I am using a board to provide high-level information about each project and an automation to build a board from a template once a status is set. Specifically, there is a column on my high level board that contains the project id.
When the board is created from the template by changing the status, I want the project id value to automatically populate in a field in the newly created board.
Is there any known automation that I could use to automatically set the default values of a board at the time of board creation, based on data in the board running the automation?
There is nothing like what you describe. In general, monday.com is not set up to copy data. Rather it is configured to mirror data.
One aspect of this is thinking about monday.com as a database.
In a database, a piece of data is attached to a record. For instance, your Project is an entity and it has a piece of data (the Project ID).
It isn’t logical, in database terms, to store the same piece of data 10-100 times for each of the items in your project workflow. It serves no direct purpose.
The monday.com-friendly approach would be to connect those boards and then connect your worfklow items to the Project item and use a mirror column to show that data, if you needed to see it in that board.
This way of working can seem idiosyncratic to the point of almost being counter-intuitive, especially if you’re more used to working with Excel or other spreadsheet software.
There are ways to achieve what you’re looking for in monday.com, by using third-party tools such as make.com or General Caster. However, I’d recommend thinking carefully about or getting some help with your board structure, as this will almost certainly help you down the line when you want to engage in more advanced multi-project planning, workload management, and data analysis in dashboards.
Thanks for your insight!
I am familiar with the concept of a database, and although storing the data on each record is not optimal, I am unable to come up with any other possible solution.
Ultimately, when I automatically create a board for a single project, I want to automatically assign a auto-column id (using the 3rd party app) that references the project id from the main board.
For example - if I have a project with project id EM-49 and use the rollup multiple board app to create my EM-49 specific board, I’d like each task/pulse/item to begin with EM-49, using the Auto-ID Column app. Currently, this configuration is manual because the value EM-49 isn’t anywhere on the table and has to be manually entered into the auto-id configuration.
However, if the value of EM-49 was stored as a value on the item itself, I would be able to accomplish my goal and could establish the full integration on the template itself, rather than needing to establish the integration individually for every project.
My personal opinion would be that you’re walking into tech debt. By piling app on top of app, you can often end up in this situation, where you’re trying to achieve something and you’re always one step away or looking for one more app to patch the hole.
I don’t think monday.com is helpful in this regard, because it pushes you to create boards and then punishes you for doing so.
It might be worth taking a step back and thinking about how else you can structure your solution.
For instance, I would usually consult against creating multiple boards to manage project tasks. It can absolutely work, however you’re not able to pass arguments through to those items, which does cause an issue. Likewise, when you want to configure integrations, you’ll hit limits on how many you can make, and you’ll also build up more tech debt by having them all configured separately. If you want to change something about that integration, you’ll end up needing to do it on 50 boards rather than 1.
I don’t know enough about your situation right now to propose a true alternate solution. While I’d be happy to set up a meeting and get into detail about how to make some simple, valuable changes to your solution architecture, in the meantime perhaps the following ideas could be useful:
You could use make.com to replicate the create board functionality and achieve any additional data entry, such as the one you describe. Of course this adds more complexity, but you could solve the problem in the way you intend to.
You could structure your project and board creation somehow with an additional board. Some kind of board creation tool. You could connect this item to the template and have it increment all the values each time a board is created. This is a little complicated, however you could achieve something relatively automated using monday.com automation. Essentially, take it a tier back and combine the creation of the project item with the creation of the board, so that you can hold a single value and pass that to each. (that’s a fairly vague description of what I’m thinking about)
Search for an app to solve this problem. I’m not aware of one, however there may be something which can slot into your process somehow.