Works with MS Outlook 2007 or MS Outlook 2010
TOBI plugs into your MS Outlook ribbon under the Add-Ins category.
You can connect Outlook to any Basecamp project
In this example we have created a simple project with two todo lists and two milestones.
Create a task folder to store Basecamp items
Right-click on a folder to create a 'New Folder'. This will be where TOBI stores Basecamp items. You can create many folders and connect them to Basecamp.
This new folder will contain Task tems
You can give the folder any name you like. The 'type' of folder must contain task items.
Now connect the folder to Basecamp.
All we need is your specific <account>/basecamphq.com URL.
Click on the 'Connect Selected Folder' command
This can also be done with a right-mouse click.
A diaglog box of existing connections appears
The very first time you connect to Basecamp this of course will be empty, as the screenshot shows. Click on the 'Add Server' button to add our first connection.
Type in the top-level URL for your Basecamp account, user name and pasword
For example, the top-level URL for TeamDirection projects on Basecamp is https://teamdirection/basecamphq.com. Instead of 'teamdirection', however, you will use your corporate account. And of course the user name and password you would like to use. This data is stored in the Windows Credentials Manager.
Expand the entry to view all your Basecamp projects
When you click the '+' to the left of a connection entry, TOBI will ask Basecamp for all the visible projects.
Select to projects to connect to Outlook
You can select every project, but here we are just seleting 'Circle'. We also changed the checkbox settings to 'Include Milestones' and to bring in all tasks, not just items assigned to me.
TOBI populates the Outlook task list with Basecamp items
Here is the moment we've all been waiting for-- Basecamp items in Microsoft Outlook! Right now they are all bold because they are all new and have unread information.
Selecting an Outlook task shows additional information
We selected every task except for 'Skip', so they reverted to normal text. Then we selected 'Wash', which has a comment and an attachment. We can view the comments and attachments within Outlook.
This view reflects the comment and attachment in Basecamp
TOBI does not store the attachments on your local computer, provides the link to Basecamp's storage. This will help reduce copies of attachments floating around.
Let's mark the 'Wash' as complete in Outlook
Back in Outlook we clicked on the left-most checkbox column for the 'Wash'. This marks an Outlook task as completed. TOBI notices this and immediately marks the corresponding Basecamp Todo Item as complete as well.
Basecamp sees the Wash is complete as well
This change happened as soon as Outlook could send the message to Basecamp. This is the example of 'Tethering', which provides instant updates.
Changes in Basecamp will also be reflected in Outlook
Here we will mark a Todo Item in Basecamp as completed.
Every 15 minutes TOBI will check Basecamp for changes
In this case we made a change to 'Jump'. Once TOBI's configurable timer fires this change will be seen in Outlook too.
Outlook and Basecamp stay in sync
TOBI noticed the change in Basecamp and marked 'Jump' as completed in Outlook.
