Excel is fine until it isn't.

Where a crew spreadsheet breaks

• More than one editor. Two people open it. One saves over the other. Or someone waits for "Jen to close it."
• Copies. "Schedule v4 FINAL (2).xlsx" in an email thread. Nobody knows which one is real.
• One person. One person built it. One person understands it.
• No warnings. Nothing tells you a crew leader is on two jobs Thursday.
• No roll-up. You can't see "next week: 9 jobs, 7 crew leaders" without counting.
• Pushes mean rework. A two week GC push means moving dozens of cells.
• No week 3 to 6. The sheet covers this week and next. Beyond that is a guess.

What about an Access database?

Access handles more than one user better than a shared spreadsheet. The problem is usually different. One person built it, it runs on office computers, and nobody else can change it safely. When that person leaves, so does the system.

Same questions. Different answers.

Three or more of these? It's time.

• More than one person edits the schedule.
• There's more than one copy of it.
• You run 5 or more crews.
• A crew leader got double-booked in the last month.
• A GC push last month took more than half an hour to fix.
• Estimating asks "when can we start?" and nobody can answer without a phone call.
• The plan lives in one person's head.
• Foremen call the office to ask where they go next week.
• You can't see weeks 3 to 6.

When you should stay in Excel

• 1 to 3 crews, and the owner does the plan alone.
• Jobs rarely move once they start.
• Nobody else needs to see the plan.

If that's you, stay in Excel. Take our free template. Come back when you add crews or a second person starts editing.

"Excel is free." So is an idle crew, until payday.

Run your own numbers. Here's an example with made-up inputs: a 4 person crew at $60 an hour loaded is $1,920 for one idle 8 hour day. Three office seats of Broadside are $57 a month. One idle day you avoid pays for almost three years of those seats.

Moving off the spreadsheet

1. Start the trial. Look around the sample company first.
2. Add this week's jobs and the next three weeks. You don't need your whole history.
3. Add your crew leaders.
4. Put crews on jobs, then check the conflicts panel.
5. Run your next Monday from Broadside instead of the sheet.

Not ready? Take the template.

Our free Excel crew look-ahead template. One sheet for crew assignments, one for capacity by week, one for your jobs. No macros. It's the same method Broadside is built on.