HR runs on spreadsheets that should not be emailed
Timesheets, appraisal scores, headcount plans and salary models tend to live in workbooks containing exactly the data you would least like to circulate as an attachment. Publish them as applications and the calculations stay yours while the personal data stops travelling.
Why the attachment is the problem
HR workbooks are usually accurate. What makes them risky is that using them means sending them.
Personal data in circulation
A completed timesheet or appraisal workbook contains names, hours, pay and performance judgements. Every copy sent is another place that data now lives, on devices and in inboxes you do not control.
Everyone sees the whole file
A manager who needs their own team's rows receives the sheet with everybody else's on it. Hiding columns is not access control, and it does not survive a copy.
No record of who did what
Approval by email leaves the evidence in a mail thread rather than against the record, which is the part that matters when a decision is questioned months later.
The version problem is worse here
Rates, bands and policies change mid-cycle, and the copies already sent out do not. Someone ends up reconciling submissions that were completed against different rules.
What HR teams build first
All three start from a workbook someone in HR or finance already maintains.
Hours submitted on a form, calculated by your own overtime rules, approved and exported for payroll.
See how it worksAppraisals, competency scoring and onboarding checks, with the weightings kept in the workbook.
See how it worksTurnover, absence, cost per hire and headcount views published to managers rather than emailed.
See how it worksWho sees what, and where it sits
The two questions that decide whether an HR application is allowed at all.
Permissions per record, not per file
Users and groups control who can open, submit and approve, and managers can be given their own view of the same application rather than their own copy of the data.
Submissions become records
Each submission is stored in a structured database with its own history, so who entered what and who approved it is attached to the record instead of living in an inbox.
It can stay on your servers
A server licence installs the platform inside your own network, so employee data never leaves your perimeter. Creative Technology took this route for exactly that reason.
Two HR teams who did it
One replaced a timecard and approval chain, the other replaced personnel scheduling across a healthcare workforce.
SpreadsheetWeb allowed us to create a web-based timesheet application with user management integration in a very short amount of time. Creating an application like this as a custom project from scratch would have taken months of development. The applications can export user data in the exact format we need to push it into our payment system, while also allowing our managers to get their own special versions at the same time. We were also able to set everything up on our servers, keeping the data in-house.
The solution had to be scalable and easy to maintain. The data model had to be easy to adjust. This way, another team could use the same tool without making substantial changes in the logic. We also did not want several workbook versions to keep track of. Excel is not the best tool for our use case.
HardHat Workforce Solutions took the same route with a rate calculator, moving it off a spreadsheet that everyone had a slightly different copy of.
Start with the workbook you dread emailing
Upload it on the free tier and build the form around it, or tell us who needs to submit, who approves, and where the data is allowed to sit, and we will tell you what it would take.