Suggestions to Ensure a Work Development Tracker is Easily Usable Each New Professional Year

Hi all,

Apologies in advance if this isn’t clear - I’m not super savvy, but I’ve created a Development Tracker for managers to use for their direct reports to aid progression and skill documentation. I’m wondering if anybody has any suggestions for this to easily be used year on year (i.e. 2025 skill/courses inputs are now outdated, but 2026 skills build on 2025’s), whilst maintaining or documenting previous text inputs somehow. I want people to be able to maintain it themselves easily, without adding extra work for them haha.

My current options are below - any better suggestions?

- manually create a copy and label that 2025, so last year’s info isn’t lost.

- create a vba macro and button that automatically copies the file, renames it, and saves it in the relevant location upon a click (reduces manual steps for users)

- create an extra tab per direct report for previous years (not ideal: there’d be endless tabs)

- suggest that the manager screenshots the inputs and save that image lol.

For context, the tracker houses:

- a ‘master’ control tab which details all names, and a table where when an “x” is added, which flows into the relevant direct report’s tab as a table

- an individual tab for each direct report

- quantitative data on the right hand side

- a heap of formulas calculating percentages based on available inputs

- qualitative data on the left hand side

- cells that automatically show and/or are hidden when a certain job title is added in a specific cell

- cells that automatically show and/or hidden based on whether they’re on the promotion radar, again, specified in a specific cell.

Some managers don’t want to delete previously added text in the “skills/training courses” section, but I don’t want people to constantly need to add entire rows, since it’ll disrupt the formulas