Project Charter Tracker Template — Every Charter Still Waiting on a Signature Past Its Own Deadline, Flagged Automatically

Project charters are supposed to be the gate that prevents poorly defined initiatives from consuming resources. In practice, they sit in shared drives collecting dust — unsigned, undated, and unfollowed-up. Nobody tracks which charters are still pending approval, and by the time someone notices, the project has already started without formal authorization.

The OpenSource AI Pro Project Charter Tracker makes charter governance automatic. A formula-driven Approval_Overdue flag fires the instant a charter passes its approval deadline without a signature. A RACI stakeholder model ensures every charter has clearly mapped accountability. Event-triggered alerts notify the responsible approver, and a scheduled digest gives PMO leadership a weekly view of every charter stuck in limbo. Self-hosted on Baserow, zero per-seat fees, open source.

Key Features

• Approval_Overdue Auto-Flag — A formula compares each charter's target approval date against today and its approval status. Past the deadline without sign-off? Flagged immediately. No one has to remember to follow up.

• RACI Stakeholder Model — Every charter maps Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed roles. The template enforces that each charter has at minimum a Responsible and Accountable party — no unsigned charters with ambiguous ownership.

• Event-Triggered Approval Alerts — When a charter crosses into Approval_Overdue status, the designated Accountable stakeholder receives a single email notification with the charter name, sponsor, target approval date, and days overdue.

• Weekly PMO Digest — A scheduled automation compiles all overdue charters, pending approvals, and recently approved charters into a formatted summary for PMO leadership.

• Charter Status Workflow — Draft, In Review, Approved, Rejected, On Hold. Each status transition is tracked with timestamps, creating an audit trail of the charter's lifecycle.

• Zero Per-Seat for Enterprise Teams — Deploy on your own Baserow instance. Your entire PMO, every project sponsor, every stakeholder can access charters without generating per-seat licensing costs.

How It Works

Formula Flags

The charter tracker uses formula fields to enforce governance automatically:

• Approval_Overdue: IF(AND(Target_Approval_Date < TODAY(), Status NOT IN ("Approved", "Rejected")), TRUE, FALSE). A charter past its approval deadline that has not been decisioned is immediately flagged.
• Days_Pending: Computes business days since the charter entered "In Review" status, surfacing bottlenecks in the approval pipeline.
• Stakeholder_Complete: Validates that RACI assignments are filled — flags charters missing a Responsible or Accountable role.

Event-Triggered Alerts

When Approval_Overdue flips to true, an automation emails the Accountable stakeholder. The message includes the charter title, project sponsor, original target date, and the number of days the approval is overdue. The alert fires once and re-arms if the charter returns to non-overdue status (e.g., the target date is extended).

Scheduled Digest

Every Monday, a scheduled automation queries all charters in "In Review" or "Draft" status, groups them by overdue vs. on-time, and sends a formatted digest to PMO leadership. One email replaces the status tracking spreadsheet.

Who It's For

• PMO Directors managing a portfolio of initiatives where charter discipline determines project success
• Enterprise Project Managers working in environments that require formal project authorization before resource allocation
• IT Governance Teams tracking technology initiative approvals through stage-gate processes
• Government and Regulated Industries where audit trails on project authorization are mandatory
• Management Consultants helping clients stand up PMO processes with a working system, not a PowerPoint framework

vs the Alternatives

| Feature | OpenSource AI Pro | Smartsheet | Microsoft Project | monday.com | |---|---|---|---|---| | Auto approval-overdue flags | Formula-driven, real-time | Conditional formatting (visual only) | Not available | Manual status | | RACI enforcement | Built-in stakeholder model | Separate sheet required | Not native | Custom columns needed | | Event alerts on overdue | Automatic, re-arming | Available (paid tiers) | Email only (limited) | Automations (paid) | | Weekly digest | Built-in scheduled automation | Requires configuration | Not available | Requires third-party | | Per-seat cost | $0 — self-hosted | $9-32/user/month | $10-55/user/month | $9-19/user/month | | Audit trail | Status timestamps built in | Requires cell history | Limited | Activity log |

What's Included

Tables

• Charters — Title, description, project sponsor, business case, target approval date, status, Approval_Overdue flag, Days_Pending
• Stakeholders — Name, role (RACI), linked charter, contact info
• Approval History — Charter link, approver, decision, date, comments

Formula Fields

• Approval_Overdue — Deadline vs. current date with status check
• Days_Pending — Business days in review
• Stakeholder_Complete — RACI validation flag

Automations

• Event Alert: Fires on Approval_Overdue state change, emails Accountable stakeholder
• Weekly Digest: Monday summary of all pending and overdue charters

Get Started Free

Download the Project Charter Tracker and deploy it to your own Baserow instance. Bring governance discipline to your PMO without adding another SaaS subscription. No seat fees, no row limits, full audit trail.

Download Template — Free, Self-Hosted

Related Templates

• Operational Project Tracker — Track the projects that approved charters authorize
• RACI Matrix / Responsibility Tracker — Extend RACI mapping from charter-level to task-level across your portfolio
• RFP & Proposal Response Tracker — Manage the proposals and RFPs that generate new project charters