What Clients can see and do
When a client logs into Basecamp, their view of a project looks similar to your team's, but they only see what you've made visible to them. Everything starts private. You control what gets shared, item by item.
Jump to:
- What clients can do
- What clients can't do
- Choosing what to show clients
- How visibility works for specific items
- Seeing what's visible to a client
- Changing visibility after posting
What clients can do
Clients have real access to the project, they're not just passive viewers. Within what's been made visible to them, clients can:
- Post messages, comments, to-dos, and files
- Respond to automatic check-in questions they've been added to
- Use Pings with anyone they share a project with, and with admins and account owners
What clients can't do
Clients do have some meaningful limitations compared to your team. They can't:
- See visibility flags or badges indicating what's private vs. visible
- Share items publicly
- See Hill Charts
- Use loose to-dos
- Create new projects
- Add or remove people from projects
- Administer a project: no editing the project name or description, no modifying tools, no setting up chatbots or webhooks, no archiving or trashing
- Be made admins on the account
- Mention Groups that include people who don't already have access, in Invite-only projects
Choosing what to show clients
When you post something in a client project, you'll be asked whether it's private to your team or visible to the client. You make this choice at the time of posting for most items.
Once you make an item visible to a client, they can also see:
- All existing comments on that item
- Chat lines within any Chat tool you make visible
- Answers to any check-in question you make visible
- Nested items within any folder you make visible
- To-do groups within any to-do list you make visible
Clients will also be notified of future comments, chat lines, and check-in answers on anything they can see. In the case of a check-in, the client is subscribed to answers but won't be asked the question themselves.
NOTE: While an item is set to "Our team only," you can't @mention clients or add them as subscribers. Switch visibility to allow client access first.
How visibility works for specific items
Not everything follows the same rules. Some items you control individually, some inherit visibility from a parent item, and some are always private.
You set visibility for these items yourself at the time of posting:
- Individual messages on the Message Board
- Individual events on the Schedule
- To-do lists
- Card Tables
- Check-in questions
- Docs, uploads, and Google Docs at the root of Docs & Files
These items take their visibility from a parent item — you don't set them individually:
- To-do groups inherit from their to-do list
- To-dos inherit from their to-do list
- Cards inherit from their Card Table
- Check-in answers inherit from their question
- Comments inherit from the item they're on
- Docs, uploads, and Google Docs inside a folder inherit from the folder
These are private by default and follow all-or-nothing rules:
- Chat — the entire Chat tool is private by default. You can make it visible to clients, but not individual messages within it.
- Forwards — you can share the entire Forwards tool with a client, but not individual forwards within it.
- Folders — you can share an entire folder with a client, but not individual items inside a private folder. To share one item from a private folder, move it to a client-visible folder first.
Seeing what's visible to a client
Every item in the project shows a flag indicating whether it's visible to the client or private to your team.
Changing visibility after posting
To change the visibility of an item after it's been posted, click "Change" on the visibility flag at the top of the item.
