How to Use Monday.com: A Practical Guide That Skips the Fluff

Monday.com looks simple until you actually try to build something useful with it. Then you're staring at boards, columns, automations, and wondering why your "simple project tracker" turned into a confusing mess.

This guide cuts through the marketing speak and shows you exactly how to use monday.com effectively-whether you're setting up your first board or trying to figure out what automations are actually worth your time.

Already know you want to try it? Start your free monday.com trial here.

Understanding Monday.com's Structure (The 2-Minute Version)

Before you start clicking around, understand how monday.com is organized. Everything flows from workspaces down to individual data points:

Monday.com offers three board types with different access levels: main boards (visible to all team members), shareable boards (for external collaborators), and private boards (invite-only).

Understanding Workspaces vs Folders

Many users struggle deciding between creating new workspaces or organizing content into folders. Here's the distinction:

Workspaces are best for completely separate areas of your business-different departments, major divisions, or wholly unrelated projects. Think HR vs Marketing vs Sales. Each workspace has its own homepage showing recent activity and members can join or leave workspaces independently.

Folders work within workspaces to add an extra layer of organization without creating full separation. Use folders to group related boards for specific clients, project phases, or teams within a department. You can create subfolders within folders for up to 3 levels of organization total.

The rule of thumb: If people need completely different access permissions and workflows, use separate workspaces. If you're organizing related content for the same team, stick with folders.

Getting Started: Your First Steps

When you first sign up for monday.com, you'll automatically start a 14-day free Pro plan trial. This gives you access to advanced features so you can properly test the platform before committing to a paid plan.

The platform offers multiple products built on the same Work OS foundation:

Most users start with Work Management, which is what this guide focuses on. You can access different products by clicking the grid icon (nine dots) in the top-right corner.

Creating Your First Board: Step-by-Step

Here's how to actually set up a useful board:

Step 1: Create the Board

Click the "+ Add" button on the left panel. You can start from scratch, import from Excel/Google Sheets/Trello, or use one of their 200+ templates. Templates are decent starting points-just expect to customize heavily.

When creating a board, you'll choose its type:

Step 2: Set Up Groups

Groups help organize your items into logical sections. They can represent project phases, weeks, priorities, clients-whatever makes sense for your workflow. Drag and drop to reorder them as needed.

Groups are color-coded, making it easy to visually distinguish between different sections at a glance. You can collapse groups to reduce clutter when you're not actively working on them.

Step 3: Add Your Columns

Click the "+" icon next to your last column to open the Column Center. Here are the columns you'll actually use:

Monday.com's AI feature can actually suggest columns based on descriptions you type-just enter what you need in the search bar and it'll recommend appropriate column types.

Step 4: Customize Your Columns

Resize columns by clicking and dragging between column headers. Pin important columns to freeze them while scrolling. Hide columns you don't need cluttering your view.

For status columns, customize the labels and colors to match your workflow. Red for blocked, yellow for in progress, green for done-or whatever system works for you.

Step 5: Add Items

Type a name and hit enter. That's it. You can also set default values for new items by clicking the three-dot menu on your board and selecting "Item default values"-saves time when adding lots of similar items.

Want more details in our full review? Check out our monday.com review for the complete breakdown.

Using Formula Columns for Calculations

The Formula Column is one of monday.com's most powerful features, available on Pro and Enterprise plans. It lets you perform calculations using data from other columns on your board.

How Formula Columns Work

Formula columns can handle everything from simple math to complex conditional logic. You build formulas using:

Common Formula Use Cases

Calculate project profitability: Create a formula that subtracts expenses from revenue to show profit margin automatically.

Track budget remaining: Use a formula like {Budget} - {Spent} to display remaining funds.

Conditional bonuses: Use IF statements to calculate employee bonuses based on sales performance thresholds.

Add days to dates: Use ADD_DAYS({Start Date}, 15) to automatically calculate project milestones.

Format currency: Use TEXT() functions to display numbers with dollar signs and proper decimal formatting.

The formula builder includes AI assistance if you have AI enabled on your account-just describe what you want to calculate in plain English and it'll generate the formula for you.

