Mirroring the Name / First Column

[peter_w]

We use Monday.com to track current and past projects across multiple office locations. We would like to implement a setup similar to the following:

Main Board

• Contains all of our Projects
• Each row contains an individual project
• The name / first column contains the Project Name
• Columns contain project data such as client, status, location, stages, fees, etc

Board Type A

• All rows to be mirrored from the Main Board and update when it changes
• The name / first column should mirror the project name in the Main Board and update when and/or if it changes
• Some of the columns are mirrored from the Main Board and some contain new information - eg. the client name might carry across but it may have a new fields to track different aspects of the project

Board Type B

• Limited number of rows which are a Subset of the Main Board
• The name / first column should mirror the project name in the Main Board and update when and/or if it changes
• New rows are automatically populated based on the status column - ie, the board might be a location based subset of all of the projects which changes based on a location status

QUESTION 1
The mirrored column feature works well for column information but would like to know if there is any way to mirror & update the name / first column?

QUESTION 2
I can see how a project row added to the Main Board can be automated to be added to Board Types A&B but is there any way if these other boards were set up later they could read information from that Main Board and create rows based on status - on creation of the board add all rows that have the status “X”?

It seems to me that if I use the mirror column feature then the name/ first column becomes redundant. Any suggestions appreciated.

[basdebruin]

Hi @peter_w

This sound like an use case for my app “Rollup Multiple Boards”. The app uses monday.com templates and create “down-level” boards with the name of the item in the “master”. Each row in the “master” represents a “down-level” board, in your case a project. There are recipes to aggregate data from the down-level boards to the row in the “master”, like:

• sum (or average, min, max) of number columns
• % of completion for status columns
• aggregated timeline (first start to latest end dates)
• sum of time tracker entries

Let me know if you want to discuss further.

[TRB-monday.com]

Hey @peter_w, thanks so much for posting!

QUESTION 1: You can mirror the first column name by using the “connect boards” column: Connect boards column (Previously Link to item column). This connect boards will reflect any changes to the item name made in the other board, but it will not be able to update the name/first column directly.

QUESTION 2: I’m not sure this will be possible directly in monday.com without an app, but I would recommend writing to us in support@monday.com and elaborating on what the specific/concrete use case is here.

[PMeuche]

Will the connect boards column also delete the item from multiple boards? We use a similar setup w/ a Master board like a data bucket & numerous boards feeding off of it w/ a variety of mirrored columns. Unfortunately, if we delete a item/row on one board it remains on the others.

Throwing 1 more thought in, it would be a massive improvement to be able to automate mirrored columns. For example, when the project status column is moved to done in out Master board it moves the item to a completed group. Unfortunately, we need to manually move the item on each board where it is mirrored separately.

[scooper]

In relation to Question 1 @TRB-monday.com why can’t monday.com just hurry up and implement a Project Column like Asana has already, this is clearly causing a lot of people pain and seems like Monday.com is losing customers due to not having this one feature and I think our company might be next at this rate. Once your company has 20+ boards it is not efficient to have to go to every board to see what is assigned to you rather than being able to see everything that is assigned to you on all boards all in one Board and be able to update and work on everything all from one Board.

Refer below:

Mirror a task on multiple boards with a project column

You could simply have a project column where you chose the board you want a whole task to mirror on and the entire task mirrors on the selected board in one click. Asana has this function and it works effortlessly, this function is the only reason we cannot get our Engineering department over from Asana to Monday. This enables you to see all tasks assigned to your team on every board all in one place and you can work live on them there and there is no need to go search every single board for wha…

[KevinOBrien]

I agree with this. It is very easy to link tasks (items) between projects (boards) on Asana, and also to see which other projects/boards a particular task is shared with, and to use this to navigate between them. On Monday.com, it seems you can mirror any column except the first, which is the crucial one that has the name of the item/task in it. (And also the simple two-way navigation isn’t built in.) I’m enjoying many of the benefits of having switched to Monday.com, but this is a major downside for me.

[maureenroaringmouse]

As far as I can tell you must ADD a Connect Boards Column, which negates the need of the first column. I can’t transform the first column to a Connect Column, right?

[TRB-monday.com]

Hey @maureenroaringmouse, thanks for posting! You’re right: in order to add a mirror column you must first add a Connect Boards column, and it’s not possible make the first (leftmost) column a Connect Boards column.