I’ve found that this has been asked before, however, it’s usually expensive apps that were the result. Those threads were older so I am hoping something has changed.
Here is what I am looking to accomplish. We will be storing some volunteer records, such as policies they have signed and some other documents. Nothing sensitive as we store that elsewhere.
Each volunteer has their own board and each item is the document or policy they have signed. This allows us to view a volunteer and see what policies they have signed and which ones they have not. There are approximately 50 volunteers and several dozen policies. I went with the separate boards for each volunteer just to keep those numbers manageable and it also allows that volunteer to view their board.
The part that I am concerned about is what happens when a new volunteer is added or a new policy is added. The volunteer part should be easy as we can just create a template or employ another method to create that board.
My concern is when a new policy comes down. So, each volunteer has a board and that board has a list of all policies. Then the organization decides it needs to add a new policy. I can create that as an item in a master layout but how would I then have that item created in all of the existing volunteer boards. It would be easy to do it for future volunteers but how can I create an item in one board and have that same item added to all of the other current boards? Additionally, this item would work separately in that when one volunteer signs a document, I don’t want that change to propagate to all of the other boards.
I apologize for the long post but wanted to paint the picture of what I need to accomplish. Any thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated!
You ‘could’ do it with automations, but you’d need create/duplicate the automation 50x. or we could use a 3rd party like make.com or zapier to make it easier.
Is there a specific reason to have them on their own boards or could you have them on a master board and use filters to break it down by volunteer?
Desiree,
Thank You for the response and info. It does not specifically have to be one board per volunteer. When thinking it over, I wanted to find a way that was somewhat organized.
These numbers aren’t accurate but close and I’m simplifying it. Let’s say we have 50 volunteers and a total of 50 policies that need to be signed for. That comes out to 2500 total documents that need to be tied to each volunteer. I’d need a status column that shows where signed or not signed.
I did read that it’s possible to integrate BoldSign (who we use) into Monday.com but I am not familiar with that process.
Since it doesn’t have to be one board per volunteer, that makes things a lot easier. Boldsign doesn’t have a native integration, but I’m sure it could be done with make.com OR you could look at other systems that do have integrations ie Docugen OR once signed, the policy could be manually added to the board.
Let me think on this one for you and I’ll come back here and post later today
Desiree,
The more I thought about it, one board will likely work better. It will be long and wide but it will be much easier to add a person or add a policy.
All volunteers listed in the main column and then policies listed in the subsequent columns. So, there would be a column for a policy a policy with. A status. I could add an upload to add the signed PDF with that volunteers record in the policy column and then filter that out. It will make things much easier to see who has signed what and what needs to be signed.
I tend to do this but I way over complicated things in my initial thought process.
Hi Taylor, Tim here from Mint Consulting! Can I ask how you’re storing the policies in monday.com (via link maybe, or are you directly uploading the file into the item?) It would be better to do it via link, as you can hit the storage limitation in monday pretty quickly over time. Also, if it’s via link, then we can ask you to check whether Master Data, an app we developed, can be used for your use case.
So what our app does is it syncs the item and its values on one board to a Master Board. Say you have all of these different volunteer boards, we can have the items/policies added there be synced into one Master Board. The way we would do it is create a volunteer template board with the corresponding app automation recipes installed on it so everytime a new volunteer comes in, you just duplicate said template board.
I understand cost is also an issue with apps that deliver similar functionality, and I think that’s where our app also excels. It starts at only 10$ per month and that applies to all of your account already! Try it for free here
We’re happy to jump with you a call about the app here, or anything monday.com in general. We also do custom-built integrations with Make.com, in case you have a more specific use case.
Thank You. I had mentioned this earlier but I was very much overthinking things. So, I simplified my thinking and it seems that it work but takes a bit of labor (still less labor than other options I looked at).
So, instead of multiple boards, I am using a single board. Each Item row is a single volunteer. Then with columns, there are 2 columns per policy. The first column has a status of “Signed” and “Unsigned”. With unsigned in red, I can easily see who hasn’t signed what. The 2nd column is an upload item where the signed policy can be added. Unfortunately, I did not consider the space constraints and haven’t seen this limit before.
An easy way around that would be we do have Google Workspace so I can store the file there and link to it.
As I move along, I do see some issues along way. For example, if you take 50 volunteers with a number of policies each, that’s a lot of linking and uploading. I’m going to explore ways to automate this. For example, BoldSign will email me a copy of the signed document. These emails are all formatted the same so I’m sure there is a way to work with that email to automate things a bit. I just need to explore this some.
I haven’t experimented with it yet but I’ve seen that zapier and Make can filter attachments into specific folders in google drive. Then I can link this to the volunteers item row to add a link to the file. The more I can automate, the happier I am. I have too much work as Exective Director to be linking files all day lol.
