Turning 100+ Excel requirements into structured project work
A telecom software company was spending hours recreating approved requirements in Jira, the task and project management platform used by its delivery team. We built a project ingestion system that turns the approved Excel file into structured, connected work before development begins.
- 100+
- requirements processed per project
- 12+ hours
- of manual work removed per project
- No retyping
- of approved requirements
- Still in use
- in the client's production workflow
The manual handover
Every client project began with a detailed Excel file containing more than 100 business requirements. The file was the approved source for what needed to be built, but the delivery team planned and managed its projects and tasks in Jira.
Project managers had to bridge that gap manually. They recreated requirements one by one, copied descriptions, set priorities, connected related tickets and checked that the supporting information had been transferred correctly.
The work took more than 12 hours for every project. It delayed the start of development and introduced a predictable source of typing mistakes, missing fields and incorrect relationships between tasks.
Before
- Approved Excel requirements
- Manual review and clean-up
- Copy every requirement into the task platform
- Check fields, links and files
- Development can begin
After
- Approved Excel requirements
- Upload through the project form
- System creates or updates the project
- Connected project work is ready for review
Redesigning the handover
We began by mapping how requirements moved from the approved file into development. The problem was not that the company used Excel. The problem was that people had to reproduce information that was already structured and agreed.
We built a simple submission form for the team. They upload the completed requirements file and the system handles the rest of the process. It validates the structure, identifies the project and decides whether it needs to create new tasks or update an existing project.
The project manager remains in control of the result, but their role has changed. Instead of spending hours copying information, they review a complete project and task structure and move it into delivery.
Engineering the system for real project work
Creating one task from a spreadsheet row is straightforward. Creating more than 100 connected tasks reliably, then updating them safely when the project changes, required a more considered system.
Each project and requirement is tracked with a stable identifier. When a file is submitted, the system compares it with the project already stored in the task management platform. New requirements follow the creation path. Existing requirements are updated without producing a second set of tasks.
Large imports are processed in controlled batches. The system records the result of each create or update operation, which prevents incomplete runs from being mistaken for successful ones and allows processing to continue safely if an external request fails.
Structured requirements
Connected project work
Relationships preserved
Business requirements are connected to the technical work needed to deliver them. Parent and child tasks, dependencies and related requirements remain linked in the task management platform.
Context travels with the task
The files, documents and project information needed to complete the work are placed into a consistent task structure instead of being left across separate folders and messages.
Updates do not create duplicates
The same form supports both new projects and revisions. The system recognises the project state and applies the correct create or update process automatically.
What changed
The new process removed more than 12 hours of manual work from every project. Project managers no longer need to recreate and check several hundred approved requirements before delivery can begin.
Information now moves directly from the approved requirements file into the team's task management platform. Transcription errors and typing mistakes have been removed, and each project begins with the same task structure and level of detail.
We delivered the system in two weeks. It remains part of the company's production workflow today.