Is there a way to set an automation to say “if nothing has been updated on this item for 3 days, notify someone?” I’m trying to use a Last Updated column to do it and I don’t see how. The alternative would be to create a date column having the info when the item was last updated, but how do I make one of those without using an automation When Column Changes Set Last Updated to Today for every column on the board (there are 100+)? Thanks in advance for your ideas. Seems like there should be a simple solution, but I’m just not thinking of it.
100% This is a massive oversight and limitation…
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has there ever been any movement on this? would be very helpful
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+1 this. It’d be very helpful to automate w/ Last Update column. I’m looking for a weekly or daily digest that would ping specific users with what’s been updated within that time frame. Automating each column individually results in too many notifications in our case. Has anybody found a work around for this?
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Hi @AndrewW - we have got around this using General Caster. Create a new date column (Last Update) and use the following set of stock automations:
Then use the below General Caster integration to update the Last Update column on any column change. The formula in the integration would be TODAY() and the column would be Last Update
Hope this helps!
Mark
I’ve been desperately trying to get this to work.
The formula TODAY() yields nothing.
Any help would be appreciated.
Actually, it consistently yields Jan 1, 1970
How is this still not a thing? I just encountered this limitation and was so confused.
I already have a workaround in place, but it’s just that, a workaround – hitched to changes in the Updates column, rather than the entire item.
Being able to trigger an event when something has sat untouched for X number of days sure sounds like something that should be a core function of project management software, doesn’t it?
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I completely agree. Based on the key reasons why you would use monday.com, having this feature ensures that everything moves forward and nothing gets left behind…especially for large complex tasks/items/projects. I fundamental feature I would say. Any luck getting this? it’s been a year and a half since the original post. Maybe monday.com should create an alert on this feature request so that this very important feature request doesn’t let left behind. 
lol
Absolutely, you can achieve this using automations in a straightforward manner. Here’s a step-by-step guide to set up the automation:
- Create a ‘Last Updated’ Date Column:
- If you haven’t already, create a ‘Last Updated’ date column to track the last update for each item.
- Set Up an Automation:
- Go to the board where you want this automation.
- Click on the automation button at the top of the board.
- Create a New Automation:
- Select ‘When status changes.’
- Choose the status you’re interested in (e.g., ‘In Progress’ or any relevant status).
- Add an Action:
- Add an action to ‘Change column value.’
- Select your ‘Last Updated’ date column.
- Set the value to ‘Today.’
- Set Delayed Notification:
- Add another action after the above one.
- Choose ‘Notify someone.’
- Select the team member or person you want to notify.
- Set Time Conditions:
- Under ‘Advanced settings,’ set conditions to trigger the notification if ‘Last Updated’ is not changed for 3 days.
This way, whenever an item is in progress (or any chosen status) and the ‘Last Updated’ column is not changed for 3 days, it will trigger a notification to the designated person.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions or if there’s anything else I can assist you with."
UPSers Portal
@owork There is already a native “Last Updated” column type that records the last update to ANY column in an item. The point of this thread is that this column’s date value is, disappointingly, NOT available for use in automations. The workaround that you propose (and that many of us are already using) is to create another quasi-last-udpated column out of a Date column that is then automated to update its own value by watching one specific column for changes. Big difference – watching one column for changes is not at all the same thing as being able to watch ALL columns for changes. Say someone updates the item, but it’s not the specific column you were watching. Yes, they’ve updated the item, but it doesn’t count because you’re not watching that specific column.
The frustration lies in that the value we want to use, with the desired scope of it watching all columns for changes, already exists in that native Last Updated column, but we cannot access it. The result is we have to add a column and an automation that watches one specific column. If you want to watch multiple columns, they have to be watched through automations individually (ugh). So, it’s very much a valid feature request.
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Hi Heather, where can I find the Advanced settings to set the time conditions?
The workaround that you propose (and that many of us are already using) is to create another quasi-last-udpated column out of a Date column that is then automated to update its own value by watching one specific column for changes. Big difference – watching one column for changes is not at all the same thing as being able to watch ALL columns for changes.
Completely agree with you. I just found out too about this limitation, and it feels more like a bug than an intended feature.
Personally, I wanted to use this to automate the archiving of our old projects (in our case, moving items to another “archive” board). I expected to be at least able to use the native “Last update” column as a date to automate a status change (something like Old - Archive?) to easily see which project were left untouched for 3+ months or to notify me to think about manually moving them.
The workarounds that I saw other share (tracking some columns for updates and changing a date on a new column) all seemed to work for others (at least, to some degree), but they are not useful in my case. I have a lot of projects that have had no updates in the last 3-12 months, and tracking updates to create a new date column that I can use to automate this on those projects will have no effect.
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utter madness it not already doing this. I’m finding constant brick walls in the system like this. Really basic, obvious features that should be there.