A side-by-side read for procurement evaluators shortlisting EHS software vs spreadsheets in the same evaluation cycle. The matrix below names what the traditional spreadsheet safety tracker actually delivers across five questions enterprise buyers ask first — and what Pactwell’s always-on correlator changes about each one — grounded in the surfaces the platform ships today.
Positioning
A spreadsheet audit, a periodic walk-around clipboard, and a cross-signal correlator were built for different problems. The cards below name what each one is actually doing — so the shortlist reads against claims a reviewer can verify on the floor.
Spreadsheet audits
Sample a window, walk the floor, type the row, cross-reference in pivot table later. The audit log is mutable on a laptop, the report is compiled after the fact, and the row is whatever survived the sync between the clipboard and the file the auditor opens.
Clipboard + email
The observation lives on a clipboard, gets emailed to a supervisor, and is re-keyed into a sheet three days later. The corrective action drifts between the floor and the sheet, the badge identity is whoever remembered to write it down, and the photo is whichever phone caught the moment.
Cross-signal correlator
Always-on across sensor + permit + CCTV, reasons before it files, ships a tamper-evident evidence pack at the moment of the breach, scopes every view by role, and routes the corrective work order to the right supervisor channel — the same loop enterprise buyers ask for in the FAQ.
What changes
The four cards below pair the spreadsheet status-quo with the Pactwell surface that replaces it. Each card is written against a concrete procurement question, not a feature-by-feature spec sheet.
With the spreadsheet tracker
Any cell in the spreadsheet safety tracker can be edited after the fact. There is no tamper-evident log; edits overwrite the value and the timestamp is whatever the row shows.
With Pactwell
Pactwell writes the evidence pack at the moment of the alert — the cell value, the CCTV frame, the sensor reading, and the permit state are co-signed on the way in. The log is append-only and the breach record cannot be back-dated by the user who wrote it.
With the spreadsheet tracker
Reports are pivot tables assembled by hand at the end of the sampling window. Between windows, no one can answer "what has happened today" without pulling the spreadsheet from someone’s laptop.
With Pactwell
The on-demand PDF is written at the alert step with the cross-referenced CCTV frame, sensor reading, and permit state already wired in. Procurement reviewers pull the report on Monday and the data is the data — no reconstruction, no pivot table, no end-of-week hand compile.
With the spreadsheet tracker
Once "sheet permissions" are set, every operator, contractor, and supervisor who opens the spreadsheet can see every cell — including the corrective-action column an investigator is still working on.
With Pactwell
Pactwell scopes every view by role: operators see the bay they work on, supervisors see their assigned shift, investigators see the open ticket, and audit reviewers see the audit pack. The cell that says "investigation in progress" stays out of the operator’s view by design, not by sheet-tab discipline.
With the spreadsheet tracker
Spreadsheet rows live on a laptop. The observation, the near-miss, and the corrected-on-the-spot close-out are typed into a clipboard, copied to email, and re-keyed into the sheet three days later. The laptop is forgotten on a train, the sheet is forked, and the audit evidence is whatever survived the sync.
With Pactwell
The in-app mobile capture workflow writes the observation at the floor: badge, photo, GPS, sensor reading, and permit state land in the same record the moment the submit button is tapped. The row is in Pactwell before the auditor walks, and the row is the same row the platform wrote.
Side-by-side
The matrix below mirrors the five procurement questions enterprise buyers ask first when they are sizing EHS software vs spreadsheets — audit-trail integrity, real-time incident visibility, role-based access, reporting cadence, and mobile capture. Each Pactwell column maps to a shipped surface.
| Feature | Spreadsheet tracker | Pactwell |
|---|---|---|
| Audit-trail integrityWhether the cell value is tamper-evident — can the entry be silently edited, and is the timestamp co-signed with the row, or attached by whoever holds the file open. | Mutable cells. Edit history is whatever the spreadsheet version-control or undo track shows. The timestamp on the row is whoever typed it in. | Tamper-evident log written at the alert step. Row, sensor reading, permit state, and CCTV frame are co-signed and append-only — the breach record cannot be back-dated by the user who wrote it. |
| Real-time incident visibilityWhether an off-shift incident surfaces the moment it happens or only on the next sample window. Whether the supervisor can answer "what fired today" without a pivot table. | Sample window only. Incidents outside the window go unseen. Visibility into "what happened today" requires the user to pivot the sheet by hand. | Cross-signal correlator over sensor + permit + CCTV. The alert step reasons before it files, and the supervisor dashboard surfaces the breach in the same second the correlator fires. |
| Role-based accessWhether the corrective-action cell an investigator is still working on is visible to operators, contractors, and shift supervisors, or properly scoped out. | Everyone sees every cell. Sheet-tab discipline is the only thing standing between a contractor and an open investigation. | Role-scoped views by default. Operators see their bay; supervisors see their shift; investigators see the open ticket; audit reviewers see the audit pack. The cell is scoped out by design. |
| Reporting cadenceHow the audit report is written — at the moment of the breach, while the evidence is still on the floor, or compiled after the fact by whoever remembered the week. | Manual pivot-table assembled end-of-week. Whoever types it in decides what the cells say. | On-demand PDF written at the alert step with the CCTV frame, sensor reading, and permit state already cross-referenced. The PDF the auditor opens is the PDF the platform wrote. |
| Mobile captureWhere the floor observation lives — whether it lands in a record keyed to a badge, a photo, a GPS coordinate and a timestamp the moment the observer submits, or on a clipboard that has to be re-keyed. | Clipboard + email. Observer writes the row on paper, re-keys into a sheet three days later. The row is whatever survived the sync. | In-app mobile capture with badge + photo + GPS at the point of observation. The row lands in Pactwell before the observer walks off the bay. |
Every Pactwell claim in the rightmost column maps to a shipped surface — see the enterprise FAQ, the broader competitor matrix, and security & architecture.
Run the comparison on a single bay
Start the same pilot the matrix is written against — connect sensors, register permits, point Pactwell at the CCTV feeds you already run, and watch a flagged incident arrive in the second the correlator fires. Open onboarding for the step-by-step pilot checklist, or pull the plan tier detail for seat sizing.
Cross-check the correlator against refineries, construction, logistics yards, chemical plants, manufacturers, the broader competitor matrix, the IoT platform comparison, pricing, or the enterprise FAQ.