I did see that I can also link boards together in such a way that I can link a volunteer to various boards. So I could have a separate board that works similar to the policies except this one would be background checks. Again, I have to explore how to automate this the best that I can.
Just an update to this thread. Ultimately, I’ve added a column that has a link to Google Drive. I used Make to connect the board to Google Drive and it created a folder for every volunteer. Instead of linking to each document, I’ll link to their folder and update the Monday stays to signed.
One thing I’d like to try with Make is connect Gmail to Drive and all attachments (the policies) will move to the appropriate volunteers folder. When a volunteer signs, it triggers emails to go out to the admins that it was signed. I’d have to find a way to scan that document for the volunteers name and move it to their folder. I don’t think this is possible so I’ll likely be moving policies over manually.
If it’s Enterprise, there’s a feature that’s literally made for exactly this kind of scenario! I’m very surprised nobody else has mentioned it!
Managed Templates
A Managed Template is just like a regular board template, except that it remains linked to all of its “child” boards (all the boards created from that template), allowing you to make changes in one place—the template—and to push those changes out to all linked child boards!
There are some limitations on the specific kinds of changes and additions that can be propagated to existing child boards; see Monday’s help center article for details. But these wouldn’t be an issue in the use case you’ve described! You can definitely add a new item (policy) to the Managed Template and have it magically appear on all child boards! You even have the option to add a note when you publish the changes—that note is converted into an update on each child board.
Make and Zapier are indeed excellent iPaaS tools. But if this is your only purpose for them in the foreseeable future, it might be more cost effective to upgrade to Enterprise than to pay for that secondary subscription. Of course, that depends heavily on the number of users in your organization and several other factors.
P.S.
I’m a solopreneur specializing in business process automation via a wide variety of tools including Monday Workflows (also part of Enterprise), Zapier, Make, and Power Automate. I’d be happy to meet with you for 30 minutes for a free consultation if you’d like! I’d use that time to give you as much guidance as I can, not to try to sell my implementation services. You can schedule that on my website if you’re interested.
Thanks for the detailed explanation, Taylor — this is a really practical use case, and I can see why you’d want a more scalable way to manage it.
One potential solution could be using Make or Zapier to automate the process of duplicating a new policy item across multiple existing volunteer boards. You could set it up so that when an item is added to a “master board,” a scenario/script automatically creates a similar item on each selected volunteer board.
The key is to ensure that these are independent items — not mirrored — so changes made in one don’t reflect across the others. That way, when a volunteer signs a document, it’s only recorded on their board.
It may take a little setup time initially, but this kind of automation could save you hours in the long run, especially as your team grows. Would love to hear if others have found native workarounds without 3rd-party tools!
I am so sorry for the late reply. I appreciate the help and guidance. I am still feeling my way around Monday.com. I’m getting much more comfortable but it’s a tool with so many options and lots of ins and outs. The deeper I get into, the more I like it.
Hey, here’s an idea for managing volunteer policies in Monday:
So instead of creating separate boards for each volunteer (which sounds like a nightmare to maintain), what if you flip the structure?
Make each volunteer an item, then use subitems for all their required policies - Code of Conduct, Waiver, Media Release, whatever you need. Add a simple status column to track “Signed” vs “Not Signed” on each policy.
Use the Email to Item feature so signed policy replies go directly into the Updates section of the volunteer item.
Each subitem has a unique pulse email address
Include this address in your email or notification to route replies to the correct volunteer
You can automate the initial email to each volunteer and include their unique pulse email link for easy submission
Automating Policy Subitems
Instead of duplicating a template item each time, use this native automation:
When an item is created, create subitems
Build out your full list of required policy subitems
When a new volunteer item is added, all policies are automatically attached
If you introduce a new policy, update the automation to include it moving forward
For existing items, you can create a one-time automation to add the new policy subitem across all volunteer records, using a temporary Status column or label as a trigger to target the right items
Then you can filter/view by incomplete policies, set up dashboards to see who’s dragging their feet, maybe automate some friendly reminder emails after X days.
Keeps everything in one place and scales way better than the multi-board approach.
See live sync status in using the sync table feature
How it works: You just select an item, choose which boards to mirror it to, and that’s it. Any updates sync automatically in real-time.
You don’t have to manually link anything. Our app automatically checks for common columns and syncs those. A critical feature that we have is to exclude certain common columns from syncing - - To give you an example, you could have the same item live on multiple boards with different names for each (if you exclude the name column).
Since we just launched, we’re offering 50% off yearly plans for early adopters (around $18/month).
Happy to answer any questions or show a quick demo if helpful! Schedule a call here
