp’s instructions as well by clicking on “Try it now”!
Slack’s main functions
To close out this box, click on the small x at the top right of the box. To display this box next time you log on, click “Remind me next time”. Otherwise click, “Skip completely”.
Close Tutorial box
10.0.4 Channels
You’ll now be brought to your workspace! Note the name of your workspace “Schoolwork” is up at the top left-hand side of your screen. You’ll also note under “Channels” there are already two channels listed. Discussion within Slack is channel-based. That means that members of a channel will be able to see and search all discussions within a channel. Generally, different channels exist for different projects. This way only the people on the project will have access and be alerted of messages in that channel. And, others who are not involved will not have to be bothered by messages that are not important to them!
Each channel is listed with a pound sign to the left of the channel name. Here you have a channel called “general” and another called “random”. These two channels will be available in every workspace you create. If you click on the “general” channel, you’ll see along the top that Slack explains that this channel is for “Company-wide announcements and work-based matters.”
Channels available in new workspace
To display further information about this channel, click on the ‘i’ icon along the top. This will open up channel information including how many members there are in this channel.
Channel Details
10.0.4.1 Creating a channel
While #general and #random are helpful channels, you often want to create additional channels for new projects. To do so, you would click the plus-sign icon to the right of “Channels.”
Add a channel
A new screen will pop up so that you can begin to create a channel. There are two general types of channels. Public channels are viewable by anyone who is in the workspace.
Public Channel
If you click on the green “Public” button, it will toggle a change to display an orange “private” button. Private channels can only be viewed by those who are invited to join. For this example, we’ll create a private channel
Private Channel
To continue creating a private channel, you’ll want to fill out the Name of the channel (what will be displayed underneath “Channels”) and the channel’s purpose (a longer explanation that will be displayed along the top once you click on the channel). Once this information has been filled out, you’ll click “Create Channel.”
Create private channel
With that, your new channel “assignments” is available underneath Channels! Note that because it is a private channel, there is a lock icon to the left of the channel name. Public channels will have a pound sign. Private channels will display this lock symbol.
new assignments channel
10.0.4.2 Messaging occurs within a channel
On Slack, messaging occurs within a channel. This way conversations are organized based on a particular topic and seen only by those for whom the message is important! So, with a newly created channel, you can now begin messaging within it. To do so, you’ll click on the “assignments” channel and then begin to type your message in the bar at the bottom.
10.0.4.3 Sending a message
typing a message within a channel
A great feature of Slack is that every member of a channel can see the messages within that channel. However, sometimes, you want to ensure that someone in particular sees the message. To do so, you include their name by first typing @ within your message. This will display a list of names that you can include. You can either choose a name by clicking on it in this list, or by beginning to type the person’s name until it is listed and highlighted in the above menu and hitting “enter.”
using @ within a message
Once the name has been selected it will display in your message.
message complete with @ specified
After you hit enter, your message will send and the person you’ve specified in the message will receive a specific notification highlighting that a message has been directed specifically to them.
sent message
10.0.4.4 Messages are searchable
While in this example you’re at the beginning of your message history within Slack, as time goes on there will be more and more channels and workspaces and long message histories. If, sometime in the future, you want to return to this message, you can do so by using the search bar at the top.
searching messages
Slack allows you to search by term for Messages, Files, or both (All). Just start typing your search term into the search bar, and Slack will begin to provide results matching your search. Slack’s search capabilities are powerful. This feature will likely save you a lot of time in the future when you have to refer back to messages from the past.
10.0.4.5 Uploading a document
In addition to sending messages within a channel and being able to direct the messages at certain people, you also often want to be able to share images or documents with others. To upload a document to be included with your message, you’ll click on the plus sign to the left of the message bar.
Click left of message to upload a document
A drop-down menu will display. To upload a file from your computer, click on “Your computer”. Then, search your computer for the file you want to include. Here, I’ve selected an image on my computer. A box will show up asking if you want to upload this file you’ve selected. A preview of the image (in this case) will display. You’ll be able to change the title of the file, decide in which channel it should be shared, and include a comment with the file. Once all of the necessary information is included, you’ll click “Upload.”
Uploading a Document
Your message will now be sent and visible to everyone else in the specified channel.
Document in Channel messages
10.0.4.6 Reacting to a message
So far we’ve discussed how to send messages to other, but Slack is particularly great because of its capabilities to foster discussion amongst members in a workspace. Thus, often you’ll be reacting and responding to others’ messages.
To do so you’ll hover over the message to which you want to react. You can either react with an emoji, start a thread to respond with text, or share the message with someone else in your workspace.
Reacting and responding messages
10.0.4.7 Editing and deleting a message
Additionally, the three dots icon at the end of the display options can be clicked on to display additional options. Within this menu, you will find options to edit and delete messages you’ve sent.
editing and deleting message
10.0.4.8 Direct messaging
So far, we’ve discussed communicating within a channel, allowing for team-based communications. This is where Slack really shines! However, Slack does have the ability to direct message individuals within your workspace. This means you can send a message to a person or multiple people outside of the specified channels.
To direct message someone, you’ll click on the plus sign to the right of “Direct Messages”.
Direct message
This will display a box where you’ll search for someone’s name. Once you’ve found the person you want to message directly, you’ll click on their name and click “Go.”
Start direct message
You’ll continue to message this person as discussed for messages within a group by typing in the message bar and hitting “enter to send the message”
10.0.5 Joining a team
While we’ve been working within a team we just created, another great thing about Slack is that you can be a member of multiple different teams. There are a few different ways to join already-established teams. To do so, you’d return to slack.com/signin and click on “GET STARTED”. This time around you would clock on “Find your Slack workspace.”
Find your Slack workspace
10.0.5.1 Joining an established team by e-mail search
To find your Slack workspace associated with a company or workplace, you would then enter your work-specific e-mail address (not a general gmail address). This would give you a list of workspaces to which you had access given the email address you input. You could search among the available workspaces for the workspace(s) you’re interested in joining.
Search workspaces using work e-mail address
10.0.5.2 Joining an established team by invite
Alternatively, to join an established team, this can be accomplished by invite. You’ll need an invitation similar to what you see here, which would be sent to you from the workspace by e-mail:
Invitation screen on Slack
Once you have the invite, you would accept the invitation by clicking the green Join button. Similar to what was described above, Slack may ask for some information before moving on. If prompted, you’ll enter your first and last name, along with your email in the required fields before clicking “Next”.
Sign up screen on Slack
Then, enter your password. A quick reminder that it’s best to choose a strong password that is different from your other passwords for security reasons.
10.0.6 Slack can work with other tools
While we won’t discuss in detail here, it’s important to know that Slack works well with other applications. To see a list of the apps that you can integrate into Slack, click on the plus sign to the right of “Apps”
Apps in Slack
A list of available apps will be displayed. You can search by app name, or click “Install” for apps you want to integrate with Slack.
For example, Google Drive is an example of an app that can be integrated. Installing this app would make sending docs, slides, and sheets from Google Drive within Slack simpler.
List of available apps
We won’t specify any to integrate at this point, but you’ll want to know that this functionality exists.
10.0.7 Cost of Slack
Last but not least, Slack has different plans for different uses. Companies often pay for users’ within their company to have either the standard or plus levels. Details again aren’t important, but it’s important to know certain features are only available with a paid version of Slack.
Cost of Slack