# Spreadsheet or app: one-workflow decision record

Use fictional or non-sensitive examples. This worksheet recommends no product automatically. It is a planning record, not evidence of access enforcement or savings.

## Your observed job

- Workflow and person:
- What should they finish?
- Last specific failure, date and evidence:
- Who may read which records?
- Who may change them?
- Does the failure come from a missing rule, a tool limitation, or an unknown cause?

## Compare options without a points score

| Requirement | Keep current setup | Improve current process | Maintained product candidate | Custom app prototype |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Exact job it must complete | | | | |
| Access test and current result | | | | |
| Handoff owner and rule | | | | |
| Maintainer and recurring work | | | | |
| Setup/migration/training work | | | | |
| Known operating assumptions | | | | |
| Unknown costs or capabilities | | | | |
| Recovery and usable export test | | | | |
| Reason to reject this option | | | | |

Unknown is not zero or passed. Record documentation separately from a test you performed. A protected range, hidden tab or attractive screen does not by itself prove the required access boundary.

## Worked fictional answer keys

| Case | Requirement and observation | Current choice | Small next check | Reconsider if |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lantern Ceramics | Two authorized staff see all 40 items; weekly count/check job has no observed failed handoff | Keep the sheet | Name count/check owners; confirm recovery on a harmless copy | Customer reservations or different record visibility become actual requirements |
| Cobalt Studio | Eight staff; six of 20 sample requests have conflicting meanings of ready | Improve the process first | Define received vs approved and owners; observe next five suitable requests | Agreed rules hold but a demonstrated tool limitation still causes missed handoffs |
| Copper Installations | Twelve sites; customers need their own job/question thread without other customers' records | Evaluate maintained products; prototype one journey if needed | Fictional data, two customer accounts and one staff account; test allowed/denied operations | Access fails, maintenance is unowned, or a maintained product meets the need more simply |

These are authored examples, not customer outcomes. Counts describe the examples; they are not decision thresholds.

## Commit to a bounded next action

- Today's choice and reason:
- Smallest experiment:
- Named owner:
- Review date:
- Evidence to collect:
- What result would support the choice?
- What result would change it?
- What stops the experiment?
- What continues operating until a replacement is verified?

## Only if a custom prototype is justified

Write a brief containing the specific person, one completed journey, records, allowed and rejected access, recovery behavior and finish checks. Use fictional data first. Do not migrate production records, charge payments or send external messages as part of this worksheet.

Overskill brief builder: https://www.overskill.com/learn#brief-builder

Private-record test guide: https://www.overskill.com/learn/verify-private-record-access

Running-cost planner: https://www.overskill.com/learn/estimate-app-running-costs

Spreadsheet mapping: https://www.overskill.com/learn/map-spreadsheet-data-for-an-app