AI workflows are hard

I spent about two hours this morning trying to build the simplest workflow automation imaginable, only to discover that it apparently isn’t possible.

The prompt: "When a new item is created in the Active sales pipeline group, enter the first 7 characters in the Proposal # column"

I wont bore you guys with the all the gory details of everything I tried but here is what I learned:

  • There is a substring command for extracting the first 7 characters of an item...

  • ...but you can't use it in a text column for automating a workflow

  • You can can create a formula column to use the substring command...

  • ...but you cant map the formula column to the text column because formula columns are read only

  • There is also apparently no way to email someone from Monday for support... so I'm here right now ranting into the ether 😆

In reality, if I could get this to work, it would save me about 10 seconds maybe 5-8 times a week. Is it worth it? Just to recoup the time I wasted in trial and error today, I don't think it pencils out.

Thoughts?

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