Excel Isn't Always the Right Tool for the Job

#1) Creating a Master List of Properties/Assets:

Because of it's ease of use, it's tempting to say, "Let's just use Excel to create a master list of all our properties and/or assets."

State and local government organizations have hundreds, if not thousands, of properties they own and manage. And often many thousands of assets to track.

Although Excel can easily handle this number of rows, the problem then becomes how to maintain and share the information.

Even if an Excel spreadsheet is accessible via SharePoint (for multi-user access), people tend to save local copies, update their local copy and email these copies to other people.

The result is there's no single source of truth anymore.

Ideally, you want to use a database system that's specifically designed to track and manage property and asset data.

A shared database system is a single source of truth that can be updated and reported from in real-time.

#2) Capturing Condition Assessment Data:

Another common use of Excel I've seen is for capturing condition assessment data.

Whether you're doing the assessment yourself, or you've outsourced the services to a vendor, gathering condition assessment data in a spreadsheet seems easy and convenient.

The problem is that assessment gathering across large portfolios can take months, and is traditionally only performed every 3-5 years.

In the meantime, your facilities are being managed in real-time – preventive and corrective maintenance is being performed and capital improvements are being made, which results in the assessment data in the spreadsheet becoming out-of-date and unreliable.

Instead, condition assessment data should be captured in the same system where you track properties and assets, ideally an integrated system where everything about a property or asset is accessible in real-time (e.g., location, condition, expected life, maintenance history, warranty, costs, etc.) to facilitate better decision making.

With a system like FacilityForce's FRP (Facilities Resource Planning), integrated condition assessment data becomes the basis for your strategic planning, allowing you to create and compare various capital funding scenarios ...all given the real-time nature of your ongoing maintenance and operations.

This is something no stand-alone spreadsheet can do.

#3) Capital Planning & Budgeting:

It's pretty natural to think about spreadsheets when you think budgeting.

However, budgeting for asset and facilities renewal is typically a complex and very dynamic process.

Available funding is almost never enough, but the better you can document needs (back to condition assessment data) and the better you can organize and align those needs to strategic goals, the more likely it is for adequate funding to be allocated.

In other words, when you present a compelling case based on well documented needs, your chances improve for getting the requested budget approved.

An Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) can provide all the real-time data you need, and help you model various funding scenarios.

It isn't necessarily wrong to use Excel to create a budget spreadsheet (many people do); however, most of the data and modeling capabilities you need can be found in a system like FacilityForce's FRP.

So, building a budget spreadsheet in Excel is a bit like reinventing the wheel, a wheel that isn't directly connected to your operations & maintenance engine.