Drew | Business Insights

Guide: What are automations and how to create them on Monday.com?

Written by Drew's editorial team | Feb 2, 2022 3:20:34 PM

Avoid manual work and learn to be 10 times more efficient in your work. Increase the efficiency and control of processes. Do you want to know how? Keep reading this guide because we tell you all about it here.

Assign someone else when a task is done, remind someone that a task is due tomorrow (or remind you); these small actions take up a lot of our attention, exhaust our minds, and take up many more minutes each day than we can imagine. Is an hour a day not enough for you? Depends on what you do, but it's usually more.

Automations give us the possibility that when a certain event occurs (such as the change of status of a task, the arrival of a due date, the creation of a task, or the receipt of an order) an automatic action is triggered in consequence.

 

How can I automate my processes?

On Monday, automations are very easy to configure due to the logic that is already predefined and that we can customize in our dashboards.

How to add an automation?

To add an automation to a board, click the automation icon located at the top right of the screen:


From here you will see a list of automations that you can add to the board (and there will be more and more options!).


Click on one and you can configure it.

 

How do you set up an automation? What types of automations exist?

There are automations to notify someone, move a pulse, duplicate tasks and groups, and many more.

I will show you some individual examples, how to configure them, and at the end, you will find an example that will surprise you.

Note: do not forget that for an automation to work you must leave each of the parameters configured.

Examples:

1. When a due date arrives, or a day before a certain time, you can notify someone. Ex: me, another member, the person designated as responsible in the column, etc.

2. Or do it only if the status is Delayed, or not Ready.

3. We can also make it a bit more insistent. In case it is a "Delayed Task" and we need to remind the person in charge to complete it daily, an automation can arrive every day, every other day, or once a week.



A little more advanced, if it is detected that a task of a process must return to a previous stage (for example, if an activity that was marked as "In process" returns to "In review", or if the sales department needs invoicing review and correct a quote) then the person responsible for that stage will be notified.

Note: This automation allows thousands of options!

If pulses are automatically created on our dashboard (for example, if we receive product orders or quote requests from a visitor to our website through an embedded Monday Form) we can receive automatic notifications each time an order is made.

Recurring tasks

We have a specific article on recurring tasks, but in summary, we can say that with these automations it is possible to create a task or a group of tasks that are repeated periodically.

 

How to combine automations to achieve better goals

By combining automations we can start to do a bit of magic and spark our creativity to do several things.

If we have an automation for a recurring task (for example a weekly report), we no longer have to worry about remembering it. With a notification for each time a pulse is created, we will be aware that today is the day to deliver that report, and if for some reason we forget about it, an automation could remind us the next day that the status of this task is not Ready!

How to combine automations for better Project Management:

If we have tasks or projects divided into stages, we can have a good automatic follow-up of them.

Imagine that every time someone completes a stage, it's automatically assigned to the next person in charge of the process so you don't have to do it manually, call them, send them an email, or organize a meeting.

In our example, there is a person responsible for each phase of a project, and due to the permission settings, each member can only edit the status corresponding to their phase, and only when they are assigned as responsible.

  • Once Phase 1 ends, the person in charge of Phase 2 is automatically assigned as responsible. This person is duly notified automatically.
  • Once the project is finished (Phase 3 ready) it is moved without manual effort to the "Completed Projects" group and the Director of the company is notified.

In summary, with automation, in addition to avoiding manual work and reducing your time, you can standardize your processes, improve internal communication and ensure that no date is delayed. Every week you can remind yourself to make a report to account for the current status of your projects and the health of your tasks, department, area, or management.

 

Would you like to improve your work? We can help you since we answer all kinds of questions. Schedule a meeting below.