Construction Diary

Manage construction site diary — generate daily reports from a template, attach site photos, auto-summarize end-of-week / end-of-month.

Use case: projects requiring legal diary records under Vietnamese Decree 06/2021/NĐ-CP, site reports, CSI reports for the owner.

Open dialog

DVD Cons → group QAQC and Diary → click Create Diary.

Sample forms

DVD Cons → group QAQC and Diary → Sample Forms → opens template files:

• FormNKCT.xlsx — Construction Work Diary form.
• FormNTCV.xlsx — Acceptance form.
• FormNTVL.xlsx — Material Acceptance form.

Each is a workbook with multiple template sheets per record type. Copy them into your project workbook.

Create Diary workflow

Step 1 — Prepare data

Main data table (e.g. sheet DATA):

No.	Date	Item	Quantity	Unit	Material	Labor	Weather	Notes
1	15/05/2026	Foundation excavation	250	m³	-	5 workers	Sunny	No issues
2	16/05/2026	Lean concrete	30	m³	C15 concrete	8 workers	Cloudy	OK
3	17/05/2026	Foundation rebar	1.2	tons	D16	6 workers	Light rain	Paused 2h

Step 2 — Configure command

The Create Diary dialog asks:

• Excel data range — pick the table (with header).
• Word template — .docx containing placeholders {{Date}}, {{Item}}, ...
• Output folder — where to save Word/PDF files.
• Filename pattern — e.g. Diary_{{Date|yyyy-MM-dd}}.
• Output format: .docx / PDF / merged single PDF.

Step 3 — Advanced options

• Attach site photos — column "Photo" contains paths to JPG/PNG → addin inserts at {{Photo}} placeholder in template.
• Generate signature page — append a final page with signature blocks for Owner/Consultant/Contractor.
• Auto-fill missing dates — if date range has gaps (no data) → auto-generates "No work" page (reason: holiday, incident).
• Weekly / monthly summary — generate an additional Summary sheet/page:
  • Quantity by item.
  • Labor by day.
  • Material in/out.
  • Issues by type.

Step 4 — Run

Click Create → status bar: DVD Addin: Creating diary 5/30 days....

When done → open output folder for review → print / email to the owner.

Word template format

Templates must use {{ColName}} syntax (see Merge Word for details).

Sample template:

DAILY CONSTRUCTION DIARY — {{Date|dd/MM/yyyy}}

I. WORK ITEMS:
   - {{Item}}: {{Quantity}} {{Unit}}

II. LABOR:
   - {{Labor}}

III. MATERIAL:
   - {{Material}}

IV. WEATHER: {{Weather}}

V. NOTES / ISSUES:
   {{Notes}}

[Site photo: {{Photo}}]

Recorded by: ________________   Consultant: ________________

Print one page per day (sample)

To quickly print many days → use Batch Print with:

• Driver cell = day number cell (e.g. DATA!B1 containing 1..30).
• Print sheet = template sheet linked via INDEX/MATCH to the target row.
• Filename = =B1 & "_Diary".

→ Generate 30 PDFs for 30 days in one command.

Troubleshooting

Placeholder not replaced

• Excel column name must MATCH {{...}} EXACTLY (case-sensitive, no spaces).
• E.g. column "Item name" will NOT match {{ItemName}}.

Photo doesn't appear in output

• "Photo" column must contain absolute path (e.g. D:\Photos\IMG-001.jpg).
• Or relative to workbook (e.g. .\Photos\IMG-001.jpg).
• The image file must exist.

Word output has format errors

• Word template uses complex styles/macros → simplify.
• Test by opening .docx in LibreOffice → if OK, error is on the receiving Word side.

License gating

Create Diary requires an active license. Sample Forms (open templates) are free.

Related

• Merge Word — generic mail merge (Diary is one specific use case).
• Batch Print — bulk print from Excel template instead of Word.