by Step aside, Microsoft Excel: In Monday’s work management, you can perform calculations and manipulate data through the platform’s Formula Column feature. With monday.com Work OS formula functions, you can easily solve mathematical formulas by extracting data from columns or as stand-alone calculations. These capabilities allow you to get formula solutions faster and without the need for more than one application so you can easily leverage your data to its fullest potential within one system.
SEE: Monday.com Work OS review (TechRepublic)
This tutorial walks you through how to use formulas in Monday Work Management, which was rated by TechRepublic as the best project management software for teams of all technical levels.
What you need to use formulas to manage Monday work
To add or use formula columns, you must have an active monday.com Work OS account through a Pro or Enterprise plan.
Note: If you’re on a Pro plan and downgrade your account in the future, you won’t lose the formula columns you’ve created.
How to add formulas in monday work management
To start adding formulas, you will need to add the Formula Column to your dashboard by selecting the + icon located at the top right of your dashboard graphic (Figure A).
Figure A
In the drop-down menu that appears, click Formula (Figure B).
Figure B
After you add your formula column, a formula builder will open on your page (Figure C). You can always access the formula builder by clicking inside the column.
Figure C
Now that you’re in the formula builder, you can start building your formula. On the dashboard, you’ll see a list of columns you can use in your formulas, as well as a list of features offered by Monday Work Management (Figure D). You can use any of these functions to build your formula, or you can just use traditional math symbols like + to add, – to subtract, or * to multiply.
Figure D
If you want to apply functions, monday.com makes it easy to understand the purpose of each function. Hover over a function to see a description of the function and an example of its application (Figure E).
Figure E
To create a formula, start by selecting a cell within the Formula Column where you can begin typing your formula. You can then use columns from your dashboard and functions as you build your formula.
For example, if you want to see if your organization’s expenses are over or under budget, you can apply the following formula:
IF({Budgeted}>{Actual Spending},"Over budget","Under budget")
Another benefit of using Monday’s work management is that the software uses syntax highlighting to help you easily build formulas; you can see this as the specific segments of your formula are colored within the area.
For example, if a segment within the formula you created is red, that indicates there is an error within that part of your formula. Keep an eye out for this as it can help you notice and resolve errors within your formula.
Tips and tricks for using formulas in Monday work management
As with any software system that uses formulas, you must follow specific rules to ensure the proper use of formulas and to produce accurate calculations.
To reference a column and extract its value in your function, add the name of that column exactly as it appears on your boards inside these brace symbols {} in your formula (Figure F). Also, formulas can include parentheses () to change the order of operations.
Figure F
Remember that values are case sensitive, and when writing your formula, you must capitalize words appropriately as they appear in your column.
If you choose to add commas in the columns of your formula, be careful as they may represent something different depending on the function. For example, the comma would represent a multiplication symbol in a multiplication function.
Always open and close statements by including a symbol ( before the statement to open it and a symbol ) after the statement to close it.
In formulas, text must be enclosed in quotes for the software to distinguish it. The formatting of quotes and commas can also affect the effectiveness of your formula, and copying and pasting formulas from an external text editor can cause the formula builder to read them as illegal.
Finally, always include a 0 before the decimal when multiplying; otherwise the formula will return an error.
The Formula Column allows you to generate formulas based on supported and unsupported columns.
Supported Columns: Checkout, Country, Create Log, Date, Dependency, Dropdown, Email, Formula, Time, Item ID, Last Updated, Connection Boards (formerly link to item), Long Text, Numbers, Person, Phone, Rating, status, text, timeline, time tracking, voting, world clock, subitem names, and subitem count.
Incompatible columns: Auto Number, Color Picker, Files, Link, Location, Mirror, Progress Tracking, Tags, and Week.
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