The spreadsheet only one person could edit

The starting point

All of the transport handling lived in one shared spreadsheet. The problem was that only one person at a time could edit the file. Whoever needed to make a change had to wait until someone else was done.

The work was slow, and people kept getting in each other’s way. Not because anyone did anything wrong, but because the tool was never built for several people working in it at once.

What I built

I built an admin system in PHP that replaced the spreadsheet completely. Same data, but now several users could work in it at the same time, without waiting for each other.

Once all the information lived in a proper system, it could do more. The system produced data about the carriers, so the company could see which carrier was the best fit for each individual job. Instead of guessing, or calling the usual carrier out of habit, they could match and contact the most relevant one directly.

It’s a pattern I have seen many times since. A system of your own first fixes what hurts, and then it turns out the data inside it is useful for more than anyone expected.

The result

The line for the spreadsheet disappeared, and everyone could work in the same data at once. Choosing a carrier became a decision based on data rather than habit.

For me the project became something more than that. This is where I really saw what it does for a business when a manual step gets built away. It was the starting point of my interest in automation, and the thread running through everything I have done since.