Compatible column types include Numbers, Text, Date, Status, Person, Formula, Mirror, Connect Boards, and Time Tracking. Columns like Files, Tags, and Auto-number aren't currently supported in formulas.

Views: See Your Data Different Ways

Same data, different visualizations. Monday.com offers multiple views depending on your plan:

The catch: Timeline, Gantt, and Calendar views require the Standard plan ($12/user/month). Chart and Workload views require Pro ($19/user/month).

Views are tabs at the top of your board. You can create multiple views of the same board, each with different filters, column visibility, and visualization types. This lets different team members look at the same data in ways that make sense for their role.

Connecting Boards: Cross-Project Visibility

Once you have multiple boards, you'll want them talking to each other. The Connect Boards Column links items across different boards-useful for:

To set it up: Click the "+" icon to add a column, search for "Connect Boards", select which boards to link, then click any cell in that column to connect specific items.

The Mirror Column takes this further by pulling data from connected boards. Once you've connected boards, add a Mirror Column to display information like status, dates, or numbers from the linked items without switching boards.

You can add up to 60 Connect Boards Columns per board-plenty for complex workflows.

Using Connect Boards for Cross-Department Workflows

Here's a practical example: Your sales team uses a CRM board to track deals. Your operations team uses a project delivery board. Connect these boards so when a deal closes, the linked project item automatically shows the client name, contract value, and expected start date pulled from the CRM.

This eliminates manual data entry and keeps teams synchronized without jumping between boards constantly.

Automations: Save Time on Repetitive Tasks

This is where monday.com earns its keep. Automations handle the boring stuff so you don't have to.

How Automations Work

Every automation has three parts:

Setting Up Automations

  1. Click the "Automate" button in the top right corner of your board
  2. Choose from pre-made templates or build your own
  3. Click underlined text to customize parameters
  4. Hit "Create Automation" when done

Common useful automations:

Automation Limits by Plan

Heads up on action limits:

Each action (sending a notification, updating a status, creating an item) counts against your limit. If you exceed it, automations stop running until the next billing cycle or you purchase additional actions.

The 250-action limit on Standard can disappear quickly if you're not careful-a single automation that runs 10 times per day across 5 different items consumes 50 actions daily or 1,500 per month. Monitor your usage in the Administration section to avoid surprises.

If you're building complex automation flows and hitting limits, check our comparison of best project management software options.

Leveraging AI Features in Monday.com

Monday.com has integrated AI capabilities throughout the platform to help teams work faster and smarter. AI features are enabled by default in all accounts but can be disabled by admins in Administration > Customization > Features.

AI Blocks and AI-Powered Columns

AI Blocks are modular AI actions you can use in columns and automations. Common AI actions include:

These AI actions can be added as dedicated AI-powered columns or incorporated into automations. For example, set up an automation that detects sentiment in customer feedback and automatically assigns priority levels based on negative responses.

Monday Sidekick, Monday Magic, and Monday Vibe

Beyond AI Blocks, monday.com offers three major AI capabilities:

Monday magic: Transforms simple prompts into ready-to-use, customized work solutions. Instead of manually building boards and workflows, describe what you need in plain English and monday magic generates the complete structure including columns, automations, and recommended views.

Monday vibe: An AI-powered app builder that creates custom monday apps using natural language prompts-no coding required. Teams can build apps tailored to specific workflows without technical expertise.

Monday sidekick: An intelligent assistant that helps you work smarter within monday.com. Sidekick can generate updates, summarize tasks, build formulas, suggest automations, and answer questions about your boards and workflows.

AI Pricing and Credits

AI features operate on a credit system. Every account receives 500 free AI credits per month. Actions that consume credits include running AI-powered column automations, using AI to generate text, and extracting information.

If you exceed your monthly credits, you can purchase additional credits in buckets:

Some AI features are included with your subscription and don't consume credits, such as AI Board Suggestions (which recommends useful AI-powered columns to add to your board) and AI formula assistance in the formula builder.

Note: Monday.com does not use your customer data to train AI models. All AI features follow the same security protocols as other monday.com products.

