Free Launch and Cutover Calendar Template for Excel
What needs to happen before launch, who does it, and when do we call a halt?
A launch date in a project plan is easy. Getting everyone ready for that date takes more work. Use this Excel calendar to plan the final checks, schedule the cutover and agree what happens if something goes wrong.
Set one launch date and time. The workbook calculates your planned cutover times and readiness deadlines from it. Move the launch, and those dates move with it. No frantic hunt through a hundred cells.
Download the Excel calendars See the previews
Download your launch and cutover calendar
Choose a year and theme. Each Excel workbook includes 100 cutover steps, 60 readiness checks and 30 rollback entries, plus a monthly calendar and related templates.
2027 calendars
Choose the colour theme you prefer. Both contain the same planning tools.
Download 2027 light (.xlsx) Download 2027 dark (.xlsx)2026 calendars
Choose the colour theme you prefer. Both contain the same planning tools.
Download 2026 light (.xlsx) Download 2026 dark (.xlsx)Free Excel downloads with sample entries to replace. No macros. Light and dark themes are separate files.
What is a cutover calendar?
A cutover is the switch from an existing system, service or process to its replacement. The calendar shows when preparation is due and when the switch will happen. The cutover runbook gives the team the detailed sequence: tasks, owners, planned times and actual progress.
Use it for a software release, a service migration or a change in how a team works. The sample entries follow a system launch, including backups, deployment, testing and support handover. Replace them with the actions your launch needs.
What is in the workbook?
| Worksheet | Use it to |
|---|---|
| Calendar | Set the launch date and time, choose a viewing month and year, and see daily counts of planned step starts and readiness deadlines. The launch day is highlighted. |
| Cutover | Assign up to 100 steps. Enter an offset and duration in minutes, record dependencies and owners, and update actual start, finish and status. Timing flags identify overdue work and completed steps that finished late. |
| Readiness | List up to 60 checks with owners, deadlines, results and evidence. Mark mandatory checks and record the go/no-go decision, owner and timestamp. |
| Rollback | Define triggers, decision deadlines, recovery actions, owners and success criteria. Record the person with authority to call a rollback. |
| Resources | Open related stakeholdermap.com templates for deployment planning, acceptance, decisions, issues, risks and lessons learned. |
Light and dark calendar previews
These previews show the November 2026 sample. Select either image to enlarge it.
Light theme
Dark theme
How to use the launch and cutover calendar
- Set the launch time. On Calendar, enter the date and time in the launch field. Choose the month and year you want to view. Record the time zone so everyone uses the same clock.
- Replace the example steps. On Cutover, give each task a unique Step ID, an activity and an owner. Use Depends on ID to record the step that must happen first.
- Enter the timings. Use negative offset minutes for work before launch, zero for the launch itself and positive minutes for work afterwards. Enter each duration in minutes. The lavender columns calculate the planned start and finish.
- Add your readiness checks. Assign owners, mark mandatory items and enter how many calendar days before launch each check is due. Update the result and add evidence as checks are completed.
- Agree the decisions. Record the go/no-go decision on Readiness. Fill in the rollback triggers, deadline, authority and recovery actions on Rollback.
- Run the cutover. Update status and actual start and finish times as events happen. Enter both the date and time, especially when work crosses midnight. Use the timing flags to find delays.
- Complete the handover. Include monitoring and support handover steps after launch. Give each an owner and a clear finish point.
The calendar shows counts so busy days remain readable. Open the detail sheets for the activity names, owners and evidence. When you move a launch into another month, change the calendar viewing month too.
A worked example: launching at 22:00
Suppose you plan to launch at 22:00 on 20 November 2026. The runbook works forwards and backwards from that time.
| Activity | Offset | Duration | Planned time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open the cutover bridge | -120 minutes | 15 minutes | 20 November, 20:00 to 20:15 |
| Confirm go/no-go | -105 minutes | 15 minutes | 20 November, 20:15 to 20:30 |
| Take and verify a backup | -75 minutes | 30 minutes | 20 November, 20:45 to 21:15 |
| Deploy the release | -45 minutes | 30 minutes | 20 November, 21:15 to 21:45 |
| Run smoke tests | -15 minutes | 15 minutes | 20 November, 21:45 to 22:00 |
| Open the service to users | 0 minutes | 15 minutes | 20 November, 22:00 to 22:15 |
| Monitor critical transactions | +15 minutes | 120 minutes | 20 November, 22:15 to 21 November, 00:15 |
A readiness check due seven days before this launch falls on 13 November. It is a date-only deadline. Use a timed cutover step when a check must finish at a particular hour.
Moving launch to 23:00 shifts every planned cutover step by one hour. Actual times you have entered stay as recorded. Changing one step's duration changes its planned finish, so review the offsets of later steps if the sequence needs to move.
Plan the go/no-go and rollback decisions
“We will decide on the night” is an invitation to a long night. Agree who decides, what evidence they need and the latest time they can act.
On Readiness, mark the checks that must pass. The calendar counts mandatory checks that have not passed, while the decision field records Pending, Go, No-go or Defer. Add the decision owner, timestamp and rationale so the team can see what was agreed.
For rollback, write a trigger the team can recognise. “Critical smoke test fails” gives them something to act on. “Things look bad” leaves everyone guessing. Record the recovery action and how you will confirm that the restored service works.
Allow time to recover before the maintenance window closes. If restoration and testing take 90 minutes, a rollback decision five minutes before the window ends is already too late.
Frequently asked questions
Does the template use working days?
Readiness deadlines use calendar days, including weekends. Cutover and rollback offsets use elapsed minutes. The workbook does not exclude holidays.
Do dependencies automatically move later tasks?
No. Depends on ID records the sequence for the team. Planned times come from each step's offset and duration. If a task slips, review the offsets of the steps that follow it.
How do overdue alerts work?
The workbook compares planned deadlines with the As of field on Calendar. It starts with Excel's NOW() formula and updates when Excel recalculates. You can enter a fixed date and time for a review. A completed cutover step needs an actual finish time, and the workbook identifies finishes later than planned.
Can I schedule work across midnight?
Yes. Planned start and finish cells contain dates and times, so a step can finish the next day. Enter full dates and times for actual progress too.
Does it convert between time zones?
The time zone field is a label. Choose one time zone for the whole runbook and enter every time in that zone. The workbook does not convert times or adjust for daylight saving.
Can I use it for several launches?
Each workbook has one launch date and time. Save a separate copy for each release or cutover so its schedule, actual times and decisions stay together.
Related project templates
- Deployment plan template: plan the wider deployment approach and responsibilities.
- User acceptance report: record testing and acceptance before launch.
- Decision log: keep the reasons behind release and rollback decisions.
- Issue log: assign and track problems found during cutover.
- Risk register: plan for threats to the launch.
- Lessons learned template: capture what to change for the next release.
- Browse all project management templates.