Aviation Tracking Spreadsheets: Rebuild Them as Registers and Trackers

Tooling register FINAL (2).xlsx, row 214: a torque wrench out of calibration since August, in a cell still white because the conditional formatting stops at row 200. The current copy is on a laptop in the hangar office. On the maintenance sheet, "Next due (whichever first)" runs MIN() over a date and an hour count, returns the hours and displays them as 16 March 1918.

The fix is structure, not a better template. Each limit needs its own last-done value, interval, next due and remaining amount. Dates are compared with today, and hours and cycles with one current reading kept in one place. The row's overall status is the worst of its limits, so whichever runs out first decides. An Avioverse registry is built that way: you design the columns, and due status is calculated the same way every time. A tracker handles the other kind of list, the open items other people have to answer.

Registries: the table you design

Open Registries and choose New registry. It starts blank. While your list is still empty, the page also offers two starters: Tool register (tool reference, description, calibration due, availability) and Aircraft component register (part and serial numbers, installed-on date, installation status, with the aircraft registration and MSN at the top).

A registry has two sets of fields. Header fields are facts about the subject of the whole list: the aircraft, the store, the base. Item fields are the columns each row fills in. You can have up to 20 of each, and each one has a type:

• Text for registrations, names, part numbers and scopes.
• Date for last done, expiry and calibration dates.
• Number for hours, cycles and quantities.
• Selection for a list you define, such as Serviceable, Quarantined, On loan.
• Interval for an amount and a unit together, such as 12 months or 600 hours. Each row can have its own, or rows can share a named interval group, and changing the group updates every row linked to it.
• Calculated, item fields only, for values worked out from other columns and the header.

Header fields also hold the current readings. An hours or cycles calculation takes its current value from a Number header field, say "Aircraft hours". When the aircraft flies, you update that one number and every row recalculates. Keep the header in the same unit as the rows; the product does not check it.

Starting blank, give the registry a title and press Suggest fields. AI proposes five to ten Text, Number, Date or Selection columns from the title and description. They replace the item fields on the form, you edit them, and nothing is saved until you press Create registry. Intervals and calculations you add yourself. Later, Settings opens the same field editor on the saved registry.

How a registry calculates due status

The arithmetic sits in a Calculated column set to Due and remaining. You choose where next due comes from:

• Last done + interval: a last-done date or reading, plus an interval that is fixed or taken from a Number column, a header field or an Interval column.
• An existing due value: a due date or due reading you already have, such as the date on a calibration certificate.

Dates count in days, weeks, months or years, and months and years follow the calendar rather than a fixed number of days. Counters take whatever unit you name, such as hours or cycles. Remaining is next due minus today, or minus the current reading.

Set Warn when remaining reaches and the column can also show Due soon. The status words are fixed: Not due, Due soon, Due today for dates or Due now for counters, Overdue, and Unable to assess when a date or reading is missing. Each column can show next due, remaining and status together, or any one of them.

Point that column at a torque wrench's calibration due date, 2 November 2026, with a 30-day warning. On 25 September it reads 38 days remaining. It turns Due soon on 3 October, Due today on 2 November and Overdue on 3 November. Nobody has to extend a formatting rule.

"Whichever comes first", as a status

Many scheduled tasks carry more than one limit. In a spreadsheet, that is the MIN() column. In a registry, it is an Overall due status column. It combines up to 10 due columns on the row, reuses their intervals, readings and warnings, and shows the worst of their states; a limit due today or now reads simply Due there. The screen states the rule: "Any overdue limit makes the overall status Overdue. Missing readings never produce an all-clear."

Here is one row from a registry for XX-EXA. The header fields read Aircraft hours 6,420 and Aircraft cycles 3,988. The task was last done on 12 March 2026 at 6,050 hours and 3,800 cycles. The intervals are invented for the example: 12 months, 600 hours or 200 cycles, with warnings at 30 days, 50 hours and 25 cycles. Today is 25 September 2026.

On 2 October you update the two header readings to 6,470 hours and 4,006 cycles. The Cycles due column reads 6 cycles overdue, and Overall reads Overdue, while Calendar due still shows 161 days remaining. Had the last-done cycles been left blank, that column would read Unable to assess, and the overall status could be no better than that.

To build it: Aircraft hours and Aircraft cycles as Number header fields; a Task column; for each limit, a last-done column and an Interval column, whose row value or group carries the warning; one Due and remaining column per limit; and an Overall due status over all three.

The overall column is a status, not a combined date: there is no single next-due date across the limits, and nothing converts hours into days with an assumed utilisation. And because the current reading lives in the header, each aircraft's due items belong in its own registry. A fleet of six is six registries, plus a fleet list.

Dates on your calendar, lists you can take away

A Date column, or a calculated column that produces a date, goes on your Avioverse calendar with Show on calendar, which is on by default for Date columns. The calendar has a read-only subscription feed for Apple, Google or Outlook. Hours and cycles dues stay in the table, because they have no date.

