Each Spootnik Account provides a WebDAV interface which lets OmniFocus clients communicate with Spootnik (see also "What's about OmniFocus for iPhone/iPod Touch?").

After being connected to Basecamp, Spootnik creates a new Folder inside OmniFocus for each Basecamp project you'd like to share. This will be the only thing that gets synchronized between OmniFocus and Basecamp. Thus, if Spootnik should create a To-do List inside Basecamp you have to create or move a (OmniFocus) Project into this newly created Folder. Spootnik modifies only items which were created (either in OmniFocus or Basecamp) by Spootnik. It doesn't do any kind of a magic merging between Basecamp and OmniFocus.

In short:
1. Basecamp Project = OmniFocus Folder
2. Basecamp To-do List = OmniFocus Project
3. Basecamp To-do = OmniFocus Task
... and everything outside the Folders created by Spootnik won't get synchronized to Basecamp.

Conclusion: Each user can therefore "share" To-do's over Basecamp and maintain its own OmniFocus database (where also for example private stuff can reside in) at the same time. You can read here a bit more: Different Faces of Spootnik.

Spootnik starts a synchronization every 15 minutes (Basic and Plus plans). All changes made in OmniFocus will be applied to the respective Basecamp project and vice versa.

BUT. It can sometimes happen that Basecamp changes doesn't appear every 15 minutes inside OmniFocus.

Why? Spootnik tries to treat 37signals resources as good as possible in the sense of making as few as possible requests to Basecamp. As for now it uses the Basecamp Project RSS Feed to detect if changes were made inside Basecamp. Unfortunately the RSS Feed doesn't cover all possible kind of changes. To lessen this weakness a bit, Spootnik ignores the Basecamp Project RSS Feed after detecting no change four times in a row. It's like Spootnik asking Basecamp: "Was there really no change, mate?".

In short: It's all about preserving resources. If the worst comes to the worst your Basecamp change appears after one hour inside OmniFocus. You always have the possibility to manually force a synchronization by pressing the "Sync Now" button in the upper right corner of your Spootnik account.

You need OmniFocus 1.5.

Spootnik provides a simple WebDAV interface which lets you connect OmniFocus and OmniFocus for iPhone/iPod Touch like you would connect it to another WebDAV service (e.g. MobileMe). If you use Spootnik you can't synchronize locally using the "Bonjour" option. This is a limitation of OmniFocus which has also a positive side. Everything you do on your iPhone will be directly synchronized to Basecamp without having to power-up your Mac.

Yes. You can move the folder created by Spootnik (which resides initially on the main level) below another one without affecting the synchronization. Thus you can group shared folders (e.g. below a common "Work" folder).

Yes. But Spootnik won't rename the respective project name inside Basecamp. And if you rename a Basecamp project, Spootnik won't rename the respective OmniFocus folder automatically.

If you move an OmniFocus project (or task) out of the OmniFocus folder created by Spootnik, the corresponding Basecamp Todo-List or Todo will be deleted. It's the same behavior as if you would delete this OmniFocus project or task. If you move this OmniFocus project (or task) back into the OmniFocus folder, Spootnik will create the Basecamp Todo-List (or Todo) again.

Select the project inside OmniFocus where you would like to set a default Context. Press "Inspect" or choose "Inspectors / Show Inspectors" inside the Menu and choose the Default Project.

Spootnik will consider this Context when creating new tasks out of Basecamp to-dos.

Yes. Spootnik doesn't synchronize the "Dropped" status and keeps on synchronizing its contents. Thus, it's a possibility to remove a project from a OmniFocus perspective without deleting it inside Basecamp.

If you uncheck the option "Only todos where I'm or anyone is responsible", all tasks inside the respective Basecamp project will be synchronized to OmniFocus.

If you leave this option checked, Spootnik will only synchronize tasks where you or anyone is responsible for.

If you synchronize all tasks of a Basecamp project to OmniFocus (see above), Spootnik creates a Context for each responsible party already assigned to a Basecamp todo.

You can then move this Context around or rename it inside OmniFocus without affecting the data inside Basecamp. If you delete a Context, the responsibility of the assigned tasks will change to yourself. By assigning a task to such a Context inside OmniFocus, Spootnik will attach the respective responsible party inside Basecamp.

