Monday CRM Done Right (Finally!)

Many of the Connect Boards Columns cannot be used Automation Recipes that normally support Connect Boards Columns.  This is a major because "match and connect" and "create & connect" Automation Recipes are some of the most fundamental and essential Automation Recipes available in Monday.  It is these Automations that allow you to establish good board structure and minimise manual busy work.  Without them....well, let's not go there...

Several Connect Boards Columns that would be really useful if they were 2-way connections are set up as 1-way Connect Boards Columns.  (Like the connection between the Activities Board and other Boards).  And surprise surprise, you can't change the Core Boards Connect Boards Columns from 1-way to 2-way like you can with "regular" connect boards columns.

Even though the Leads Board is the start of your sales pipeline and therefore kind of a big deal, there are very few automations set up in this Board, not a single Connect Boards Columns and basically zero functionality worth a damn.  Yes, you can click the Button column and move a Lead to your Contacts Board but (a) there's no setup to prevent anyone from moving disqualified or closed Leads to Contacts and (b) there is no setup to prevent you creating a duplicate contact if an identical contact already exists in your Contacts Board.  Why is the Leads Board set up so badly?

You are meant to qualify Leads before you move them to Contacts, but there are no columns to enter the data used to qualify them and clicking the "Move to contacts" button moves them whether they are qualified or not.  To make matters worse, once they arrive in your Contacts Board, you still need to manually mark them as "Qualified".

 There is a label in the "Type" status column in the Contacts Board called "Lead" (as well as "Qualified Lead").  So, it seems the idea is that you can/do move unqualified Leads as well as Qualified Leads to the Contacts Board.  There is zero functionality setup in the Contacts Board for managing the customer relationship, so why would we move unqualified (or even qualified) Leads to our Contacts Board if there is no advantage in doing so?

There are a bunch of...well...glitches in the default Mpnday CRM setup.  Examples; an Automation is set up to set the Status of each new Lead to "New Lead".  When you can just name your default Lead Status "New Lead".  Why the need to automate this?  Also, you are meant to qualify Leads in the Leads Board then qualified Leads get moved to the Contacts Board - where apparently you qualify them again?!  Not to mention that it seems that unqualified Leads can also live in your Contacts Board.  While most of these glitches aren't major, they are worrying because it almost makes you think that the Core CRM Boards were designed by somebody who doesn't understand even the most basic Monday features (like how to use the default label in a Status Column).

Monday Work Forms is free and it's included and it's Monday's own product.  But Monday's form builder has some fundamental limitations that, while they don't seem significant at first, will bite you on the bum down the road.  Do yourself a favour, don't use Monday Work Forms, use Fillout Forms (or Jotform or Typeform) instead.  Your future self will thank you.