Make the Last update-column show updater instead of automation creator!

Feature requests
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1

At the moment whenever someone triggers an automation the last update column will show: Updated by “automation creator” instead of the person that triggered the automation. This renders the person function of the last update column useless in bords with automations or confusing at best.

Solutions: Remove the automation-creator as last updater altogether. (Copy the name from the person who triggers the automation to the automation-update/ or just dont update the column if the update is caused by an automation.)

Half solutions:

  • Create an automation that can add the person who updated to this column (overwrite the column)
  • Column option where you can filter the column automatically.
  • Remove the creator of an automation as the person that is connected to the update and change it to the robot sign. So it will show a robot icon and name it: last updated by “robot/automation” for example.

The strange thing is there is one automation that already works as it should and is an exception to this problem, namely: When status changes to X → move to group X, this automation will keep the person who triggered the automation as the updater. So it seems possible to fix this.

2

I had submitted this as a bug and support reviewed it and said this isn’t a bug, so I’m submitting this as an idea.

On most of the automations I’ve created, the Activity log would show that the action done due to an automation was done by an automation. For example, when a status is changed to X, then Y happens. In the Activity Log, it would show that UserA changed the status to X, and then Monday.com Automations did Y. This makes it clear what happened, and why Y changed. (Y changed because of an automation)

On one of my automations, though, it shows UserA changed the status to X, but UserB changed Y. UserB being the Automation Creator. This makes it confusing, because UserB did not actually go into that item to change Y.

The response I got from Monday support team:

Some automations do not show as being actioned by the platform and show the name of the creator of the automation as the instance who took the action.

Please make this more consistent! All automations should show as being actioned by the platform, NOT the Creator!

The automation that I created was:

If column changes, then change date to today and clear column

The column is a checkmark column. So when a User checks the column, another column (date) will change to today, and then the checkmark will be cleared. This is for a recurring task that we need to check for. The activity logs shows:

 User A changed column
 Monday automation changed the date
 User B changed column

But it should be Monday automation changed column for the last action.

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3

Having creation and updates track to an automation creator is misleading and confusing. I think at minimum these updates should be attributed to an automation (like default column assignments are), and even better would provide both that the update was made by an automation and who the automation was triggered by.

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4

I agree with this 100%.

Additionally speaking when building our monday.com app we ran into some serious issues with this as well. If the automation was treated as a default monday.com user with API token ETC this would greatly help my team.

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5

One thing that we’ve done in the past is create an admin user / board owner account for creating automations. We named ours “AJ Bot” after our company’s mascot and uploaded a profile image for the account as well. AJ Bot then displays as the user so we can quickly see it’s an automated action (and no regular user gets spammed with notifications, win/win). AJ Bot is also part of our JIRA integration in Zapier so any actions in that system that are automated show up as that account, not a regular user.

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6

Thanks for the tip. Might do this workaround at some point, but this shouldnt cost an account spot and a lot of work to fix.

7

I’ve reported this as a bug, which it is. This is not a feature request and needs to be taken far, far more seriously.

We use last updated on intake forms for employees to make reports that are turned into maintenance records with automations. It’s impossible to record which employee actually did it with this method because Monday.com erroneously attributes the automation-creator as the last updater. As a result the whole maintenance system is useless for tracking which maintenance records were created by who.

It’s been over six months since your post, and I reported this before you. I’ve since attempted to bump it to no avail. Monday.com just doesn’t take this malfunction in their column type seriously.

Extremely disappointing.

The only solution is to abandon the last updated column entirely, and offer a dropdown/status on the intake forms so the employee can choose their name out of a list :slight_smile:

Then make a bunch of automations, per employee to modify the maintenance records after the fact.

Whole thing is a mess that looks like it will never be fixed.

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8

This has been driving me crazy on my boards too. I see that in the Activity Log the actions are now clearly represented as ‘by automation’. It seems that should carry through to display in the Last Updated column also.

This is having a large effect in our account, including in our CRM. monday sales CRM

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9

This would be an inprovement, but since most of the actions in my boards have an automation triggered as reaction it will just show automations as last updater everywhere, which isnt that useful either. I prefer to have the last person that triggered the automation shown.

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10

I agree @Lucas1! Either would be better than showing the person who authored the automation. Most ideal for me would likely be show the person who triggered the automation and include some indication an automation was involved.

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11

Thank you! I have been running with the same issue for a while and it makes this very confussing and misleading. I agree with you all that the person that triggered the automation should be the one that appears as the the last updated and in the activity log. This also happens when an item is created via forms, in which the owner of the form is the one that appears as the creator.
I think in this case, it should indicate that the item was created via open form!

Hope they make something about this soon since is clearly a bug.

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12

Hi Susana -

Just wanted to follow up about one specific point you made regarding items created by Monday Workforms submissions.

You have to give some form of actual board access (not just form access) to the users submitting the form. Only once you do that can your automations correctly map the form submitter into a People field.

IMO, that’s a ridiculous limitation that’s very counterproductive in most use cases… but it’s, at least for now, the reality. Changing the board’s permission settings to only allow users to see items they created or were added to (so only their submissions appear to them when they go to the Main Table or any other View) does help a bit, but it’s still far from ideal.

You can also do some creative things with multi-board setups if you’re willing to get into the weeds a little. The two-board request intake/management system I described here provides another workaround of sorts (because you can allow submitters access to the form’s board to get them into a People field, then MIRROR that People field in your “real” request management board without granting them access to it. LMK if you have any questions about that approach.

Good luck!

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