We’re trialling Monday.com - and generally happy but have hit a couple of major roadblocks.
I’m struggling to set up a high-level board that shows how much time we have spent on a project vs the time we allocated that task or project. And whether or not it is at risk of going over-budget (on time).
Currently, our projects each have a board and on that board are groups of tasks each with a Numbers col called ‘Allocated Time’ and then next to it a ‘Time tracking’ col.
Ideally, I’d then have a high-level board with each Project as an individual item - showing a column with the sum total of hours allocated to that project, the actual total of hours spent on it (Time Tracking) and then some sort of conditional Status column with - ‘on track’, ‘at risk’ etc.
Currently, I understand it’s not possible to link cells individually across multiple boards so am settling for a high-level board per project which isn’t ideal but maybe someone can suggest a hack where a dashboard can aggregate these.
So on the high-level board I have per project, I’m using a ‘link to’ column and ‘mirror’ col - I’ve managed to bring in the sum Allocated Time and sum Time Tracked from the lower level board. I now want to compare the two columns and automate a status based on the difference - looking at the Formula column but struggling to get this to work.
A “master board” had a column used for matching, let’s call it “Detail ID” and a status column (ON/OFF) that (when switched to ON) looks for a board with [the ID] in its board title. It then injects some triggers to the detail board so changes (in your case estimated time in 1 or more items) are reported back to the app. For setting this up you need to use an automations with a recipe:
hi many thanks for the reply -so your proposed solution would be able to collect multiple data from a low-level board and return it to a single cell on a high-level board rather than a whole col? then I think that would be incredibly interesting to a number of users!
In the meantime collecting the data from the low-level board isn’t an issue, I can do that I’m struggling to get a Formula to work out the difference between a Numbers col and a Time Tracked col and inform a status change.
Its a basic budget reconciliation formula really - it’s just a case of is there a way to format the formula to understand hours and minutes. And from what you say about your first release - I’d need a way to translate the time tracking col into a Number col. make sense?
That correct, my app put webhooks in de detailed boards and to know which boards these webhooks need to go to, it used an ID in a trext column that should also appreas in the title of the detailed board between square brackets, like [PROJECT-001]. In ths master board you can switch the webhook on and off.
On top of this there are the recipes that take either timeline, number or status and indeed report to a single cell.
In your original post I read about groups in the detail boards. Currently my recipes takes ALL items in the detail board. Do you think it is a good idea to have the user to select which group to report on (where there is also an option “All Groups”.
Hi - yes it probably would be a good idea to allow to select which groups to hook. Anyway of being able to pull the ‘Time tracking’ column too?
thanks.
I am still planning to release the app on August 28, however I have been hit by a defect at monday.con and that needs to be solved first. The first version will treat a detailed board as one entity (so not considering groups). The reason for this is that monday does not fire any trigger when items are moved from one group to another. The only was of keeping track of that event is constant polling (which is a bad thing to do).
Not sure if the first release will have support for time tracker column, I have to look into that one.
I just found out the time tracker column can be read and triggered with automation, however the API does not support writes. What I plan to do (possibly will make the end of august release) it to watch time tracker columns across any number of detailed boards and report the total (average, min and max can also be done) in a text column, using the format “1d 3h 32m 18s”.
Great idea, I will add a format option to do either the d h m s notation or the decimal notation. There is currently a bug in monday.com that prevents the use of multiple dropdown boxes in a custom recipe, so I need to wait for that one to get resolved.
The app that I will release before the weekend (August 30) will have support for time tracker columns. The screenshot show the total recorded time for two detail baords. the recipe for this is:
As you can see you can select the format of the output to be Hours (decimal) - again many thanks for your feedback on this. Although the recipe requires a text column for the output, you can use formulas on this as the contain actual numbers. As an example below you see a master board that collects two columns from detail boards (just one active now). One column is the time from a time tracker and the other one is called estimated time. I then use a formula column in the Master to compare and use conditional formatting to color “Ocerspent.”
your app is really interesting, currently we monitor the time allocated and spent thanks to a dashboard per client grouping several projects, but your alternative seems as interesting as it is attractive Where could we find your app to test it once it is published?
I’m also working on developing a tool to compare estimated time vs time tracked, but preferably translated from time to dollar amounts based on various billing rates.
From a quick scan here, this might be a tad different, but I’m curious if anyone here has any advice. Here’s my original post from yesterday: Project Management and Time Tracking/Budgeting
hi @johnsimpson
This app has been replaced by Rollup Multiple Boards. Please read the documentation carefully before installing the app. All information, including detail document and trial link, can be found at 20|Rollup Multiple Boards - Excellent Team
Hi @basdebruin - finally got the app and started playing with it. Is it possible to pull the Time Tracking column when its the agregate of sub-items time tracking as opposed to just the standard TT column?
hi @basdebruin - in fact if this app could roll up a formula column too that would be fantastic. Possibly even workaround the Sub item - time tracking issue.
Thanks!
Where could we find your app to test it once it is published?