Is it possible to build apps for Monday that don’t display a UI to the user just take an action for them straight away? Take these very basic examples;
A Board item menu feature where the item has the current date time stamp appended to the end of its name.
Or a doc action for workdocs where you can select the text in a doc and it is all converted to upper case.
We have both of these simple things working but currently only once the user clicks a button in the little UI box that pops up. This means the user needs to wait for the UI to load and then make an extra click to trigger it. Can we avoid this?
Technically speaking, you can create a script that, whenever someone opens your view (board item menu or any other), you change something (like convert something to upper case). Why would you need for someone to click somewhere?
Again, this is technically speaking and is not a statement on the UX side of things.
At about 14:25 in the video you can see an example where even though no additional input is required to take the action (Capitalization of selected text) there is a forced wait for the UI to render to click a simple button.
Being able to create custom blocks/actions in the work doc that can be triggered
by the slash (/) command is very powerful. We are trying to use this to help our users quickly create standardized documentation but the requirement for this additional UI really interrupts the user experience compared to using the out of the box monday doc blocks.
Yes, it is possible to create Monday.com apps that perform actions without displaying a user interface, but it requires leveraging Monday.com’s API and webhooks effectively. Instead of relying on a UI to trigger the action, you can configure a webhook to listen for specific events (e.g., item updates or workdoc text changes). When the event occurs, your app can process it and execute the desired action (e.g., appending a timestamp or converting text to uppercase) programmatically in the background. This way, the user interaction is reduced or eliminated, and the action happens immediately without the need for additional clicks or waiting for a UI to load. However, you’ll need to ensure your app is structured to handle the logic and permissions appropriately to maintain a seamless user experience.