Using Match Automations to Connect Existing Items in Monday.com

There’s been a lot of chat on Facebook groups lately about whether it’s possible to automatically connect existing items across different boards in Monday.com. A common comment is “just use a match automation, it’s easy!” But, it’s not quite that simple.

At first glance, I thought it might not even be possible. Or at the very least, it would be such a painful and time-consuming process that you’d be better off just connecting the items manually. An automation, in that case, would be pretty pointless. But then, I had a brainwave (while I was in the bath, but you don’t need to know that part).

The Limitations of Match Automations

The main roadblock to automatically matching and connecting pre-existing items across boards is the limited trigger options for match automations. One option is to trigger when a column or item name changes, but that’s not much help if the items already exist. Unless you want to modify all of them, which would be really, really painful. You’d end up doing so much manual work that you might as well just connect the items by hand.

However, there is a “when item is created” match automation recipe. Initially, I dismissed this option because, well, the items already exist. But then it hit me – duplicate items! That’s effectively creating new items.

The Solution: Duplicate Items

So, I found a solution for automatically matching existing items in different boards using a match automation. It works best if you’re on the Standard plan or above, because you can merge duplicates and tidy everything up easily. If you’re on a lower tier plan, you can still follow the same process, but you’ll have to manually delete the “copy” text that gets appended to the end of each duplicated item’s name. Obviously, that’s a huge pain.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s jump into the nitty-gritty and I’ll show you how to do this in a Standard plan account.

Setting Up the Match Automation

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. To follow my example video exactly, you can create a new Sales CRM Board using the “CRM by Monday.com” template.

2. In the Deals Board, disconnect the Contacts connected to the 2 Deals/Items in this Board.  (This is optional but it’s good to do so that when the Match Automation does connect Contacts to the duplicate Deals automatically, you know which ones were connected automatically).

3. Open the Automation Center and go to Templates. Search for “match” and choose the “when item is created” Match Automation recipe.

4. Select the boards you wish to match and connect in the Automation. In my case, I’m in the Deals board and want to connect to the Contacts board, so these are the two Boards I select in the Automation recipe builder.

5. Set up the match logic.  (I used “overwrite” but you can choose to add instead if you prefer) and choose the connect board column you want to use to connect them.  (In this case, there was already a Connect Boards Column called “Contacts” in the Deals Board so I selected this Column).

6. Choose the Columns you want to match against in each Board.  See the next section for more info on this.

Dealing with the “Copy” Suffix

At first I thought we could match against the Item Name, but there’s a catch. When you duplicate items, Monday.com adds a “copy” suffix to the item name. So the duplicated deal’s name won’t match the contact’s name anymore.

To get around this, you need to use a Column and not the Item Name to match.  In this example, I used the Email Column to match.  Here’s how you do it;

1. Add an email column (or any other unique identifier that exists in both boards) to your Deals board.

2. Purely for the purposes of this Demo Video, I added a mirror column to pull in the email from the connected Contacts so that I could easily copy and paste the email addresses living in the Contacts Board into the right Item in our Deals Board.

3. Modify your match automation to match based on the email columns.

Pro tip: You can use mirror columns in your match automations, but not connect board columns.

Duplicate your Items

The second to last step is to select all the Items we want to match and connect and duplicate them.  The new Duplicate Items will trigger the Match Automation.  So, as long as the duplicate Items have an email address and it matches the email of the Contact, the right Contact will be matched and connected to the right Duplicate Deal automatically.

Merging Duplicates (Standard Plan and Above)

Okay, so you’ve duplicated your items and they’ve been automatically connected. But now you’ve got duplicates cluttering up your board. If you’re on the Sales CRM Standard plan or above, you can easily merge them:

1. Go to Power-Ups and select “Manage Duplicates”.

2. Look for duplicates based on email or whatever Column you were matching by (since the item names will be different due to the “copy” suffix).

3. Merge the items.

Voila! Your original items have now been automatically matched and connected to the corresponding Items in the other board, and the duplicates are gone.

Cleaning Up on Lower Tier Plans

If you’re not on the Standard plan or above, you won’t be able to merge duplicates like this. Instead, you’ll need to:

1. Delete the original, unconnected items.

2. Manually remove “copy” from the end of each duplicated item’s name.

Unfortunately, you can’t bulk edit item names, so this will be a tedious process. But it’s still doable.

Other Matching Options

In my example, I used email as the unique identifier for matching. But you could use any column that’s unique and exists in both boards, like:

• Phone number

• Project name

• Account email (if you have a mirror column for an account connected to both the deal and the contact)

Conclusion

So there you have it! It’s a bit clunky, but it works. If you’re on the Standard plan or above in Monday.com, you can automagically connect existing items across boards, merge the duplicates, and be on your merry way. On lower tier plans, it’s still possible but requires some manual cleanup.

Is it the most elegant solution? No. But sometimes, you’ve just gotta work with what you’ve got. And when what you’ve got is a burning need to connect a bunch of pre-existing items without losing your sanity, this match automation workaround might just be your saving grace.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve earned a coffee after all that.