I've experienced this before; my recommendation would be to pitch an alternative tool to the PM based on
how that tool would make the PM's job easier / more effective. It's probably true that almost anything would be better suited to the development workflow than an Excel spreadsheet - but in this particular use-case, Excel is fulfilling your PM's requirements: it's keeping track of issues.
What Excel won't do, without significant work (which will almost certainly fall to the developer and not the PM):
Track issue history / comments / activity against a repository. Wouldn't it be better for your PM to be able to identify, at a glance, exactly which branch & commit a particular fix or change is in?
Integrate with your CI / build system: Wouldn't it be better for your PM if issues were automatically marked as 'ready to test' when the relevant build is completed?
Provide a workflow against the list of active issues. Wouldn't it better for your PM to rest assured that any incoming issues are easily triaged & assigned within a well-defined workflow that tracks an issue from first-report to completion & sign-off?
Don't fight them - sell to them. Explain why a different solution will be better for them and you.
What Excel won't do, without significant work (which will almost certainly fall to the developer and not the PM):
Track issue history / comments / activity against a repository. Wouldn't it be better for your PM to be able to identify, at a glance, exactly which branch & commit a particular fix or change is in?
Integrate with your CI / build system: Wouldn't it be better for your PM if issues were automatically marked as 'ready to test' when the relevant build is completed?
Provide a workflow against the list of active issues. Wouldn't it better for your PM to rest assured that any incoming issues are easily triaged & assigned within a well-defined workflow that tracks an issue from first-report to completion & sign-off?
Don't fight them - sell to them. Explain why a different solution will be better for them and you.