Ask better questions of the schedule.

A screening tool, with a defined boundary

A schedule is a model of how work can proceed. Its dates are useful only when the scope, logic, calendars, progress, and assumptions behind them are credible. A short review can expose questions worth investigating, but a spreadsheet export cannot reproduce everything in the scheduling application.

Include the required design-submittal review, procurement release, supplier-confirmed production, transport, receipt, and installation as distinct events. After approval and other release conditions, the subcontractor orders to protect the lead time. Eligible stored-material billing may support that procurement under the contract, but paid offsite material is not delivered or installed progress and does not close the remaining schedule activities.

This resource is a first-pass screening method for a deliberately limited tabular dataset. It helps organize basic checks and the evidence needed to resolve them. It does not calculate the full critical path, perform a schedule risk analysis, certify a schedule, or establish responsibility for delay.

The download is a workbook and a pair of comma-separated values files, not an integration with Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, or a live Excel service. Export and map data deliberately, preserve the original schedule, and validate any findings in the native file before using them in a project decision.

Review in an order that protects the conclusion

1. Establish what the data represents

Record the source revision, export date, data date, calendar basis, and any excluded activities. The data date is the boundary between recorded progress and the remaining plan. An export without that context may mix actual work, outdated forecasts, and summary rows in ways that look coherent but are not comparable.

Check the planned sequence against the current specifications and drawings as well. Identify required contractor submittals, design and owner review periods, resubmissions, inspections, tests, and acceptance conditions. Link those activities to procurement and installation where the project requires it. An owner’s representative coordinates these existing obligations with the retained professionals; a shorter schedule does not remove them.

2. Check identifiers and field integrity

Find missing or repeated activity identifiers, invalid dates, and missing required values before interpreting performance. Confirm that milestones, summary activities, and ordinary tasks are classified consistently. A duplicate identifier can make a dependency reference ambiguous even when the displayed activity names differ.

3. Ask whether the sequence is represented

Look for activities with no recorded predecessor or successor, references to identifiers absent from the export, and connections that deserve explanation. Some open ends are intentional at a defined project boundary. A flagged row should trigger a review question; it should not automatically be labeled a defect.

4. Review dates against progress

Check for remaining work forecast before the data date, actual dates after that date, or a finish earlier than a start. Verify apparent conflicts in the source application. Different calendar rules, time-of-day values, status conventions, or export mappings can affect the interpretation.

5. Test the story behind constraints and float

Review hard date constraints, unusual durations, and float values in context. A high float value may reflect valid flexibility or incomplete logic; a low one may reflect a restrictive constraint. Simple thresholds are prompts for judgment, not universal quality standards. A reviewer must inspect the network, calendars, and underlying assumptions.

Check who supports each material milestone. A scheduler’s date or general contractor’s estimate is not a vendor commitment. Let the manufacturer, subcontractor, carrier, or specialist controlling that activity confirm its own date, reaching the subcontractor’s or vendor’s own supplier where necessary. Record the scope, conditions, dated evidence, and applicable document revision. The general contractor coordinates these inputs and reconciles the network; each professional reviewer retains authority over its assigned review, and a supplier confirmation does not certify the project finish.

Worked example: a missing dependency

Use the workbook and CSV files

Read Guide and inspect Worked example, then use the fifteen blank rows in Review. The example CSV contains fictional data for learning the expected columns; the blank file supplies the same headers for a fresh dataset. Map your export to those headers instead of assuming the tool understands a native scheduling file.

Complete the lower Requirement basis block for each row. Its record identifier follows the main register. Enter the requirement document and revision, the design and owner review role, required submittal or request, actual disposition and supporting evidence, and the contractor’s confirmation that the basis remains current. Evidence linked means those fields are populated; it is not an approval, authorization to proceed, or assessment of the review’s adequacy.

Use the linked commitment record to name the responsible entity and its scope, confirmation status and date, evidence, conditions, and the contractor’s separate forecast and coordination action. Carry the current requirement revision with the evidence. A completed record is not independent confirmation; an unconfirmed date remains an estimate.

The workbook checks date consistency, duplicate or missing identifiers, self-links, and single predecessor or successor references. It represents only one reference in each of those link fields. Do not flatten a complex network into one link and treat the result as a complete logic review. Relationship types, multiple links, lags, and calendar behavior need assessment in the native schedule.

Open CSV files using the import controls in your spreadsheet application, select the delimiter and date types deliberately, and check that identifiers remain text where appropriate. Automatic type conversion can turn an identifier into a number or change a date. Compare several imported rows against the source before relying on the result.

Use the review workbook to record each flag, the reason it matters, the source evidence, and its disposition. Classify a result as a confirmed issue, an explained exception, or unresolved. A clean screen means only that the represented checks found no issue in the supplied fields. It says nothing about omitted data or checks the workbook cannot perform.

Keep the specification section, drawing revision, relevant submittal status, and required review role with the source evidence for affected activities. Where requirements are not documented, identify the current planning basis and obtain the missing direction from the responsible professional through the project’s clarification process. Do not invent review periods or erase an unresolved dependency.

Use the printable checklist for a review meeting and the text version when a plain, accessible format is preferable. Keep the original export, the working review, and the final observations as separate dated records. The download does not send your schedule to this website.

What needs a deeper assessment

A meaningful native-file review should consider the completeness of scope, relationship types and lags, calendars, constraints, progress settings, out-of-sequence work, resource assumptions, and the path driving the finish date. It should also examine the baseline and change history. A risk analysis needs uncertainty assumptions and methods beyond a small screening table.

• Escalate unexplained results. Ask the scheduler to demonstrate how a date is calculated.
• Keep exceptions visible. Record the reason and reviewer when a flag is accepted.
• Do not equate a score with reliability. A schedule can satisfy a numerical threshold and still omit essential work.
• Do not infer causation. A late date does not establish who caused delay or whether compensation is due.

Turn unresolved questions into specific requests in the owner report. Connect potential commercial effects to the change register without counting them as approved amounts. The value of screening is a better next review, not a certificate.

Sources, method & limitations

This guide’s examples, workflow, and workbook instructions are original teaching material from Pacific Project Controls. The public references below supply background. They do not endorse this site or make this workbook an official assessment tool.

1. GAO Schedule Assessment Guide, GAO-16-89G (2015)
   Background on reliable schedules, their relationship to cost, and the need to assess dependencies and change. The screening checks here are a limited teaching aid, not a GAO compliance assessment.
2. U.S. Department of Energy: EVMS Implementation Guidance
   Links to the Department’s change-control guidance and describes checking data validity before interpreting performance. Federal guidance is context; its contractual requirements are not asserted to apply to every reader.
3. AIA Contract Documents: contractor review of submittals
   Explains contractor coordination and review under A201–2017 before forwarding submittals to the architect. Use the actual project contract to identify review responsibilities; this reference does not make that agreement applicable to every project.
4. AIA Contract Documents: payment for materials stored offsite
   Explains A201–2017 section 9.3.2 as one contractual approach: advance owner approval for offsite storage and payment, an agreed location, protection of the owner’s interest, and applicable insurance and transport arrangements. The executed project contract governs eligibility.
5. AIA Contract Documents: payment applications and stored-material reconciliation
   Describes required payment support and moving stored value to completed work as incorporation occurs without charging for the same material twice. Use the project’s actual payment rules and applicable waiver requirements.

Apply the actual project requirements and obtain the relevant professional review. This guide does not establish contractual entitlement, certify technical performance, or replace authorized acceptance. No actual client record or project outcome is represented by the fictional examples.

Release edition · October 21, 2026. Source notes identify the references used in preparation. Report an error or review our correction policy.