The Scenario
You are a creative director. A new client project just started and the team will begin uploading deliverables on Monday.
You need 6 top-level vaults and 3 sub-vaults each, 24 folders total, set up in the new Basecamp project. Your Excel workbook has the structure in the Folders tab: column A is the parent vault ID (blank means top-level), column B is the vault name. The project ID is in cell D1.
The bad version of this Friday:
- You open Basecamp, navigate to the new project, go to Docs and Files
- You click "New Folder," type the first vault name, save
- After the sixth top-level vault you start creating sub-vaults, but you must navigate into each parent vault first
- On sub-vault 3 you create it inside the wrong parent. Basecamp has no "move" option for vaults
- You delete it and recreate it
- You are still on parent vault 3.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Excel workbook that reads the Folders tab and creates every vault in Basecamp, top-level and nested, in the right order.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Read my Excel folder-structure table and create nested Basecamp vaults: depth-0 rows go in the project root from cell D1, depth-1 rows nest under the vault created from their parent row. Write the new vault IDs to column C.
SheetXAI reads the Folders tab, creates the top-level vaults first, captures their IDs, then creates each sub-vault under the correct parent. All 24 folders in the right hierarchy.
What You Get
24 Basecamp vaults created in the correct structure:
- 6 top-level vaults — created first, in order
- 18 sub-vaults — created under the correct parent, using the parent vault ID from column A
- New vault IDs written to column C — for future operations
The team opens Basecamp on Monday and the folder structure matches the Folders tab exactly.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Folder hierarchy workbooks from previous projects always need adjustment.
When parent vault IDs are not known yet and you have depth levels instead
You have depth (0 or 1) and parent name in the workbook, but not parent vault IDs.
Read the Folders tab: column A is depth (0 = top-level, 1 = sub-vault), column B is vault name, column C is parent vault name for depth-1 rows. Create all depth-0 vaults in the project ID from cell D1, then create each depth-1 vault under the vault whose name matches column C. Write new vault IDs to column D.
When some vault names duplicate across different parents
You have a "Deliverables" sub-vault under each of the 6 top-level parents.
Create all vaults from the Folders tab: column A is parent vault ID (blank = top-level), column B is vault name, project ID from cell D1. Where two rows have the same name but different parent IDs, create both. Write the new vault ID to column C.
When you want to replicate the structure from a previous project
You want to copy the exact vault structure from an older Basecamp project.
Fetch the full vault folder structure from Basecamp project ID in cell E1. Write the hierarchy to the Folders tab: column A as parent vault ID, column B as vault name. Then recreate that structure in the new project ID from cell D1 and write the new vault IDs to column C.
When you need the full vault URL written to the workbook for the handoff document
The creative team wants direct links to each folder in the client onboarding deck.
Create all vaults from the Folders tab (column A is parent vault ID or blank, column B is vault name, project ID in cell D1). After each vault is created, write the direct Basecamp vault URL to column D. I will include these links in the client onboarding document.
The pattern: the Folders tab is the single source of truth. SheetXAI builds the folder structure top-down, in the right order, in one prompt.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any folder hierarchy workbook, then ask it to build the Basecamp vault structure for you. The Basecamp integration is included in every plan. See also how to create multiple Basecamp projects from a template in Excel or the Basecamp in Excel overview.