Auto-ID column (more dynamic)

It is a one time fee of 41 Euro :slight_smile: See also: https://excellent-team.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/AutoID-Column.pdf

@basdebruin i am looking at using this for a PO functionality, where the user will get notified of a PO number once the order has been approved. What it doesn’t give me is the ability of emailing the user back with the Auto ID generated PO number, as this isn’t listed when you automate the notify. Is this able to be done? Ive used {PO Number} as this is the name of the Auto-ID generated field.

hi @RichardL

Welcome to the community. When you use a normal text column (not the read-only column) the column should be selectable in the notify automation. The notify automation accepts {columnId} and NOT {column name}.

@basdebruin thanks for the info. I managed to find out the column id, but even using this, it doesn’t bring the value, it is just showing {auto_number} instead of 001 or 002 for instance. Is this because its not a readable field? Do i need to duplicate the column in text somehow?

@RichardL

Are you writing the generated ID to a text column or a read-only column?

Exciting update! This feature is now on the roadmap will hopefully be released in Q2 of this year! After reading your feedback, our boards team is working on improving your boards experience, including making the auto id column more dynamic.

Our community will be the first to hear about status and updates for the top requested features, so make sure your notifications are turned on!

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@Julietteb please please please have your team add the necessary support in the API so that the auto-id column can be retrieved by a GraphQL API call. The auto-id column isn;t useful to me, no matter how you enhance it, if I can’t bring it into my Power BI rpeorts.

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Hi @Julietteb,
I wanted to mention this feature request to stop adding (Copy) to names, which I believe could be integrated as part of this improvement? A unique identifier column, even if operating in the background would prevent the need to change the name as there is still a way to distinguish between the tasks.

Thanks, Excited to see this one implemented along with many others it would seem!
Haydn

Will we be able to use the enhanced Auto-ID column as the primary column for a board? At present the first column is only allowed to be a simple text value.

Hi everyone! Amber here from the monday.com team.

In an effort to make sure that our users’ voices are heard loud and clear in product discussions, I’d love to hear more from you about the ideal workings of a more dynamic / intuitive Item ID column.

  1. Prefix of Item ID- What is the hierarchy you would want to be used for prefixes? Pull the workspace name? Board name? Group name?
  2. Prefix of Item ID - Would it be useful to be able to set a custom Prefix? What use cases would this address?
  3. Are there any instances where it is important to control how the numbers increment (increment in 2s / 5s)?
  4. How do you imagine this improved ID number to be used: as a separate column (current behavior), as part of the item name, found in the item page? Any reason you would want it hidden / exposed in different situations?
  5. Any other customization that would be important for us to consider?

It would also be helpful to better understand how you view the Auto number column versus the item ID column:

  • Do you see different use cases for each?
  • Or are you using auto-number as a workaround for cases where you’d prefer a more friendly Item ID?
  • Would you still use auto number in a world with a more intuitive Item ID?

Thank you so much for your feedback!

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@charmagne.rbt @ggrimaldo @Geraint @Tim12 @Carrie @mightysgs @cwong95 @Etienne @RichardL @hbouk would love to hear your thoughts!

@SteveMC @HaydnLantern @Rgraff13 @hlopezvc @J-Dog @ivanhong-monday.com @johan.n @snicho @cmulligan07 would love t hear your thoughts!

@Danish @dougpa @Linas @cquad @jdavies-IDD @TfGM_Mitchell @Eltjo would love to hear your thoughts!

@amber I would want the ability to set a custom prefix. I have two immediate uses with different needs.

(2.) The first use case is automatically generated IDs for an IT service desk workspace. In my service desk ticket board I would like to have an automatically generated ticket # that looks something like ITSD-0001 where I am able to set a defined prefix, a separator, then a number of digits along with the starting number. In the same workspace I also have software, hardware and service & subscriptions boards. In my hardware tracking board I would like to be able to use multiple auto-id columns. I would like one for an asset ID and another for a auto generated hardware ID. This would follow the same principle as above where I can control the prefix, separator and digits.

My other use case is for boards used for project management. (1.) I hadn’t thought about using some prebuilt hierarchy of workspace, board and number but this would be useful for project portfolio management (eg. having a consistent method to identify tasks across a group of related project boards). All I had wanted initially was an automatically generated task number column that adjusted as I dragged project tasks around my board to resequence tasks. Thought for (5.) - since we are reaching for the stars…having an option to define whether this auto-ID value is static (eg. doesn’t change after creation) vs dynamic (eg. changes based on the position of a board item relative to its position in a board)

(3.) Generally, I need the numbers to increment by the value of 1 but being able to control this would be ideal.

(4.) In my case I would want this as a separate column. In some cases I might want an auto-id column for users to be able to easily refer to a specific row in a board but I would also like to be able to auto generate an id that I could use across boards. In this second case I would use the column like an index column in a database. this would let me use something like Power BI to retrieve all of my project boards then join them using this index column into a single table in Power BI.

