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    Comparison

    Spreadsheet alternatives for energy project development

    A spreadsheet is a calculation surface anyone can shape; a governance platform is a shared record that remembers. Excel has no notion of a project, a milestone, an approved baseline or an owner — the organization supplies those by convention, file by file — and conventions are what fail as projects, countries and teams multiply.

    What Excel and shared spreadsheets does

    Excel is Microsoft's spreadsheet, part of Microsoft 365. A worksheet holds 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns and a cell up to 32,767 characters. Workbooks stored in OneDrive or a SharePoint Online library can be co-authored with AutoSave on, with other people's changes appearing in seconds; where two people change the same thing, Microsoft states that the last saved change generally wins. Version history for files in OneDrive or SharePoint lets you open or restore an earlier version (the last 25 with a personal account; as configured for the library with a work account), and the Show Changes pane in Excel for the web lists cell changes with their previous values. Data validation restricts what a cell accepts and can show input messages and error alerts. Power Query, built into Excel for Windows and Mac, connects to hundreds of data sources and applies repeatable transformations. Microsoft 365's compliance offerings include ISO 27001 and SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3.

    Sources

    Everything above is drawn from Microsoft's own public material and was accurate as of October 2026.

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    Dimension by dimension

    Where the two products genuinely differ — and where they simply target different problems.

    Swipe sideways to see every column.

    DimensionSpreadsheetsNavorda
    Primary design goalGeneral-purpose calculation and tabulation — any structure, any formula, for any purpose, by anyone.Development control in one industry — pre-construction land, permitting, risk and ownership for energy assets.
    Project modelRows and columns. What a project, a milestone or a baseline is lives in each file's conventions — column headers, colour codes, a tab per country — and every file re-invents them.Projects and attributes, milestones with templates and dependencies, baselines and deviations, project-to-SPV ownership and project relationships are first-class objects on one governed record. What Navorda Platform includes →
    History and baselinesVersion history opens or restores an earlier copy of the whole file; the Show Changes pane in Excel for the web lists cell changes with previous values. Neither relates a change to a milestone, an owner, a reason or an approved baseline.Every date keeps its previous value, author, time and context; approved baselines are retained, so deviation is measured against the commitment rather than observed.
    CollaborationCo-authoring in OneDrive or SharePoint Online with AutoSave, changes visible in seconds; where two people change the same thing, the last saved change generally wins.One record per project, permission-based role-based access on every endpoint, and a full audit trail of who created and modified each record.
    Data qualityData validation restricts entries and shows alerts; the model itself — which columns exist, what they mean — is unenforced and drifts between files and versions.Typed fields and per-tenant configurable labels, metrics, milestones and substages; structured Excel import and export, spreadsheet-style grids and bulk operations keep what people value about Excel.
    ReportingPivot tables, Power Query and Power BI on top of the files; every management report is rebuilt from the latest copies, and the report is a snapshot of whichever files it read.Embedded reporting fed directly by the operational source; Navorda Connect (optional) makes the same governed model available to Power BI through its Semantic Model Twin.
    Calculation and financial modelsUnmatched. The right place for yield, financial and scenario models, and nothing here argues otherwise.No calculation engine of its own. External Models Governance (optional) keeps the workbook as the calculation engine and links its assumptions and critical outputs to the governed project, flagging when an assumption no longer matches project reality. External Models Governance →
    Land and cadastreParcels and contracts as rows; maps in a separate tool.Plots, counterparts and securement mechanisms on a native map, with Spanish Catastro GML parsed on import (Navorda Land, an optional add-on); land readiness is a milestone on the project record in Navorda Platform.
    AI accessAn assistant reading a spreadsheet reads cells — it has to infer what a project, a milestone or an owner is from headers and layout, file by file.The Navorda MCP Connector — included in Navorda Platform — lets Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor query the governed portfolio live: read-only, OAuth 2.1, landowner PII structurally excluded.
    CertificationsMicrosoft 365's compliance offerings include ISO 27001 and SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3.AWS-native security architecture with SSO, four-role RBAC and audit trails; ISO 27001 and SOC 2 are in progress, not yet completed. Current status on the security page →
    Platform and procurementUsually already licensed through Microsoft 365; no procurement, no onboarding, skills everyone has.Standalone AWS-native SaaS via AWS Marketplace. Portfolio-based commercial model: scope defined by portfolio size, required capabilities and enterprise integration needs; structured onboarding in four to eight weeks. How pricing works →

    This page is maintained by CabSan Solutions, which builds Navorda — so read it as an informed but interested source. Everything stated about the other vendor is drawn from their own public material, linked above, and was accurate as of the date shown. Vendors change their products; verify anything decision-critical with them directly. If you believe something here is wrong or out of date, email info@cabsansolutions.com and we will correct it.

    Which one you should actually buy

    We would rather you rule Navorda out in five minutes than discover the mismatch in month four.

    Choose Spreadsheets if…

    • One team, one country, a short project list — everyone can still hold the portfolio in their head, and the spreadsheet is a convenient record of it.
    • Calculation: yield, financial and scenario models belong in Excel, and Navorda's own stance is to keep them there and govern their outputs.
    • Zero procurement and universal skills matter more than governance right now — a new process is still being worked out and should be prototyped before it is codified.
    • Procurement requires ISO 27001 or SOC attestations today: Microsoft 365 publishes them; Navorda's are in progress.
    • Nobody needs to know what a date was before it changed, who changed it, or why.

    Choose Navorda if…

    • The same milestone lives in more than one file and the files disagree.
    • Management asks what the previous commitment was, when it moved, who moved it and why — and the answer takes a meeting.
    • You work across several countries and each country's permitting chain has its own order, which one generic tracker flattens.
    • The monthly report is rebuilt from the latest copies every cycle, and nobody can prove which copy it read.
    • An investment committee wants deviation against an approved baseline, not a colour-coded list.
    • You want your own AI assistant to answer portfolio questions from governed data rather than from whichever workbook was shared last.

    Frequently asked questions

    For governing the portfolio — milestones, permits, land readiness, risks, ownership and what changed — yes. For calculating — yield, financial models, scenario arithmetic — no: Excel stays the calculation engine, and External Models Governance links its outputs to the governed project rather than replacing the workbook. Navorda keeps what execution users value about spreadsheets — structured imports and exports, spreadsheet-style grids, bulk operations and reusable templates — on a governed record.

    When one team in one country can still hold the portfolio in its head, when the question is a calculation rather than a commitment, and when nobody needs to know what a date was before it changed. Spreadsheets stop working for a development portfolio when the same milestone lives in more than one file and nobody can say what the date was before, who changed it or why — that is a governance problem, and a bigger spreadsheet does not solve it.

    Yes. Complex models remain in Excel. Navorda can govern selected outputs, assumptions, workbook versions and links to project data through External Models Governance, an optional add-on, without rebuilding the financial calculation engine. It reads results and flags when an assumption no longer matches the governed project; it never computes them.

    Through structured Excel import against country- and technology-specific templates, during a four-to-eight-week onboarding — discovery, configuration, guided data migration, map activation, training, supported go-live. You can start with one representative project or workflow and add depth as adoption grows; the Fit Review is where that first project is chosen.

    Other comparisons

    Judge Navorda against your own portfolio

    Bring your plots, your permit processes and your ownership structures. Thirty minutes is usually enough to tell whether this is the right tool for you — or whether one of the alternatives above is.

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