What a deployment sheet is for and who keeps it
A roster tells you who is on duty at one site tomorrow. A deployment sheet tells you where every guard in the agency is posted right now, against what the client has sanctioned. It is the operations manager's master view: which clients, which sites, how many posts, what timings, who is the supervisor, who relieves, and where you are short. When a client calls about a vacant post or a guard asks where they are posted from Monday, this is the sheet you open.
It is also a compliance record. PSARA requires the agency to maintain details of the clients it serves and the guards it has deployed, and clients who are principal employers under the Contract Labour Act will ask for a deployment plan with the work order. The deployment letter and plan format article covers the letter you send the client; this template is the internal register behind it.
It suits agencies with 3 to about 50 client sites. The operations head owns it, field officers update their sites, and accounts uses the Strength Summary to check that invoices match deployed strength.
What is inside: Deployment and Strength Summary sheets
The Deployment sheet has one row per post per shift. Columns: Client, Site Address, Post (Main Gate, Reception, Patrol, Control Room), Shift Timing (08-20, 20-08 or 09-18), Sanctioned Strength (guards the client has contracted for that post and shift), Deployed Guards (names, separated by commas or one per line within the cell), Supervisor (the field officer responsible), Reliever (the guard covering weekly offs for this post), Weapon (Y or N, for armed posts), Start Date (when this deployment began) and Remarks.
A Deployed Count column next to Deployed Guards uses =IF(F6="",0,LEN(F6)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(F6,",",""))+1) to count the comma-separated names, and a Vacant column shows =E6-G6 so a shortfall appears on the row itself. If you prefer one guard per row rather than names in one cell, the sheet works the same way with Deployed Count typed as 1.
The Strength Summary sheet lists each client once and totals Sanctioned, Deployed and Vacant with SUMIF against the Deployment sheet: =SUMIF(Deployment!A:A,A5,Deployment!E:E) for sanctioned and the same pattern for deployed. A Fill Percentage column (=Deployed/Sanctioned) and a conditional format that turns anything under 100 percent amber give you the vacancy picture across the agency in one glance, which is what the guard deployment glossary entry describes as deployment strength.
- Shift Timing is text (08-20) so the sheet stays simple; the roster template carries the actual clock times
- Weapon Y/N matters because armed guards are usually a higher skill category in minimum wage notifications and need licence records
- Start Date lets you compute how long a deployment has run, which feeds rotation decisions and client renewals
How to use it: onboarding a site and keeping it current
When a new work order arrives, add one row per post per shift with the sanctioned strength from the order, before assigning any guards. That way the Vacant column immediately shows what you need to recruit or transfer. Then fill Deployed Guards from your verified guard list, assign the supervisor and name the reliever. The moment a row shows 0 vacant, issue the deployment letter to the client and post orders to the guards.
Update the sheet the same day a guard is transferred, resigns or is removed at the client's request, and note the reason in Remarks. Field officers should review their rows weekly. Accounts should compare each client's Deployed total on the Strength Summary with the duties billed on the attendance sheet before releasing the invoice; if you billed 8 guards and deployed 7, one of the two records is wrong.
Save a dated copy at the start of each month (Deployment-2026-10.xlsx) so you can show what the deployment was on any given date, which is what a client or the Controlling Authority will ask for after an incident.
- Filter by Supervisor to give each field officer their own printed list
- Filter by Vacant greater than 0 every Monday to drive the week's recruitment and transfers
- Sort by Start Date to find long-running deployments where rotation may be due
How to customise for your agency
Add a Post Order Reference column if you issue written post orders per post; it lets a new guard or supervisor find the standing instructions for that position. Add Client Contact and Client Rate columns if operations and accounts share the sheet, or keep rates in a separate protected sheet if not.
Agencies deploying housekeeping or facility staff alongside guards can add a Category column (Guard, Supervisor, Housekeeping) and reuse the same summary logic; the housekeeping staff management page covers that workforce. For armed posts add Licence Number and Licence Expiry columns and a conditional format that highlights expiries within 60 days.
If you want a monthly deployment strength report for management, add a third sheet that copies the Strength Summary totals into a row per month, so you can see sanctioned and deployed strength trend over the year.
- Use Data Validation on Weapon (Y,N) and Shift Timing (08-20,20-08,09-18) to keep entries consistent
- Protect the Sanctioned Strength column so it changes only when a work order changes
- Add a Guard ID alongside names if two guards share a name, which is common
Rules and compliance context
PSARA licences are issued by the state Controlling Authority for a state or specified districts, so the Site Address column is not cosmetic: a deployment outside your licensed area is a licence breach. The agency must also keep a register under section 15 with guard details and the clients served, and the records are open to inspection. This sheet, kept current, is the practical basis for the client part of that register. The PSARA compliance checklist lists the other records.
Deployed guards must have completed antecedent verification and the training required under the Private Security Agencies Central Model Rules 2020 before posting. Add a verification status column if you want the deployment sheet itself to block unverified names; otherwise ensure the deployed list is drawn only from the verified register.
Minimum wages apply by state and by skill category, and armed guards or supervisors are usually a higher category than unarmed guards. A deployment sheet that shows Weapon Y for a post makes it obvious that the guard on that post must be paid and billed at the higher rate. Check the latest state notification, including the periodic VDA revision, and keep the rate in your wage master.
When the deployment sheet stops working
The sheet is only as current as the last person who updated it. In an agency with 30 sites and 4 field officers, that is rarely today. Guards get moved verbally, a reliever becomes permanent without anyone changing the row, and the summary shows 100 percent fill at a site where the client has been complaining about a vacant post for a week. The sheet cannot tell you who actually reported for duty.
Attend Mitra's deployment management lets you set up each client site with its posts and sanctioned strength, assign guards and supervisors, and then see live whether each post is manned because attendance is marked on the same platform with GPS and selfie at the site geofence. Vacancies show against sanctioned strength in real time, supervisors' site visits are logged, and the site-wise man-hour export supports billing. The security guard deployment management software page shows the site and post setup, and the security agency manpower management page covers the wider workforce view.