I generally don’t use the Item ID column in my boards due to the lack of control for this column. This does create some issues though as I generally pull most boards into Power BI to summarize what is happening in my boards. When creating a new board I can use what I am managing in the board but this then creates a board where the “primary” field is a text field where duplicates can exist. Maybe there is an entirely different discussion to be had about this auto-id functionality being used as part of creating a new board so that the “primary” column is definable and unique. Then items can be defined just like any other column. :slight_smile:

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Hi Amber, what would work for us is something simple, where we can set a prefix, which for us can be only one or two letters or a couple of predefined numbers (i.e. 24 as it is 2024), followed by a four or five digit number which starts with 0001 and auto increments up from there. It doesn’t need to be anything particularly involved.

We currently pay for an add on that allows us to have an AutoID column, however as it cannot be seen on the app it does cause us some issues. I have put a screenshot below of how it works and replicating this within Monday.com would be ideal.

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  1. For our use-cases (primarily purchase order tracking, quote numbers etc.) an auto-generated prefix from the board or workspace would not be particularly useful - though I can see how it would be for some people
  2. We would definitely want to be able to enter a custom prefix (eg. having “PO” for purchase orders, “QN” for quotes etc.)
  3. I can’t envisage a situation where we would need to increment by anything other than 1
  4. A separate column would be the most useful to us
  5. For managing historical data (i.e. if we already had purchase orders from before the new field existed) it would be nice if we were able to edit an auto-number value, however I suspect this would be rather more complicated to implement, as it would still have to check whether that value was already in use, and also make sure not to re-use it at a later date?

Item ID is not very useful to us, as it is a rather unwieldy value, hard to refer to, and also doesn’t give an indication of where the item comes from - any small typo could mean an email refers to a record in an entirely different board or workspace.

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Hi Geraint,

As the developer of the app AutoId Column I am curious what issues you are facing with this app. You can write an email to info@excellent-team.nl with details like youe monday account URL and the itemId that did not receive the auto generated ID.

HI Amber,

My use case is simply that I do not want the name of a task/item to have its name modified by appending ’ (Copy)’ to the end of the name. I believe that removing this behaviour (or at least giving the option to turn this off) would be possible if there was a separate ID system working in the background.

This request is only necessary due to a lack of recurring task functionality within Monday.com. We use automation to duplicate daily/weekly/monthly tasks on a rolling basis.

Adaptavist’s Recurring task product seems to be in line with a solution that we are after, but we inherently disagree with the fact that this is not an integral part of the base software.

Thanks,
Haydn

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Here is my 2p’s worth!:

1 & 2 Prefix of ID - I can see situations when all of these would be helpful. In our case, we would only really want to use a custom prefix. What we are looking for is an ID that will be short and easy that can be created and moved with the item as it moves from one Monday board to another. It is really important that the ID is short and easy, like a ticket ID as our developers use the ID in GitHub when working on their branches. Our items have to pass through a couple of boards for approval before it gets to the developer’s board so keeping the same ID is essential for traceability, especially as our helpdesk uses another application - being able to link their ticket to the item in Monday really does make things a lot easier when looking for updates.
3. We would only ever want them to integrate by one. As long as the ID is unique though, for us it doesn’t really matter.
4. Separate column for us. As explained, it is used to join everything together and save confusion.
5. For my business, I think this may be complex but I don’t know if I am overcomplicating things! We have certain boards in which the ID MUST stay the same, as it is moved from one board to another. But then, we have other boards that are totally stand alone and don’t need the same ID structure. It would be handy for them to have their own unique ID, based on the board they’re in (that is more helpful than the 15 digit ID we currently have) but not so important. To be able to decide which type of board this is and what other boards it is linked to, ID-wise, might be a good idea.

We would much prefer an Item ID column as opposed to an Auto number column. Purely for identification purposes (for example, we will know that INV-001 comes from the Invoice board, as opposed to TIX-001 which comes from our Bugs board. If it is just an auto number, we will have many items with an ID of 001 with no way to see what board or group of boards it is referring to).

Hope this helps!

Claire

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  1. We would like our own and several pre defined prefixes M- ####, P- #### for example. Pulling a prefix from a board/group-name doesnt seem that useful. What happens if you want to change that name for example after using the board for a while, and what would that prefix look like; an abreviation of the name?
  2. Yes, all of our use cases. An automation: If status is this then use this or that pre fix would be handy.
  3. I can imagine you would like to automatically create several predefined task-items connected to 1 ID so having the option cant hurt. But I dont think for our case at this moment.
  4. Both could be handy, especially when you release this feature later this year, I assume this will work with the name: Use Forms to edit/update existing items and columns - Feature requests - monday Community Forum.
  5. If you remove a (new) item you might want to skip that number with the next item, but maybe others wouldnt want that so it would be a nice as an option.

-A more friendly item ID would be nice/one that is the new Auto-ID, but on the other side, I dont know how it would work if you have multiple items with same ID…
-In one case we use the item ID which could be more user friendely.

  • Depends how intuitive and if it will have the options you mentioned: increment/prefix/set number etc.
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