Services: migration
Moving from spreadsheets and paper to LeanSuite
Short answer
You move from spreadsheets and paper one process at a time. Start with the tracker that hurts most, rebuild its form from your own Excel or PDF checklist or from a free template, upload your users and managers in bulk, and retire the old file once the team uses the new one. In the 90-day pilot, our team digitizes your current forms and loads your users for you.
What moves, and how
| What you have | Where it lives today | How it moves |
|---|---|---|
| 5S and audit checklists | Printed checklists and Excel scoring sheets. | Upload your Excel or PDF checklist and Lean AI builds a digital version. Teams complete it on a phone with photos, and failed items become actions with an owner and a due date. See Audit Management. |
| Kaizen and improvement trackers | A project tab, an A3 on the wall or a shared sheet. | Rebuild the tracker as a project type with its own workflow: PDCA, A3, DMAIC, 8D or your own method. Ideas come in through Idea Management, and the project list exports to Excel. See Kaizen and projects. |
| Skills matrices | A grid in Excel, only as current as the last edit. | Admins bulk upload users and managers from a template and bulk-add skills. Levels move up as courses and sign-offs are completed. See Competency Management. |
| Action logs and issue boards | A whiteboard by the line or a log in a shared file. | Operators scan a QR code and add a photo, and rules send the issue to an owner with a due date. See Daily Issue Management. |
| KPI sheets | Figures copied from several files into a chart. | Pull values on a schedule from Excel on SharePoint or OneDrive or from Google Sheets, or upload a CSV and map its columns once. See KPI Dashboards. |
What you can do yourself
Bulk upload of users and managers
Upload people from a template instead of adding them one by one. Operators without a company email sign in with an employee ID.
Competency ManagementNative connectors
Excel on OneDrive and SharePoint, Google Sheets, Power BI and Looker Studio.
How KPIs connectJSON REST API
Custom integrations go through our JSON REST API.
Single sign-on
SAML 2.0 or OAuth with Microsoft Entra ID and Okta, with employee-ID sign-in for operators who have no email.
SecurityA templates library
Start from a familiar form in the library and adjust it, instead of designing from a blank page.
Free templates
What our setup team does
In the 90-day pilot, our team sets up your account, configures roles and loads your users and managers. It also digitizes the forms and checklists you use today, from paper, Excel or PDF, and trains your core team. Your team shares the forms and the user list and decides which process goes first.
Older records
If you want older records brought into LeanSuite, say so on the kickoff call and we will tell you what is possible for your case. Until then, keep the old file as a read-only archive.
A sensible order
- 1
Pick the process that hurts most
The audit whose findings never close, the idea box nobody answers or the skills matrix nobody trusts. Start in one area, not the whole plant.
- 2
Start from your own form
Upload your Excel or PDF checklist, or pick a template from the library, and adjust it.
- 3
Add your people
Upload users and managers in bulk and set their roles. Connect single sign-on with your IT team if you use it.
- 4
Connect the numbers
Point KPIs at the Excel or Google Sheets file they come from, or upload a CSV, so the board stays current without retyping.
- 5
Retire the old file and compare
Archive the spreadsheet so there is one place to look. Then compare audit completion, action close times or ideas answered with where you started.
For your IT team
LeanSuite is cloud hosted, so there is nothing to install. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, single sign-on uses SAML 2.0 or OAuth with Microsoft Entra ID and Okta, and you can export any module to Excel at any time. The security page has the details and our SOC 2 Type 1 report.
Keep reading
- LeanSuite vs spreadsheets and paperWhen Excel is enough, the signs you have outgrown it, and how to move.Open
- LeanSuite vs homegrown softwareAccess, SharePoint and custom apps: build or buy.Open
- LeanSuite vs Power Apps and SharePoint listsWho builds and maintains the app.Open
- OnboardingWhat your first 90 days look like.Open
- Track kaizen wins with real-time metricsWhy a kaizen tracker outgrows its spreadsheet.Open
- The benefits of paperless manufacturingWhat changes when the forms go digital.Open
FREE RESOURCES
Free templates and tools
Not ready for software yet? Start with these free resources.
- Paper forms inventory (paperless manufacturing worksheet)Every paper form, checklist and log in one list: hours a month, who acts on it, how long the paper waits, and which forms to move first.
- 5S audit checklist template25 checks, five per S, scored 1 to 5, with a score summary and a chart of the five S's.
- Skills matrix templatePeople by skills, a 0 to 4 scale, a training column and a coverage row that shows the gaps.
- Kaizen event trackerEvery kaizen event on one sheet: status, roles, the metric against target, open actions and the 30, 60 and 90 day checks.
- Idea suggestion formA one-page idea form with the supervisor's answer and points, and an idea log that tracks days to answer.
- CAPA log templateAn Excel CAPA tracker with status, days open, late flags and counts by source, plus a printable log and monthly review.
FAQ
Migration questions, answered
Bring your Excel file to a demo
Show us the tracker that hurts most and we will show you how it looks in LeanSuite.