The Basecamp generated password for OpenID doesn't work anymore. Spootnik will receive an "Authorization Required (401)" response from Basecamp. You can go around that limitation by grabbing a new 37signals ID.

How to grab a new 37signals ID
Switch to Basecamp and press "My Info" (on top right) first and "Edit your personal identification" afterwards. You should then be able to select "Or use a normal username" (the grey link) and enter a new username. That will be the username/password Spootnik needs to connect to your Basecamp account.

Now go to your Spootnik settings, press the edit link and enter your new username/password.

Before third party tools like Spootnik can access your data inside Basecamp, you have to enable the "Basecamp API".

Log into Basecamp, go to folder "Account (Upgrade/Billing)" and scroll down to "Basecamp API". If you don't see the folder "Account (Upgrade/Billing)", you might not have the rights to do this. Ask the administrator of your Basecamp account to do this for you.

Spootnik doesn't store any Basecamp passwords since the introduction of 37signalsID. It just stores a token which Spootnik gets from Basecamp when you enter your credentials on Spootnik's settings page.

Your OmniFocus data sits on the same server as the synchronization runs. All communication between OmniFocus and this server is secured by SSL. If you enable "SSL 128-bit encryption" for your Basecamp account (on the bottom of the Settings tab) even the communication between Spootnik and Basecamp will be encrypted.

Have also a look at Spootnik's Privacy Policy and don't hesitate to write me if you have any further questions.

I'm constantly keeping an eye on Spootnik, analyze each failure and do my best to get an explanation for each case. I monitor only on a abstract level and will never look directly into your data without an explicit permission from you.

If I come to a conclusion, I will comment it directly inside Spootnik's history (see right) and send you an email if the failure had an effect on your data or is serious.

Nobody is perfect. The only thing you can do is to be prepared for the exceptional case. Thus Backup your data is very important.

OmniFocus has a built-in Backup system and makes it therefore really easy. It automatically backs up your database once a day, in the folder ~/Documents/OmniFocus Backups/. You can easily change these settings inside the General pane of the OmniFocus Preferences.

To manually back up your database, choose Back Up Database from the File menu. To restore a backed-up version of your database, choose Revert to Database Backup from the File menu, then choose a backup file to use.

Unfortunately there is no possibility to make a backup of your Basecamp data except to export them inside tab Account (Upgrade/Billing).

But Spootnik has some built in trust-enhancement-features:

1. It reports each change transparently inside the History tab.
2. It has a built-in "delete at once limit" of 30 items. Thus it reduces the risk to delete a lot of items accidentally.
3. You can not delete a project over Spootnik. If you delete the Folder inside OmniFocus it will only disconnect the synchronization between OmniFocus and Basecamp. But it won't delete your Basecamp Project.

"Interval 60 Minutes" refers to the interval Spootnik is synchronizing automatically with Basecamp. You can force a synchronization with Basecamp at any time by pressing the fast-forward button and you can also synchronize OmniFocus as much and with as many devices (iPhone, Mac) as you want.

It's the simplest and most reliant solution I'm able to implement at the moment. You can buy credit inside the "Billing" section and Spootnik charges its monthly fee on your credit balance. Any remaining credit balance will of course be refunded on cancellation. All you have to do is to make sure your credit balance isn't getting too low.

New: You're now able to set up an auto-recharge. It's implemented via PayPal subscription mechanism and thus requires a PayPal account. You can set it up inside the "Billing" section.

Spootnik doesn't synchronize the sort order between OmniFocus and Basecamp, yet. In other words, if you change the order in Basecamp or OmniFocus it won't have an effect on the other side. But if you add new items inside Basecamp or OmniFocus, they will be added in the same order on the other side.

I know, there are a lot of To-do tools out there which would be nice to integrate. To be honest supporting Highrise and Backpack was one of my original thoughts. Because each of these systems have their own tasks which could be brought together inside OmniFocus.

But I won't do anything out of the blue. I will listen closely to the crowd using Spootnik. So tell me if and which tool you would like to have integrated.