In the table you edit cells in place, add rows inline, sort by any column, search, and archive rows. Export CSV gives you the header fields, the values and the calculated due values, and Registry (PDF) gives you a printable copy. A registry lives in a Personal or a Team workspace, and you can copy it to another workspace. In a Team workspace, every member can open and edit it.

What you can build

Your own licences, ratings and medicals have a better home: the personal certifications tracker described in Certificate tracking: from expiry to readiness.

Trackers: open items other people have to answer

A registry holds facts you maintain. A tracker holds items somebody has to close. Open Trackers, choose New tracker, pick a template and name it. The template sets the status path, the reference prefix and any extra columns.

Every item gets a permanent reference such as OIL-001 and a title, and can carry an owner and a due date. The grid filters by status and owner and has an Overdue toggle.

Inside an item, people post a Comment or an Action and can attach files of up to 20 MB each. The item's Attachments tab gathers them. The system logs status, owner, field and visibility changes. The trail is add-only: entries are never edited or deleted afterwards.

Invite guest, which only managers see, brings in someone from outside by email. You choose Only rows I grant them, the default, or All rows in this tracker. The one-time link is valid for 14 days and tied to that address, and the guest signs in to Avioverse with it. Guests cannot add or edit items. They comment, attach evidence and make the status moves their template allows on the rows they can see. A single row can also be limited to Managers + granted only.

Create task puts an item into your Tasks, titled with its reference, and copies the due date across once. If an item has an owner, the owner gets a Due soon notice shortly before the due date and an Overdue notice once it falls due, while the item is at a stage its template watches, such as Open or In progress on a delivery tracker. Items with a due date appear on the calendar, and a tracker exports with Export CSV or Tracker (PDF).

A project action list

A hangar move, a new station, a change to the approval: the work is a list of actions with owners and dates. The Generic tracker holds it. Invite the contractor as a guest on their rows, push your own actions into Tasks with Create task, and check the Overdue toggle each week. On this template, Done and Cancelled are final.

A delivery or redelivery

ExampleAir is returning MSN-EXAMPLE-014 to ExampleLessor. The lessor's representative creates the tracker, and each point from the records review and the physical inspection becomes a row: OIL-017, Cabin, seat 14C recline inoperative; OIL-031, Records, a task card missing its stamp. ExampleAir's records lead is granted the Records rows, and ExampleMRO's project lead the physical items it is working. Guests move items from Open to In progress to Done and attach the evidence. The representative, as manager, closes each one and can reopen it. The method is in aircraft redelivery and the open items list.

SAFA / SACA responses holds ramp inspection findings and the operator's corrective responses; the SAFA findings guide covers the categories and the reply. External audit findings follows an external audit's findings through response and closure. A guest can move a finding to Response submitted, and only a manager can accept the response, close the finding or reopen it. What Level 1 and Level 2 mean is in the audit findings guide.

What registries and trackers are not

A registry is a working list. The intervals are the ones you enter, and Avioverse does not choose them. Not due is arithmetic on your entries, not a finding that a tool is serviceable or an aircraft airworthy. The approved maintenance programme (M.A.302) and the continuing airworthiness record system (M.A.305) stay in the organisation's own system.

Registries have no reminders or notifications, no file attachments on rows, no row history beyond created and updated dates, no Excel or CSV import, no guests or public links, and no per-column filter. Readings are typed in; there is no hours feed.

Trackers have a fixed status path, columns and prefix per template, no priorities, dependencies, milestones or Gantt chart, and no spreadsheet import. A delivery tracker is an open-items list, not a delivery project plan or a check against the lease return conditions.

Free templates to start from

Three column plans, as CSV files that open in any spreadsheet. Each carries a few rows of fictional example data so you can see what goes where, and a comment line saying what the example assumes.

• Maintenance due list for one aircraft: last done, interval and warning for calendar, hours and cycles, with the next due values worked out for the XX-EXA example above.
• Tool and equipment calibration register: tool reference, location, last calibrated, interval, calibration due, availability and certificate reference. The tool control guide explains what the register is for.
• Shelf-life items register: item, part number, batch, quantity, location, expiry and warning days.

The intervals in them are invented. Use the ones from your approved maintenance programme, the manufacturer's data and your own procedures. Avioverse does not import the CSV files: they are the column plan, and the steps below rebuild the same columns as a registry, where the due status is calculated for you.

Moving a spreadsheet across

1. Make one registry per subject: per aircraft for due items, per store or base for tools.
2. Put facts about the subject in header fields, including the current hours and cycles.
3. Give every column a type. Free-text dates and "TBC" cells are what break spreadsheets.
4. Turn interval columns into Interval fields, with a group wherever many rows share one interval, and set the warning there.
5. Add one Due and remaining column per limit, then an Overall due status.
6. Enter the rows. There is no import, so keep the old sheet open beside the registry and compare the statuses before you retire it.

All of this is on the Free plan, including trackers and guest invitations. Suggest fields uses the monthly AI allowance, tracker files count against workspace storage (100 MB on Free), and reading a PDF into a tracker with the assistant needs a paid plan.