Engis and spreadsheets: where each one fits.
Almost every permit condition register in Victoria starts life as a spreadsheet on SharePoint, and for good reason. This page is honest about what that spreadsheet does well, specific about where conditions fall through it, and practical about running both while you move.
Last verified 2026-09-06 · Nominative use only · No affiliation
What the spreadsheet does well
It is not a bad tool. It is the right tool for the first week and the wrong tool for the third year.
- Zero setup, zero procurement: the register exists an hour after the permit issues, and every stakeholder can open it.
- Infinitely flexible columns — a Section 173 tracker, a bond ledger and a referral log can live on three tabs by lunchtime.
- Everyone already knows how to filter, sort and colour a status cell; no training, no onboarding.
- SharePoint versioning gives a coarse audit trail and a place for the evidence PDFs to live next to the register.
- It costs nothing visible, which matters on a fixed-fee job with a thin margin.
Where conditions fall through it
Every gap below is one we have watched cost a stage its SoC date.
- A condition has no trigger of its own — "before SoC" lives in a text cell, so nothing warns you 90 days out that it is still Not started.
- The owner authority and the evidence are typed, not linked: the register says "MW consent" but the letter is in an inbox, and the person who knew which inbox has left.
- Staged subdivisions break it. One tab per stage double-counts a Stage 1 discharge or borrows a Stage 3 work; one shared tab hides which stage a condition actually blocks.
- It cannot see the rest of the project: the claim that depends on a discharged condition, the fee phase burning while an approval sits, the referral that blocks two conditions at once.
- It is a copy, not a record. The developer, the council engineer and the consultant each keep their own, and the argument at SoC is about whose version is current.
- Status moves without evidence. A cell turns green because someone said it was fine on the phone.
| Our criteria | Spreadsheet / SharePoint | Engis |
|---|---|---|
| Condition register with trigger, owner authority, evidence, stage | PartialColumns can hold all of it; nothing enforces it, nothing links it. | StrongStructured fields; evidence attaches to the condition; stage dependency is explicit. |
| Warning before a "before SoC" condition becomes the critical path | GapOnly if someone builds and maintains conditional formatting and remembers to open the file. | StrongTriggers are dates and gates, so an undischarged condition surfaces in the programme and the risk view. |
| Referral authorities (council, water, drainage, power, telco, gas) tracked to consent | PartialA second tab, kept in sync by hand. | StrongAuthority referral tracker on the same record; one referral can block several conditions. |
| Staged subdivisions without double-counting a discharge | GapOne tab per stage or one shared tab — both leak. | StrongConditions carry the stage they block; a stage view shows only what that stage still owes. |
| Links to claims, fees / WIP and the delivery programme | Not its jobDifferent files, different owners. | StrongOne project record: the condition, the claim it gates and the phase it burns are the same object. |
| Shared with developer, council and authority as one record | GapCopies by email, or a SharePoint link that lapses. | StrongRole-based read-only access for the parties across the counter. |
| Spatial context (parcels, zoning, overlays, assets) beside the condition | Not its jobNot what a spreadsheet is for. | StrongVicmap, VicPlan and authority layers on the project map. |
| Australian data residency and audit trail | PartialDepends entirely on the tenant configuration and who has the link. | StrongSydney-region hosting, row-level access, change history on every condition. |
| Cost and setup time | StrongFree and instant. | PartialQuoted per firm; a free 7-day trial and a morning to migrate a register. |
How we compared
The spreadsheet column describes a well-built register in Excel or Google Sheets on a shared drive or SharePoint library, as run by the consultancies and councils we have delivered estates with — not a worst case. The criteria are the ones a delivery engineer is judged on: does the register know the trigger, the owner authority, the evidence and the stage it blocks, and does it survive staff turnover and a staged SoC. Last verified 2026-09-06. Product names identify the products only; we have no affiliation with them, and if anything here is out of date, email us and we will correct it.
Running both, then moving
Nobody should throw away a working register on a live stage. The pattern that works: keep the spreadsheet as the historical record for stages already past Practical Completion, and start the next stage — or the next permit — in Engis, where every condition is created with its trigger, owner authority, evidence slot and the stage it blocks.
Migrating an existing register is a morning, not a project. The columns map one to one onto the Engis permit condition register (the free template on this site is literally that structure), and the evidence PDFs attach to the condition they discharge rather than sitting in a folder named after a month.
What changes is not the data, it is what the data can do: the same register now feeds the claims tab, the fee burn view and the authority referral tracker, and the council engineer across the counter can be given read-only access to the one record instead of a copy of yours.
Questions
Do we have to migrate every historic register?
No. Leave stages that are past Practical Completion in the spreadsheet as the record of what happened, and start the next stage or permit in Engis. Most firms migrate one live register to learn the pattern and leave the rest.
Can the council or the developer still see the register?
Yes — as read-only access to the one record, not as a copy. That is usually the point at which the SoC argument about "whose version is current" stops.
What if a condition does not fit the structured fields?
Every condition keeps the permit wording verbatim plus free notes. The structured fields (trigger, owner, evidence, stage) sit alongside, not instead of, the text.
Is the free template the same structure?
Yes. The planning permit condition register template on this site is the Engis structure on one printable page, so a register built on it imports column for column.
Does Engis replace SharePoint for documents?
It replaces the register and attaches the evidence to the condition it discharges. Firms typically keep SharePoint as the general document library and use Engis document control for the delivery paper trail — transmittals, RFIs, submittals.
See the register on a seeded estate.
The free trial opens a read-only workspace on a Victorian subdivision with the permit condition register already populated — compare it with your spreadsheet side by side.