Honest comparison
Excel pour schedule vs Planning Ops
Excel is the most-used pour scheduler in concrete, and for good reason. This isn't a takedown — it's an honest look at where Excel is strong, the five places it breaks for a busy concrete sub, and how a switch actually works without throwing away the columns you trust.
Where Excel is genuinely strong
It's free, it's flexible, and everyone in your office already knows it. If you run a handful of projects, pour about once a week, and your GCs don't ask for branded schedules, Excel is enough — keep it.
Where Excel breaks for concrete subs
- 1. Weather happens, and now you're texting 12 people. The forecast you typed Monday is wrong by Thursday, and the sheet can't tell anyone the pour's off.
- 2. Crew double-bookings nobody catches. Assign the same crew or pump twice and both rows sit there — no flag, until two jobs call at 6:15.
- 3. Cubic-yard math by hand. Yards by region this week is a formula someone rebuilds and re-checks every Monday.
- 4. Distribution is a manual chore. Re-format, export, attach, email — every time the GC wants the current schedule.
- 5. The Lookahead lives in a different spreadsheet. The 365-day view and the live week drift apart the moment one changes.
Side-by-side
| Excel pour schedule | Planning Ops | |
|---|---|---|
| Familiarity | Everyone already knows it | Minutes to learn; crew = free viewers |
| Weather per pour | Typed in by hand, stale by mid-week | Live 14-day by ZIP, color-coded |
| Shared source of truth | Emailed copies fork | One live board, office + field |
| Crew / pump double-booking | Both rows show, nothing warns | Warning badge + conflict popover |
| Confirm / reschedule / cancel notices | You message everyone, every change | One click (reschedule = drag the pill) |
| Cubic-yard totals | Manual formulas / pivots | Automatic by day / week / region |
| Branded GC distribution | Re-format and attach weekly | One-click branded PDF |
| 365-day Lookahead | A second, separate spreadsheet | Built in, with approve-to-schedule |
When you should NOT switch
Few active projects, one office, infrequent pours, low cancellations, no branded-schedule requests. If that's you, your spreadsheet is the right tool. Come back when you cross those lines.
How a switch actually works
You don't migrate. Add your next real pour to Planning Ops, keep Excel open beside it for a week, and use the one-click notifications the sheet can't do. Most subs move the schedule over on their own once they watch the board update itself. Your column structure, your PDF/Excel exports for the GC, and your habits come with you — you just stop doing the parts a document can't.
Want the spreadsheet first? We'll email a clean template — admin@planningops.com, subject “pour schedule template.”