Thicktoast ~ Microsoft Access Backup Software Tools for BaseCamp™

 

ThickToast software comes with full open source which you can use in your business anyway that you want (with the exception of reselling Thicktoast). We only provide custom software support chargeable by the hour, we do not provide an upgrade maintenance plan for the software. The product only comes in Access 2007/2010 ACCDB format. Older versions like 2003 are not supported.

 

Dry Toast Version 2.1 Jan 2010, now comes with full source code for even more protection of your important BaseCamp investment.

View BaseCamp™ data in an Access database Description: A system to load your BaseCamp XML export/backup into an Access database. The software will load the Project information, replace all the Todo's and Milestones and append the Timesheet and Messages and handle all the other little tables correctly. Included with the software is a properly structured backend database and a front-end database with full source code. Also read about Butter to get on top of your Todo's offline, head to a meeting with a decent printout of tasks by person   See the video  or try a mini video here

Order Software here                                    or Paypal 
(remember to follow instructions below)

Click here for samples of things that we are doing to integrate Basecamp into our software business. 

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To use DryToast, you will need (in order)   Microsoft Access 2010 or 2007 One of the users to be the Basecamp administrator. Windows XP operating system: Download and Install MSXML6.msi from Microsoft Windows Vista: You do not need to install MSXML6.msi (as it is installed already as part of the Operating System).   You need to Order a copy of Dry Toast. After purchasing the software we will send you the files to allow you to load all your projects.   Run the setup executable in the zip file. This installs software and databases in c:\vb123\toast\.  Open DryToast.mdb in that folder.   When using Access 2007/2010, you will need to create a Trusted folder for the databases. More on this at Microsoft  See a picture of a trusted folder called c:\vb123 Creating and Loading a Basecamp XML Backup File   ThickToast makes use of the Basecamp XML backup system. Head to the Dashboard, choose the Settings tab, choose SSL, API and Export. Go to the bottom of this page to create the XML backup. The following figures show how to retrieve an XML zip Export and load it using our DryToast software   You can get directly to this page with the following link https://<your basecamp site name>.basecamphq.com/global/data          Settings/Export Tab              Create XML Export    Open and save XML into Database     Open DryToast        Select XML or ZIP file and it loads into our structure database. Once The Data Is Loaded We have programmed the loading process so that primary keys are handled correctly (see msgs sample), also we reload ToDos and Milestones so that completed information is stored correctly. Most importantly to us, we don't touch the timesheet entries so that they are never deleted accidentally and that makes us money when we bill our clients.

 

Once you open the tables, we have setup combo boxes so that you know what the integer numbers mean when you look at a record. Without this, you need to understand the database Relationship model intimately.

On the main form, you will find a number of queries that help you review the information in your database. In a Nutshell, we have been using the XML download for important tasks in our business for 12 months now. This has forced us to really understand the Basecamp XML download file and how to deploy it to our database. Click here for samples of things that we have done with the backup database. Why Bother With XML Backups? 37 Signals promise full backups and retrievals and they certainly use superb file services from RackSpace and Amazon to achieve this. But what happens when you accidentally delete a project or a message thread or a timesheet entry (5hrs *$50 per hour = $250).  I am sure that you understand the implications.

 

So to get around this you need to download the XML backups on a regular basis, if you check out the XML, it will be very large and it will look like this, good luck retrieving your lost data in that format.

The next thing you can do is import the XML into a database like MS Access. This will work for a lot of the tables but it has a few problems.  If you import again, you will get repeated records because there are no primary keys in the table or you will not get vital information such as whether the ToDos have been completed because the primary key has been added. Also if you think you can use export to CSV for timesheets, remember that BaseCamp Timesheet CSV backups are restricted to 3 months of data so managing this is tricky when it comes to recoveries.