Migrate from Basecamp to Asana

Basecamp Projects map directly to Asana Projects. The project name, description, archived status, and start/end dates migrate. Basecamp's project-level settings (notifications, team visibility) do not have direct Asana equivalents; we set the Asana project to Team-private or workspace-private based on the original Basecamp access level. Multi-workspace Basecamp accounts require separate Asana workspace mapping per Basecamp account.

Basecamp To-do Lists map to Asana Sections within the migrated Project. The list name and ordering within the project are preserved. Asana Sections are grouping containers, not records, so there is no standalone Section API object to create. If a Basecamp To-do List contains only one or two To-dos, we collapse it and assign the To-dos directly to the Project to reduce empty Sections.

Basecamp To-dos map to Asana Tasks. Assignee (including unassigned), due date, completion status, notes, and creation timestamp migrate. Basecamp does not support subtasks, so each To-do lands as a single Task with no subtasks. We preserve the original Basecamp record ID as a custom field bc_todo_id__c for audit and reconciliation. Recurring tasks in Basecamp are not a native feature; teams that manually recreate recurring work carry forward the pattern as a note on the migrated Task.

Basecamp Message Boards hold threads with a title, body, author, timestamps, and nested comments. We split each thread into an Asana Conversation (the top-level post) with attached Comments (the thread replies). The author, body HTML, and timestamps migrate. Message Board ordering within the project is preserved as conversation order. Discussions that reference specific To-dos are cross-linked by bc_todo_id__c in the task note field.

Basecamp Documents (Workdocs) are rich-text pages with HTML content, title, author, and creation timestamp. We migrate the full HTML body to an Asana Project Brief. Images embedded in Workdocs are downloaded and re-attached as files on the Project Brief. Basecamp's lack of real-time collaborative editing on Documents means there is no concurrent-edit conflict history to preserve.

Basecamp Schedule events carry a title, start datetime, end datetime, all-day flag, assigned person, and optional notes. We map these to Asana Tasks with Start Date and Due Date set from the Basecamp schedule range, and the assignee migrated from the Basecamp person field. Recurring schedule items in Basecamp (daily, weekly, monthly patterns) are documented as a note on the migrated Task and recommended for recreation in Asana's recurring task feature post-migration.

Hill Charts are unique to Basecamp and store only a numeric progress value (0-100) per To-do. The curved Hill Chart visualization cannot be exported. We extract the numeric value and set it as a custom numeric field named Hill_Progress__c on each migrated Task. The customer should not treat this as a real progress percentage; it is a continuity marker so reviewers can see which tasks had momentum data in Basecamp.

Files attached to To-dos, Messages, or Documents in Basecamp are downloaded using the Basecamp Classic API with the stored download URL. Each file is then attached to the corresponding migrated record in Asana (Task, Conversation, or Project Brief) via the Asana Attachments API. Files larger than 100 MB are flagged for chunked upload or alternative delivery. Basecamp's attachment filename and original upload date are preserved in the Asana metadata.

Comments attach to To-dos, Messages, and Documents in Basecamp. We preserve the comment text, author email, and timestamp, and attach them to the corresponding migrated parent record in Asana (Task or Conversation). Nested comment threads in Basecamp's Message Boards are flattened into the Conversation's comment sequence. Comment authorship is mapped via email to the Asana user; any unmapped author is added as a comment note attributing the original Basecamp author.

Basecamp charges per internal employee, not per guest. We map internal Basecamp users by email to Asana Users. Guests (clients and contractors who do not count toward Basecamp billing) are flagged during scoping and mapped to Asana project membership as Guests if the destination Asana workspace has Guest access enabled, or held in a reconciliation queue if Guest access is not configured. User role within the project (Admin, Normal, Guest) is not directly migratable; we set all migrated members as Normal access and document the original role assignments for manual update.

Basecamp Project Templates store the structure of a Project (To-do Lists, scheduled items, and initial messages) but are not accessible via the Basecamp Classic API. We cannot programmatically export template contents. During scoping we identify which Basecamp Projects are templates, export their structure via the UI bundle, and replicate them manually as Asana Project Templates. The customer should verify the recreated template structure before using it for new projects.

Basecamp's automatic check-ins are scheduled questions sent to team members on a daily or weekly cadence with responses posted to the project. Asana has no equivalent native feature. We document each active check-in (question text, frequency, recipient group) as a written inventory item. Replacement options include Asana Rules with scheduled triggers and Slack integration, or a third-party check-in tool, which the customer's admin selects post-migration.