From spreadsheet to dashboard: when it is time to move

2025-09-02

Spreadsheets are a good place to start. They are flexible and everyone knows how to use them. The trouble begins when a report depends on one person copying data every Monday.

The first sign is time: if refreshing the numbers takes more than an hour a week, automate it. The second is trust: if two people have two versions of the same sheet, you need one source. The third is audience: if more than a handful of people need the numbers, a shared dashboard saves a lot of email.

Move one report first, keep the sheet as a backup for a month, and only then retire it.