Hi all,
I know there is a separate request thread for supporting the new Dependency column via the API. I support that and think it’s absolutely necessary.
I hope this thread can be a more broad discussion that helps to provide feedback to monday.com about the new column and help bring it into a better state. I know that many other consultants and users are experiencing issues with the column and I want to bring them to light and help improve a vital feature on the platform for everyone.
Here are the key issues that I see right now:
- Lag time is inconsistent - Lag time updating behavior is very inconsistent/opaque and cannot be defined as a rule. I think this may even need its own setting, similar to how we can set Flexible/Strict currently.
- Automation behavior is inconsistent - Although the old column was idiosyncratic and more simple, it was easier to create workarounds and manage with monday automations. These either don’t work now or behave strangely.
- No API support or automation support.
I have a video 
that goes into a lot more detail.
The video covers issues that I see in the column now and shares examples highlighting how I am used to working with the old column. You can see the awkwardness of how it actually reacts to my changes and how inconsistent/buggy it is currently.
Issues with the dependency column are something I face across almost all my clients currently. It doesn’t behave in the way they want it to very often, and I have even consulted clients to avoid the “upgrade” as I know it will break what is already configured.
I’d like to see the feature get some more love and be brought to a state of polish that allows it to be usable.
What I see as the way forward:
- API support is essential to allow us to solve problems and actually engage with the feature effectively.
- I think that there needs to be clearer rules and consistency with how the column reacts to automations in monday.com, as well as additional automations for working with dependencies. Overall, I actually think the automation-focused dependencies provided more flexibility and clarity vs the column/feature-focused dependency system we have now. I’m not saying we need to regress to that, but I think it’s telling that we’ve arguably taken a step backwards.
Some additional considerations:
- If monday.com date automations supported the timeline state/end dates universally (for actions as well as triggers), it would be a huge power up and allow for a lot more control.
- Dependency status columns remain awkward. I’m sure I’m not the only one who uses helper columns so that if a group of tasks in a workflow are batch-selected and changed to “Done”, it doesn’t result in absolute havoc in the dependency chain. This is a really common challenge and I think it would be better served by allowing conditional status changes for dependencies or even better, integrating dependencies into the custom automation feature (which is surely long overdue).
If you have experiences similar issues, please share them! Also, I’m not ruling out the possibility that I’m missing solutions here as well, so please feel free to educate me. 
TL;DR: The new Dependency column has been in beta for a long time now and requires some action to bring it into a usable state.