Each instance is a short-term, tactical thing, so the fallout from any particular error is at least localized. Everything is entered manually. Schema is fixed a

Each instance is a short-term, tactical thing, so the fallout from any particular error is at least localized. Everything is entered manually. Schema is fixed at the core, with small numbers of custom columns needed every now and then. A relational DB would be a better tool for storing the core data, but the tooling itself is wrong: we'd have to build a UI to front it, whereas using google sheets gives a free UI that everyone knows how to use (and supports all the various analysis cases I mentioned above). Version control is just that provided by google sheets (irritatingly granular, with no ability to create a marked checkpoint version - I hate it), plus whatever naming convention discipline any team comes up with. It's not great. I can't really be more specific unfortunately - NDAs etc.