Solamar, a marketing and web design agency in the US, took a year to test more than 20 project management tools to find the perfect match! Read their case study to find out how Teamwork Projects was able to provide them with an all-in-one solution for more effective team and project management.

Chelsea Berler founded Solamar, a boutique marketing and web design agency, in 2006 as a creative solution for business owners who needed marketing, design and administrative expertise without the additional overhead of in-house staff. Starting out as a completely virtual company, Solamar has grown to over 20 team members located in offices in Alabama and Florida, plus remote team members worldwide. In this case study, we spoke to Ben Kaplan, VP of Operations, to find out why his team chose Teamwork Projects as a better alternative to Basecamp.

“Our previous tool, Basecamp Classic, wasn’t really a project management tool, but rather an information repository. There were no tools for task management and the time tracking feature was limited.”

For years, Solamar depended on Basecamp Classic to assist with managing their projects, but always depended on additional tools to perform the functions Basecamp lacked. After discovering that an updated version of Basecamp still fell short of Solamar’s needs, the team finally decided they needed to search for a better solution.

“We were really disappointed by the new version of Basecamp as it was pretty much the same as Basecamp Classic just without time tracking.”

  Over the course of a year, Solamar tested more than 20 different project management tools, trying to find the one software solution that could do it all for them. As the agency handles dozens of clients at a time, they needed a robust solution to handle their workflows — plus the layers of details that each project contained. Their “must-have” list for project management software had more than 12 items, including task management, detailed reporting, messaging and email integration, excellent UX — and an affordable price. During their search Solamar found Teamwork Projects, then took it for a lengthy test drive and determined that they had found a winner.

“When all was said and done, only Teamwork Projects stood out among the rest, and by a fairly wide margin!”
“Teamwork Projects excelled at all of the criteria we set when we began looking for an alternative to Basecamp. The software is highly customizable, both in look and function, and its attractive and intuitive interface made the transition extremely smooth.”

Switching from Basecamp was an effortless process using an instant import feature in Teamwork Projects. In a single click, all of Solamar’s project data from Basecamp transferred over. From the first login, the team had an immediate sense of clarity on deadlines and personal responsibilities with Teamwork Projects‘ task management functions, which include tags, assigning priorities and quickly adding subtasks. The task dependencies feature has also become an essential part of their workflows, allowing friction-free progress on projects as team members see how their work dovetails with other team members’. Finding software with a flexible time tracking feature was a top priority for Solamar when they began their search for a more powerful project management solution than Basecamp. Time tracking in Teamwork Projects has given the entire company a better sense of how time is being invested, which allows for more accurate billing and project estimates.

“Teamwork Projects does time tracking right, which SO MANY of the other tools we tried did not. Time tracking is built right into the web interface and there’s also a desktop app that even has a smart pause function.”
“Teamwork Projects has a great deal of product offerings within its core product at an affordable price. We’ve been highly impressed with features like reporting, task management and integration with Google Docs.”

Now that the Solamar team is fully proficient with Teamwork Projects, they’re able to track project details and client information more effectively. Having one central workspace allows them to spend more time delivering precisely what the client needs — and less time searching for essential information. As an agency, Solamar is now creating more accurate project schedules and meeting deadlines with ease due to Teamwork Projects advanced time tracking and reporting features. The combination of robust features in a single tool has made the entire company more organized and productive.

“Teamwork Projects has been a huge relief! We finally have an all-in-one solution that allows us to more effectively manage our team and projects.”