Assess the workflow's responsibilities before selecting a replacement. For every gap, first check whether the current arrangement can be improved sustainably.
Inventory
Workbook / process / owner:
Assessor / date:
Who updates it, who reads it, and how often:
Decisions or outputs that depend on it (reports, payments, filings, investor materials) and their materiality:
Known errors or near misses in the last year and their consequence:
External links, macros, add-ins, and manual copy steps it depends on:
Requirements
| Requirement | Current behavior | Business consequence of gap | Can workbook practice resolve it? | Evidence needed from replacement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concurrent work | ||||
| Validation | ||||
| Different access roles | ||||
| Approval / change history | ||||
| Ownership and handoff | ||||
| Recovery and export | ||||
| Integration with the systems it copies from or feeds | ||||
| Volume and performance |
Interim controls if the workbook stays
- [ ] Inputs, calculations, and outputs are on separate sheets and visibly labeled.
- [ ] A version and change sheet records who changed what and when.
- [ ] Cells that should not change are protected; the protection has an owner.
- [ ] Key formulas were reviewed by a second person and the review is recorded.
- [ ] The file lives in a managed location with version history and restricted sharing.
- [ ] A short description of purpose, sources, and conventions sits in the workbook itself.
Options: improve workbook / existing platform / narrow application
Selected option and reason:
Small migration plan
- [ ] Inventory formulas, hidden fields, historical sheets, and manual conventions.
- [ ] Clean duplicates and inconsistent entries before loading, and record what was changed.
- [ ] Map fields and retain source identifiers where practical.
- [ ] Run a trial load and reconcile counts and representative records before the real cutover.
- [ ] Test ordinary work, correction, and restricted access with users.
- [ ] Define cutover and handling of changes during transition.
- [ ] Set the old file's read-only date and archive location.
- [ ] Assign the new process owner and support path.
- [ ] Reproduce one report or output from the new system and compare it with the workbook's version.
Acceptance / exceptions / decision owner:
Common failure modes
- The replacement is chosen before anyone lists what the workbook actually does.
- Hidden sheets and manual conventions surface only after cutover.
- The workbook keeps being updated in parallel because the new system is slower for one person.
- The new system solves concurrency and loses the flexibility that made the process work.
Review date for the interim controls or the migration:
This assessment covers one workbook. It does not evaluate the replacement vendor; use the vendor review and acceptance brief for that.