Managing Notifications and Communication

Monday.com has robust notification systems to keep you informed without overwhelming you with noise.

Types of Notifications

Notifications appear in three places:

You receive notifications when:

Controlling Notification Settings

Click your profile picture, select "My Profile", then navigate to the "Notifications" tab. Here you can:

The key distinction: Your personal notification settings control WHAT types of events you're notified about. Board notification settings control WHERE those notifications come from (which boards).

You can also mute specific boards while keeping notifications active on others. This is useful if you're a member of boards you only need to check occasionally.

The Updates Section and Update Feed

The Updates Section on each item works like a social media feed-team members can post updates, @mention colleagues, attach files, add checklists, and reply with comments or emojis.

The Update Feed (inbox icon in the top bar) aggregates all updates from boards and items you're subscribed to. Instead of checking each board individually, view all new activity in one place. You can:

The "Seen" eye icon shows who has viewed each update, providing visibility into team engagement.

Integrations: Connect Your Other Tools

Monday.com integrates with over 200 external tools including Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Salesforce, Jira, and dozens more. These integrations follow the same trigger-condition-action format as automations.

To set up: Click "Integrate" on your board, choose the app, select a template, connect your account, and configure the parameters.

Popular integration examples:

Integrations share the same action limits as automations, so factor that into your planning. A Slack integration that posts every status change to a channel can quickly consume your monthly action allowance on lower-tier plans.

API and Custom Integrations

For more advanced needs, monday.com offers a GraphQL API that allows developers to build custom integrations and apps. This is useful for connecting monday.com to proprietary systems or creating specialized workflows that pre-built integrations don't cover.

The monday.com Apps Marketplace offers hundreds of third-party apps that extend functionality, including advanced reporting tools, time tracking enhancements, and specialized industry solutions.

Dashboards: High-Level Reporting

Dashboards aggregate data from multiple boards into visual displays using widgets. Choose from 30+ widget types to build custom reports.

Dashboard widgets include:

Dashboard limits by plan:

If you need cross-project visibility, you'll want at least Standard plan.

Building Effective Dashboards

Good dashboards focus on specific audiences and purposes:

Executive dashboards show high-level metrics: overall budget status, project progress across departments, resource allocation, and key performance indicators.

Team dashboards display operational details: upcoming deadlines, current workload, blocked items requiring attention, and recent activity.

Client dashboards share external progress updates without exposing internal details. Use shareable dashboards with filtered data showing only what clients need to see.

Dashboards update in real-time, so changes to underlying boards immediately reflect in dashboard widgets. You can share dashboard links with stakeholders or embed them in other tools for centralized reporting.

Advanced Features for Power Users

Dependencies and Critical Path

The Dependency Column (available on Standard plan and up) creates relationships between items where one task can't start until another completes. This is essential for project planning and identifying bottlenecks.

When viewing your Timeline or Gantt chart, dependent items visually connect with arrows showing task flow. Monday.com automatically adjusts downstream dates when predecessor tasks shift, keeping your project schedule accurate.

Time Tracking

The Time Tracking column (Pro plan and up) lets team members log hours spent on tasks. Click the timer to start tracking, or manually enter hours worked.

Time tracking integrates with billing and project profitability calculations. Use formula columns to multiply tracked hours by hourly rates for automatic cost calculations.

You can export time tracking data for payroll processing or client invoicing through integrations with tools like Gusto or QuickBooks.

Workdocs

Monday workdocs are flexible, collaborative documents that live alongside your boards and dashboards within workspaces. Unlike external documents, workdocs integrate directly with board data.

You can embed live board views, charts, and item updates within workdocs. This creates dynamic documentation that updates automatically as projects progress.

Use workdocs for:

Workdocs support rich formatting, embedded media, @mentions, and collaborative editing. AI assistance can generate workdoc templates based on prompts.

Forms

Forms turn external data collection into board items automatically. Create forms to gather:

Forms are shareable via link or embedded on websites. Each form submission creates a new board item with responses mapped to appropriate columns.

