Excel
An Excel assignment tracker you can upload as it is.
Drop the .xlsx straight in — no exporting, no Save As, no encoding dialog. The workbook is read in your browser, dates included, and you see every row before anything is saved. If you would rather export a CSV, the traps in doing that are below.
The sample is a made-up semester with four deliberately awkward rows, so you can see how each is handled before it happens to your own.
Uploading
What happens to an .xlsx here.
An .xlsx is a zip of XML. It is unzipped and read in the browser tab you are sitting in — the file is not uploaded anywhere while you are choosing columns and checking dates. Only the rows you keep are sent, and only once you press import.
The part worth knowing
In a workbook a due date is not text. It is a number — 46277 — with a format attached somewhere else in the file. Read that number without the format and every deadline becomes nonsense; read it with the format and you get an exact date with no month-first or day-first question to ask. That is why an uploaded workbook usually needs fewer decisions from you than the same sheet pasted as text.
Handled
- Real date cells, with or without a time on them
- Workbooks saved on the 1904 epoch, as older Mac Excel did
- Checkbox and TRUE/FALSE columns
- Several sheets — you pick which one
- Cells left empty in the middle of a row
- Formula results
- Accents and non-Latin text
Not handled
- The old binary .xls format — Save As .xlsx first
- Very large workbooks saved as ZIP64 — export CSV instead
- Charts, images and pivot tables, which are simply ignored
The traps
Three ways an Excel export goes wrong.
1. The encoding
“Save as CSV” on Windows writes the file in the system code page, not UTF-8. Any accented course name or em dash comes back as mojibake. Choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) instead — it is a separate entry in the Save-as list.
2. The separator
On a German, French or Spanish Windows install, Excel writes CSV with semicolons because the comma is the decimal mark. The file is still valid; many importers just cannot read it. This one sniffs the separator, so a semicolon file works without renaming anything.
3. The dates
A date cell is a number underneath. Depending on the format applied, an export can produce 12/09/2026, 09-Dec-26 or the bare serial 46366. The first imports once you say which order it is in, and the serial is converted. 09-Dec-26 is not read — set the column to a plain date format before exporting.
Setting it up
What to build in the workbook itself.
- 1Format the range as a TableSelect the range and press Ctrl+T. Filters, banded rows and formulas that extend to new rows come free.
- 2Data validation for ClassData → Data Validation → List. Same reason as in Sheets: it stops one course becoming three.
- 3Conditional formatting for overdueNew Rule → Use a formula:
=AND($A2<>"",$A2<TODAY(),$F2=FALSE), red fill, where column F is Completed?. - 4Freeze the header rowView → Freeze Panes → Freeze Top Row. Trivial, and the single biggest usability win in a long sheet.
- 5Save as CSV UTF-8 when you exportNot plain CSV. This is the setting that keeps your text intact.
Where Excel genuinely wins
- Offline, on a laptop, with no account anywhere
- Arbitrary formulas — GPA scenarios, credit-hour maths
- Pivot tables, if you actually use them
- It is already installed and already familiar
Where it does not win is anything that has to happen while the file is closed: a reminder, a phone check, a view that stays current. That is the only gap this product is trying to fill.
Questions
Can I upload an Excel assignment tracker (.xlsx) directly?
Yes. Press Import in the tracker, choose Upload a spreadsheet and pick the workbook. It is unzipped and parsed in your browser, so nothing leaves your machine until you press import — and then only the rows you kept.
My workbook has several sheets. Which one is used?
You choose. Every sheet is listed so you can pick the one with your assignments. Sheets you do not pick are ignored entirely.
Can it read .xls, the older format?
No. That is a completely different binary format, not a zip of XML. Open it in Excel and use Save As to make an .xlsx, or export CSV UTF-8. The importer recognises an .xls and tells you this rather than failing vaguely.
My export uses semicolons. Will that work?
Yes. The importer detects tab, comma, semicolon and pipe separators by checking which one gives a consistent column count across the start of the file.
The dates came in as numbers like 46366.
That is the spreadsheet date serial. Values in the plausible range are converted the way Excel counts them, and the row is flagged so you can spot-check one.
Does the CSV export open cleanly in Excel?
Yes. It is written as UTF-8 with a byte-order mark and comma separated, which is the combination Excel opens with the correct encoding on Windows and macOS without an import dialog.