Most teams in India run their first projects from a shared Excel or Google Sheet. It is quick, everyone knows it, and it costs nothing. The trouble starts as the team grows: three copies of the file, a date that changed with no record of why, and a Monday meeting spent finding out who is doing what.
Signs the spreadsheet has outgrown you
- People ask for status in chat instead of looking it up.
- Nobody can tell why a due date moved, or who moved it.
- Different teams need to see different projects, but the file is all or nothing.
- Reminders and follow-ups live in someone's head.
Move in a week, not a quarter
- Day 1: pick one live project, not the whole portfolio.
- Day 2: import its open tasks from the sheet. Leave finished rows behind; the sheet stays as the archive.
- Day 3: agree on statuses and priorities, and give every task one owner and a due date.
- Day 4: move the weekly status meeting onto the project's board.
- Day 5: add the next project, and stop updating the old sheet.
Habits that make it stick
- Update the task, not the chat. Comments on the task keep the reason with the work.
- Let reminders do the chasing, in each person's own working hours.
- Look at the portfolio view weekly, not every project every day.
Project Tracker imports a CSV straight from Excel or Google Sheets and checks every row before anything is saved. The Free plan is enough to try it on one project.