You can set up automations that trigger when forms are submitted-automatically assigning owners, sending confirmation emails, or updating related boards.

Quick Tips to Avoid Common Mistakes

Monday.com Pricing: What You'll Actually Pay

Before going all-in, understand the costs:

Minimum purchase is 3 seats for paid plans. After 3 seats, pricing jumps to 5 seats, then continues in multiples of 5. So a 4-person team pays for 5 seats. A 7-person team pays for 10 seats. This "bucket pricing" model increases costs as you approach the next tier.

Annual billing includes an 18% discount over monthly billing. All prices are per user, so total cost scales linearly with team size.

Hidden Costs to Consider

Beyond base subscription costs:

For detailed cost breakdowns, see our monday.com pricing guide and cost analysis.

Common Use Cases and Workflows

Marketing Campaign Management

Marketing teams use monday.com to plan campaigns from ideation through execution. A typical board includes columns for campaign name, status, launch date, assigned designer/writer, budget, and performance metrics.

Groups organize campaigns by quarter or campaign type. Automations notify team members when assets need review or deadlines approach. Dashboards show campaign performance and budget utilization across multiple initiatives.

Software Development with Agile Workflows

Development teams (especially those using monday dev) track sprints, bugs, and feature development. Boards represent sprints with groups for backlog, in progress, code review, and completed.

Connect Boards link feature requests to development tasks. Dependencies show which features block others. Integrations with GitHub or Jira sync code commits and deployment status.

Client Project Management for Agencies

Agencies manage multiple client projects simultaneously. A high-level clients board connects to individual project boards for each client.

Shareable boards give clients visibility into progress without exposing internal notes. Forms collect client requests automatically. Time tracking logs billable hours for accurate invoicing.

HR and Employee Onboarding

HR teams use monday.com for recruiting pipelines, onboarding checklists, and employee management. A recruiting board tracks candidates through application, interview, and offer stages.

Onboarding boards contain checklists for new hires with tasks assigned to IT, managers, and the new employee. Automations remind stakeholders of pending tasks and welcome new employees on their start date.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Automations Not Triggering

If automations aren't running:

Performance Issues with Large Boards

Boards with thousands of items can slow down. Solutions:

Notification Overload

Too many notifications? Adjust settings:

Is Monday.com Worth It?

Honest assessment:

Monday.com works well for:

It might not be right if:

Wondering how it stacks up against competitors? Check out our monday.com vs Asana comparison or browse monday.com alternatives.

Best Practices from Experienced Users

After implementing monday.com across hundreds of teams, certain patterns emerge for success:

Start with a pilot: Don't roll out monday.com company-wide immediately. Test with one team or department, learn what works, then expand gradually.

Assign board owners: Every board needs a designated owner responsible for maintaining structure, archiving old items, and ensuring consistency.

Create a workspace template library: As you build effective board structures, save them as templates. This ensures consistency and speeds up new project setup.

Schedule regular cleanup: Set recurring reminders to archive completed items, remove inactive users, and audit automations consuming unnecessary actions.

Invest in training: The platform's flexibility means users can easily create inefficient workflows without proper guidance. Train teams on best practices specific to your organization.

Document your workspace structure: Create a workdoc or wiki page explaining your organization's workspace hierarchy, naming conventions, and board purposes. New team members will thank you.

Use views strategically: Create different views for different roles. Executives see high-level dashboards, team leads see operational Kanban boards, individual contributors see filtered lists of their assigned tasks.

Get Started

Ready to give it a shot? Start your free 14-day monday.com trial to test the Pro features before committing. You can downgrade to the Free plan when the trial ends if you're not ready to pay.

During your trial, focus on:

  1. Setting up one realistic board that mirrors an actual workflow
  2. Testing automations that would save your team time
  3. Creating a dashboard to see if the visualizations provide value
  4. Inviting a few team members to test collaboration features
  5. Tracking whether the platform actually improves your workflow or just adds complexity

For more tutorials and guides, check out our monday.com tutorial page.

If you need help with other business tools, explore our guides on sales tools like Close CRM, email platforms like AWeber, and automation tools like Smartlead for cold email outreach.