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From sticky notes to a roadmap in a Google Sheet.

A freelance build: the Strategy Growth Roadmap, a planning tool on Google Sheets and Apps Script. One master Sheet, and each new client makes a copy for their own private Sheet, with nothing to install.

Type
Freelance build
Client
Anonymous
Tools
Google Sheets, Apps Script
The roadmap board in light mode: a yearly table of revenue, gross margin, net profit and FTE from 2025 to 2031 above five colored milestone lanes, filled with invented example data.
Overview, light. Preview render with invented example data.
Copy, don’t installOne master Sheet. Each new client makes a copy and gets their own private Sheet.
Ready in three stepsMake a copy, open full screen, approve Google. No code and no setup for the client.
Only two permissionsIt asks for access to the Sheet and its menu, and nothing else.
Tested end to endAutomated checks on both the script and the interface, including dark mode and undo.

The problem

The plan lived on hand-drawn sketches and sticky notes: great for brainstorming, hard to keep current or share. The users weren’t technical, so it had to edit like a sketch and set up without me. Google Sheets was already trusted, and the data stays in a Sheet the client owns.

Illustration · not a screenshot
Where the plan started.

From sketch to tool

Designed like a planning sketch that edits itself: yearly numbers on top, swimlanes below, one shared year axis.

  1. One board

    Yearly numbers (revenue, gross margin, net profit, FTE) sit above the milestone swimlanes, on shared year columns.

  2. Milestones are pills

    A pill in its lane’s color. Add a number and its dot grows. Same-quarter milestones stack, and notes show as a tooltip on hover.

  3. Years you control

    2025 to 2031 by default. Insert, remove and renumber years.

The roadmap board in light mode: a yearly table of revenue, gross margin, net profit and FTE from 2025 to 2031 above five colored milestone lanes, filled with invented example data.
Overview, light
The same roadmap board in dark mode, with the yearly table and five milestone lanes on a dark background.
Overview, dark

Preview render with invented example data, not a live Google deployment.

Sheet, script and browser

Edits are instant: the editor keeps the roadmap in browser memory, and about 0.4 seconds after the last edit one batched save goes to Apps Script, which writes it to the Sheet.

Each save takes a script lock (waiting up to 8 seconds) and carries its starting revision. If someone saved first, the script refuses it and the editor offers Reload or Keep mine. A failed save shows “Not saved · retrying” and retries after 1.5, 4, 10 and 20 seconds.

Every new client is just a copy

I keep one master Google Sheet. Each new client makes a copy and gets their own private Sheet with nothing to install. Only they and the people they share it with see their numbers.

The full-screen page runs as whoever opens it, so nothing is stored in my project and I can’t see client data. The first time takes about three minutes, per my setup guide, then it’s one click.

Setting it up

One setup, done once: the master Sheet and one deployed web app. Clients never touch code. They click Open full screen and approve Google, which asks twice and shows an “unverified app” screen the client guide walks through.

Me, once

  1. Paste six files

    The code, page and manifest go into the master Sheet’s Apps Script project.

  2. Deploy the web app once

    It runs as whoever opens it.

  3. Paste its URL into the code

    The only value I fill in. No Sheet or script IDs in the code.

  4. Test with a second Google account

    Then share the master and send the copy link with the client guide.

Each client

  1. Make a copy

    From the copy link.

  2. Click Growth Roadmap › Open full screen

    In the Sheet’s menu bar.

  3. Approve Google

    Once for the Sheet, once for the full-screen page.

Built for non-technical users

The client guide assumes someone who has never opened Apps Script. In the tool, everything is click-to-edit, saving is automatic and says what it’s doing, and the empty board explains itself.

  • Click to edit
  • Drag to move
  • Undo and redo
  • Autosave status
  • Resizable names column
  • Full screen
  • Light and dark
A milestone pill with its note shown in a small tooltip above it.
Notes on hover
The Edit milestone panel open over the board, with fields for name, year and quarter, lane, an optional value and notes.
Edit a milestone
The year column panel open over the 2027 column, with a header label field, the year, insert before and after buttons and a remove year button.
Edit a year
The empty state: a small rising bar graphic, the headline Plan the next seven years, and buttons for a new roadmap or example data.
Empty state
The board with the left names column dragged wider so long lane and metric names fit.
Resizable names column
A large blue Open full screen button with the line It opens in a new browser tab.
The menu fallbackA big button if a menu click can’t open a pop-up.

What I can show

  1. 63 checks on the script

    Code.gs run against a mock Sheet: permissions, the script lock, save and conflict handling, and escaping of anything typed into an error page.

  2. 143 checks on the interface

    A headless-Chrome test drives the preview: editing, undo, drag, resizing, dark mode, the empty state and console errors.

No client outcomes or speed measurements claimed. These checks cover the build itself, including that the code has no Sheet IDs and asks only for the Sheets and menu permissions.

Honest limits

  1. Google’s “unverified app” warning appears the first time. The guide explains it, but it’s still a bump.

  2. An unverified app with this kind of permission is capped at roughly 100 users. Beyond that, it needs Google’s verification.

  3. A Google Workspace admin can block it, and a browser signed in to several Google accounts can fail to open the file.

  4. The full-screen page updates for everyone when I publish. The menu in a client’s copy doesn’t until the code is pasted in again.

  5. I designed the tool and how it behaves. I built it fast with AI coding help.

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