The honest comparison
Your spreadsheet is not the problem. The fourth copy of it is.
Most units run on a spreadsheet and it works, right up to the point where more than one person needs to touch it. This page is about where that line sits, and it ends with the cases where you should stay exactly where you are.
Where it breaks
Seven things a roster has to survive
Not a feature comparison. These are the specific situations where a shared file stops behaving the way a unit's official record needs to behave.
| Situation | In a shared spreadsheet | Here |
|---|---|---|
| Two people editing at once | Last save wins, silently. The other edit is gone and nobody is told. | Each change is written against a record and attributed. Concurrent edits do not overwrite one another. |
| A Cadet helps maintain it | They get edit access to the whole file, or no access at all. | They get the access their billet carries, and their changes queue for approval unless you grant otherwise. |
| Who changed this, and when? | Version history if the file lives somewhere that keeps it, and only at file level. | Field level. What changed, the previous value, who did it, and the timestamp. |
| The roster in four places | The awards packet, the inspection binder and the substitute copy drift apart from week one. | One record per Cadet. Every view is a view of that record, so there is nothing to reconcile. |
| A Cadet transfers out and comes back | Delete the row, then retype it in January and lose everything before it. | Drop and reinstate. The record and its history survive the gap. |
| Work assigned to a billet | Assigned to a name. When the Cadet graduates the task has no owner. | Assignable to a position, so recurring work follows the billet through a change of hands. |
| Keeping it off a personal laptop | The file travels wherever it is emailed. Nothing stops it. | Records stay in the unit’s scope. Exporting is deliberate rather than the default way to share. |
Stay where you are
When the spreadsheet is still the right answer
- You are the only person who touches it
- A single instructor with a small unit and no Cadet staff is not suffering from any of the problems above. The approval queue - the main reason this exists - solves a problem you do not have.
- You need to model something
- Nothing here replaces a pivot table. Export the roster and take it to a spreadsheet, which is what we would do.
- Your school network cannot be relied on
- This runs in a browser and needs a connection. An offline file does not.
- The cost is not defensible yet
- The first year is free for up to 50 Cadets, so trying it costs nothing. But if the second year cannot be justified to your district, a spreadsheet you already own is a legitimate answer and we would rather you said so early.
Bring one company across and see
You do not have to move the whole unit to find out. Build the structure, bring across one formation, and run both for a month.