Excel: Open Jobs
The production schedule as a refreshable Excel and Power BI table
Overview
The production schedule as a refreshable Excel and Power BI table
The open job schedule: job number and status, the part being built, job quantity, due date and earliest start date, days past due already subtracted, planned location, the started and hold flags, description, note, and the add and update dates.
“Open” is read from Plex's own job-status flags — not completed, not cancelled, not scrapped, not merged — rather than from a hardcoded list of status keys, so it means the same thing in your tenant as it does in ours.
Take the .xlsx link rather than .csv. Part numbers that start with a zero are common, and CSV carries no type information, so Excel would quietly turn 00124735 into 124735. The xlsx feed keeps it as text.
How to connect it
Open the script, click Connect to Excel and copy the link. In Excel, Data → From Web, paste, choose Anonymous, and Load. From then on Refresh All re-runs the query — there is no exported file to hunt down, nothing is scheduled and nothing is emailed around.
How current is it?
This table reads Plex over its ODBC reporting connection, not the live transactional system. That copy can trail production by up to about four hours, so treat the numbers as recent rather than real-time. Refreshing re-runs the query, but it re-runs it against the same reporting copy — it does not reach past it.
That is the right trade for reporting, review meetings and models. Anything that has to be accurate to the minute — shipping a container, releasing a job — belongs in Plex itself, not in a workbook.
Filters
Every input is an optional URL query parameter on the link, so one script serves a whole team: two sheets can be the same feed with different values. For example ?part_no=VALUE&job_no=VALUE.
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
part_no | substring match on Part No or Part Name |
job_no | substring match on Job No |
status | exact match on Job Status, e.g. "Active" |
past_due_only | true = keep only jobs already past their due date |
max_rows | keep only the first N rows |
What this installs
The Excel Data - Open Jobs script and one saved SQL query it runs on. The SQL lives in the SQL editor, so a column you want added is an edit in one place that every workbook picks up on its next refresh. The table has 18 columns as shipped, and no row cap — a cap would truncate silently and the workbook would look complete.
What you need
One ODBC credential pointed at your Plex reporting connection. The install wizard asks for it once and applies it to the query. If you do not have one yet, create it first in Script Engine → Credentials with type odbc.
What's Included
Use Cases
- Run the daily schedule review in the planner's own workbook
- Surface every past-due job in one filtered link
- Load the job list into a Gantt or capacity model
- Check what is open for a part before promising a date
Benefits
- Re-queries the source on refresh instead of holding an emailed copy
- Days past due is already computed, not a spreadsheet formula
- Status flags, not hardcoded keys, so it ports between tenants
- One link plus ?past_due_only=true gives the exception report
Configuration Steps
After installation, you'll configure:
- Plex ODBC connection