Plan vs Actual Variance Report

Two columns of dates and no math between them.

This tool addresses all three: one local PowerShell script that reads an .xlsx with Baseline and Forecast (or Actual) End columns, computes per-task variance in working days, buckets every task by severity, calculates the project-level finish slip, and produces a single-page report with a GREEN/AMBER/RED verdict the PM can run before every status meeting — same input as Excel Plan Validator, different report.

One page. Bucket distribution + verdict + Critical-first task tables + per-owner aggregate.

The output is a single self-contained HTML file written to ./output/. System fonts, no external CSS or JS, prints cleanly, embeds in email.

Summary row + bucket-bar viz

Seven cells across the top: tasks, the five bucket counts, project slip in working days. Beneath, a single horizontal bar shows the proportional distribution across the five buckets — one glance tells you whether the plan is mostly green with a Critical outlier or mostly red with no green left. The bar is the fastest read on the page.

Verdict + Critical and project-slip callouts

GREEN / AMBER / RED in a colored block, followed by a bulleted list of the specific reasons it triggered — named in plain language (e.g. "Project finish slip 38 working days (RED threshold >20)"), not just a color. If any tasks are Critical, a CRITICAL callout sits beneath the verdict. If the project finish slips more than 20 working days, a PROJECT FINISH SLIPPED callout sits next to it — the explicit reframe that this is a re-baseline conversation, not a status update.

Per-bucket task tables (Critical first)

Five tables, one per bucket, Critical first then At Risk, Slipped, On Track, Ahead. Each table shows ID, Task, Owner, Baseline End, Forecast End, variance (working days), percent complete. Sorted within each bucket by variance, worst slip at the top. The PM reads top-down and works through the actionable rows in order of severity; the On Track and Ahead tables sit at the bottom as visual reassurance.

Per-owner aggregate

One row per Owner, ranked by total slip-days across all their tasks (worst first). Columns: total tasks, Critical count, At Risk count, total slip-days. The triage table for the per-owner conversations after the meeting — whose plate is breaking, and how.

Requirements

• OSWindows, macOS, or Linux
• RuntimePowerShell 7+ (pwsh). 5.1 is not supported.
• ModuleImportExcel — install once with Install-Module ImportExcel -Scope CurrentUser. No Office, no Excel install needed on the machine running the tool.
• BrowserAnything modern. UI on localhost:8788.
• InputAn .xlsx project plan with at minimum ID, Task, Baseline End, Forecast End columns. Owner, Baseline Start, Forecast Start, Percent Complete are optional. Common aliases are accepted (see user guide).
• Demo modeBundled 25-task project-plan fixture — runs end-to-end with no input file, produces a RED verdict driven by a 38-working-day project finish slip.

Claude could write this. Two reasons to prefer the script.

Some workplaces — defense, medical devices, finance, anywhere with a strict IT policy — won't let Claude or any AI tool touch production data. These tools run on your machine, with no Claude or AI in the data path. The file-based ones — this tool included — make no network calls at all: your project plan is read from local disk, the report is written to local disk, nothing leaves the machine. And even where AI is allowed, repeat workflows shouldn't cost tokens — a deterministic script runs the same way every time, for free, forever. The prompt guide below shows how this tool was built with Claude; the download is what you run after.

Three files. Free.

The tool, a user guide, and a prompt guide showing the spec, the five variance buckets with working-day cutoffs, the project-finish-slip math, the verdict thresholds, the fixture's pinned bucket distribution, and the Pester contract that holds them in place.