Keep Track of Your Dossier's Dates

OK, so time continues to march on since we gave our dossier to our facilitator for submission. Since the dossier hasn't been submitted to the SDA yet, we are getting to the point now where we have to start worrying about documents expiring. Most documents, with a few exceptions, have a lifetime of 1 year that Ukraine considers them valid. The kicker, though, is that there must be at least 6 months left on all of them at the time the dossier is submitted. So we families that are stuck in this limbo need to refresh the documents as time drags on. This isn't necessarily simple, however. Every document needs to be notarized and apostilled, then FedEx'd over to Ukraine. This is time consuming and expensive.

For some time now I have been meaning to put together a spreadsheet to help me track the documents in our dossier and when they expire. I am making this available to you if you use Excel.

It allows you to enter your submission date, or any date if you don't have one. Then you enter in the individual dates from your various documents. This is typically the oldest date on the document if there is more than one on it. Please note, I have some dates already entered in, but they are for illustration only. You will need to enter your own dates in.

I have the number of months until expiration for the documents set by default, but you can change them. I have two alert levels, yellow and red, which are configurable but are defaulted to 30 and 14 days.

Now, this is important. You can only use the spreadsheet if you agree to the following disclaimer. If you do not agree to it, then you may not use it.

• I am merely providing the spreadsheet as a convenience to you.
• I provide no warranty that it is suitable for any particular purpose.
• You assume all risks associated with using the spreadsheet.
• You will not hold me responsible for any loss of adoption opportunity or any other adverse condition due to any direct or indirect failure or misuse of the spreadsheet.
• The document lifetimes and 6-month SDA policy that I entered by default are believed to be correct to the best of my knowledge, but may in fact be incorrect, or may change in the future.
• The documents I have listed by default may not apply to your specific adoption situation.
• Your dossier may contain documents other than the ones I included.
• Due to the customizable nature of spreadsheets, I cannot be responsible for the accuracy or innaccuracy of any data entered therein.
• If you find a problem with the spreadsheet, I will be happy to take a look at it. However, I don't guarantee that it will be fixed, or fixed in a timely manner.

Now, if you are still interested in the spreadsheet, you can download it here:

UPDATE: These spreadsheets have been updated to version 1.2.

Excel 97-2003 Format
Excel 2007 Format (Save as .xlsm instead of .zip)

If you have a bug report, enhancement suggestion, need help, or just have a comment, please post it. I get an email when someone posts, so I will be sure to see it.

UPDATE: There is a newer follow-up post here.