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Project tracker in Excel

Published 23 September 2026

Most infrastructure projects are run from a spreadsheet, and for one project that's the right call. This is a free Excel project tracker built for that work: one sheet for sites moving through a rollout, one for everything else, and a summary that writes the weekly update for you. Below it: the four habits that keep a spreadsheet tracker accurate, and the signs it has outgrown Excel.

Download the tracker (.xlsx)

No sign-up and no macros. It's a plain .xlsx file that also opens in LibreOffice and Google Sheets.

What's in the project tracker Excel file

Four sheets. Most free Excel project management templates are one generic task list. This one assumes the project has sites, circuits and hardware, because infrastructure projects do.

Stage and Status are dropdowns, dates are real dates, and three example rows show what a filled-in row looks like. Delete them when you start.

The eight rollout stages, and what has to be true for each

A stage is only useful if everyone moves a site to it for the same reason. Write the rule down once, and "how's the rollout going?" has one answer.

The gap between Cut over and Accepted is deliberate. A site that has cut over but hasn't been accepted still has a way back, and it still has an old circuit you're paying for. Counting it as done hides both. If a cutover does go wrong, the way back should already be written down: how to write a backout plan.

Why the ID columns are text before you type

Site ID, Circuit ID, Mgmt IP, LAN, Uplink and Edge serial are formatted as text in every row, before anything goes in them. That's the most important thing in the file, and it's invisible.

Left as General, Excel converts what you type. Store 0012 becomes 12. A 20-digit SIM ICCID becomes 8.9014E+19, and the digits after the fifteenth are gone for good, because Excel only keeps 15 significant digits. An uplink typed as 1/10 can turn into a date. None of it can be fixed by changing the format afterwards; the original value was never stored.

Formatting the column as text first prevents it. When you paste in from another workbook, use Paste Special → Values, so the pasted cells keep the text format instead of bringing their own.

What the colours mean

Two rules, both on the dates, because dates are where a rollout slips.

• Red install date: the date has passed and the site isn't at Installed or later. A site that was installed on time and is waiting for sign-off isn't late, so it doesn't go red.
• Amber FOC: the carrier's firm order commitment date is after your install date. The installer will turn up to a site with no circuit. This is the most common way a rollout date slips, and it can be seen weeks before it happens.

Finished rows turn grey, so what's left stands out. Everything is conditional formatting, not hand colouring. A formula can count a cell's value, but not a fill colour you picked by hand.

The weekly update, from the Summary sheet

The Summary sheet counts sites by stage and tasks by status, plus two numbers worth reading first: installs whose date has passed, and FOCs that land after their install date. That's most of a weekly status update:

Rollout, week of 5 Oct
14 of 40 sites accepted, 3 cut over awaiting sign-off.
6 scheduled in the next two weeks.
Risk: 2 sites have an FOC after their install date
      (Stores 27 and 41). Moving those installs, not the FOCs.
Overdue tasks: 1 (as-built for Store 12, due 2 Oct).

Because the counts come from the Stage column, they're only right if the stages are. That's what the dropdown is for: Done, done and Complete are three different values to a formula.

Four habits that keep a spreadsheet tracker accurate

A project management Excel file breaks down slowly and then all at once. It's rarely the software. It's small inconsistencies that add up until the counts can't be trusted and everyone keeps their own copy.

1. One row per thing that finishes. A site or a task, not an activity. "Chase carrier" isn't a row. It's a note on the site that's waiting for the carrier.
2. Status is a list, not free text. Six people writing status in their own words gives you a column you can read and can't count.
3. One date, one meaning. The install date is the day the installer is booked, not the day you hoped for in March. If you need both, that's two columns.
4. Date your notes. "Carrier says Tuesday" means nothing three weeks later. "2026-09-18: carrier says FOC moves to 10-12" can be checked, and chased.

And don't merge cells. A merged cell breaks sorting, filtering and pasting for the whole column, usually right when someone is under time pressure.

When an Excel project tracker stops working

If the project fits on one screen and one person updates it, stay in Excel. Nothing here is a reason to move on its own. These are the signs that the spreadsheet is now costing more than it saves:

• More than one person edits it. You get tracker_final_v3_MR.xlsx, and someone's week of updates is lost to whoever saved last.
• You're running five projects in five files. No file can tell you what's due this week across all of them.
• Sharing progress means sending the file. The client or your manager gets every IP address, circuit ID and vendor note along with the three numbers they wanted.
• The vendor contacts live somewhere else. The carrier's escalation number is in an email from April. That's the problem IT vendor management covers on its own.
• Pasting from a portal export mangles IDs. A column you forgot to format as text quietly corrupts circuit IDs and serials.

More ceremony isn't the fix, at least not at this scale. The project management for engineers article covers what actually carries over from formal project management and what's overhead for one or two people. The same applies to the RACI matrix.

Once a site is accepted, record what was actually installed rather than what the design said. That's the as-built, and the tracker's Rollout sheet is a good starting point for it.