Migration guide
Migrate from Excel & Google Sheets to Planoda
Tracking projects in a spreadsheet is where most teams start — and where tracking quietly breaks. This guide moves your Excel or Google Sheets tracker into Planoda so each row becomes a real issue with status, assignee, and due date, and you trade manual upkeep for automations, real reporting, and AI on every surface.
Updated
Should you move?
A spreadsheet is the most honest first project tracker: flexible, instant, and free. It stops scaling the moment more than one person edits it — no real status workflow, no notifications, conditional-formatting 'status' you maintain by hand, version conflicts, and no history of who changed what. Move when the spreadsheet has become a second job: you keep the at-a-glance grid, and gain a tracker that updates itself.
Migration in short
- Export your sheet to CSV (Excel: File → Save As → CSV; Google Sheets: File → Download → CSV) and import it into Planoda; each row becomes a real issue.
- Map your columns to fields: a Status column → workflow state, Owner → assignee, Due date → due date, Priority → priority, and category columns → labels.
- You gain what a spreadsheet can't give: a real status workflow, automatic notifications, change history, board/timeline/list views, automations, and AI triage — instead of formulas and manual upkeep.
- Clean the sheet first (one header row, consistent column values, no merged cells), import one tab at a time, and verify the row count matches before trusting it.
Step by step
How to move from Excel & Google Sheets
Clean up the spreadsheet
Before exporting, get the sheet into a clean tabular shape: a single header row, one record per row, consistent values in each column (so 'In Progress' isn't also 'in-progress'), and no merged cells or summary rows mixed into the data. Split multi-tab workbooks so each tracker tab exports on its own.
Export to CSV
In Excel, choose File → Save As → CSV UTF-8; in Google Sheets, File → Download → Comma-separated values (.csv). Export one tab at a time so each column→field mapping stays unambiguous. CSV carries the cell values your tracker actually depends on — formulas resolve to their computed values on export.
Map columns to fields
Match each column to a Planoda field: a Status/Stage column to workflow state, an Owner/Assignee column to assignee (by email), a Due/Deadline column to due date, a Priority column to the priority scale, and category or tag columns to labels. Anything without a clean home — notes, links — lands in the issue description. The importer previews every column before writing.
Import into Planoda
Drop your cleaned export into the CSV importer, or push records through the public REST API for large or incremental loads. The importer previews the mapping and flags any rows that need attention before anything is written.
Verify the imported data
Spot-check a sample of issues against the source: titles, assignees, states, priorities, comments, and links. Run a count reconciliation so the totals match before you trust the new workspace.
Run both tools in parallel
Keep the old tool read-only for a short overlap window while your team learns the new workflows. Route all new work into Planoda so nothing is created in two places.
Cut over and archive the source
Once the team is comfortable and open work is in sync, freeze the source tool, export a final backup, and make Planoda the system of record. Update bookmarks, integrations, and team docs.
Field mapping
What maps to what
How Excel & Google Sheets concepts map onto Planoda.
| Excel & Google Sheets | Planoda |
|---|---|
| Spreadsheet / Workbook | Workspace / Team |
| Tab (sheet) | Project / Board |
| Row | Issue |
| Indented / grouped row | Sub-issue |
| Status column | Workflow state |
| Owner / Assignee column | Assignee |
| Due date column | Due date |
| Priority column | Priority |
| Category / Tag column | Label |
| Notes / Comments column | Issue description / Comment |
Pro tips
Make the move smoother
Normalize your Status column values before exporting (one spelling per state) so they map cleanly to workflow states.
Export and import one tab at a time — a single mixed export blurs the column→field mapping.
Use the move to turn manual reminders into automations: due-date nudges and status changes Planoda handles for you.
Common pitfalls
What to avoid
The mistakes that actually trip teams up moving off Excel & Google Sheets.
Exporting a messy sheet as-is: merged cells, summary rows, and inconsistent status spellings turn into garbage issues — clean the sheet to one header row and consistent values before exporting.
Expecting formulas to keep recalculating after import: CSV carries computed values, not the formulas, because Planoda models work as issues rather than a live grid — rebuild the few you truly need as automations or estimates.
Importing every tab in one pass: a workbook with several differently-shaped tabs blurs the column→field mapping, so export and map one tab at a time.
Recreating the spreadsheet's manual upkeep inside the tracker: the whole point is to stop maintaining status by hand, so lean on workflow states, notifications, and automations instead of porting your color-coding habits over.
FAQ
Migrating from Excel & Google Sheets — FAQ
A note from the founder
“I'm building Planoda in the open and putting my name on it. No borrowed logos, no invented stats — just the work, shipped and auditable. If it doesn't earn your trust, tell me.”
Dmitrii Selikhov is the founder of Planoda and a lead full-stack engineer with 15+ years building developer tools and leading teams as a technical lead, software architect, and CTO.
Make the switch
Leave Excel & Google Sheets behind this weekend.
Bring your Excel & Google Sheets export — we'll match every workflow, field by field.