Synchronize Subitems and Items

Hi All, I don’t know if you have experienced this issue with the Timeline column, for example. If you update the timeline in a sub-item, this information doesn’t reflect in the Timeline of the parent item. It seems that the item and sub-item are not liked together anyway. Indeed, it is the same with other types of a column. It is not possible to link the information between item and sub-item. I really appreciate any help you can provide. Thanks.

hi @MarcoLupi

Welcome to the community! You can view the subitem column its summary on the main item by going to the subitem column settings and select “Show Summary on Parent Item”.

This will create a new mirror column on your parent item to show this summary. It is an kind of a mirror column and therefore you can’t run automations on this one. Hope that helps.

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Hi Bus, thank you for your answer. We have already tried this trick and can be acceptable with the timeline columns. Because as you said it is a mirrored column and you can’t run automation on it. Anyway, I would like an explanation, to why there is no feature to synchronise the Item and sub-item timeline column instead of creating another one. Because this way you can end up and have 2 timelines in the item. What is the advantage of having them aligned instead?

However, my question was broader because as I said it seems that the subitems are not linked to the item in also other cases. For example, when you create a sub-item it doesn’t inherit the column structure from the item above. If you have a drop-down list you have to create it again for the sub-item. Another example is with dependences, you can’t establish dependencies between items and sub-items across the board.

In my opinion, the sub-item should be as an item but with a different hierarchy level, so why it is so different instead? Do you agree with me?

hi @MarcoLupi

Yes, I agree with you. The solution monday has chosen is to store subitems on an entirely (hidden) different board. This results in all the things you are mentioning here. If you want the subitem to have the same structure as an item, why don’t migrate those subitems into items :slight_smile:. You can still “mark them as subitem of …” by setting a dropdown value e.g… Another approach is the Rollup Multiple Boards app where each “project” is a boards, the tasks are at the item level and each project boards “reports” to an overview board.

You can think of many alternatives but I would not bet that monday changes the way they implemented subitems as this will be a complete overhaul.

We are implementing very complex plans, therefore group some activities within hierarchical levels could be very beneficial for us. I mean, in every project management tool there is this feature for creating different levels and in addition, there is the possibility to drill down to have some details on a certain activity. There are many reasons why we need to do that instead of putting all the tasks as simple items. But I think you understand that because also the app that can roll up different boards was created because of this lack of hierarchical levels on Monday.com. Basically, you have only 3 levels Boards, groups, and items. Nevertheless, it is difficult to integrate different boards.
However, as I understood if many users report the same issue the staff start to work on it? Isn’t that the scope of this Feature Feedback topic?

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