Using Dynamic Column Variables in the Monday Doc Column

In this video, we’re going to check out a brand new feature in Monday Docs that lets you dynamically embed column values into a document. It’s pretty darn cool, so let’s dive in and see how it works!

First off, we’ve got a demo workspace set up with a sales pipeline board. What we’re going to do is create a new doc and show you how to dynamically insert column values from this board (or any other board for that matter) into the doc.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Click on the blue “Add item to workspace” button

2. Select “New Doc”

3. Start editing your new doc

Now, here’s the interesting part. I literally just saw a popup TODAY (March 4, 2024) while using a doc that told me about this new dynamic column variable feature. So it’s hot off the press! The notification even told me the keyboard shortcut to insert these variables: just use curly brackets {}.

So I went to try it out in my new doc and… wait a minute. It didn’t work! Turns out this feature is only available for docs created inside a Monday Doc column. Aha!

No problem, let’s add a Monday Doc column to our sales pipeline board and try again.

Inserting Dynamic Variables

Okay, now that we have a doc created inside a Monday Doc column, let’s give those curly brackets a whirl. Type { and check it out – we get a popup with some options:

• Insert today’s date

• Insert the current time

• Insert a column value

Let’s try inserting the date and time:

Today is {date} and the time is {time}.

Boom! It automatically fills in the current date and time. Pretty handy for timestamping when a doc was created or updated.

But the real magic is inserting actual column values from the item the doc is attached to. So let’s add some column variables in:

Item Name: {item name}Status: {status}Amount: {amount}

It pulls all those values right in from the item details! Man, this is so cool. You can insert pretty much any column value, even complex ones like links to other items:

Contact: {contact}

Linking Columns

Let’s make this even cooler. Jump back over to the board and add a contact to the item using the Connect Boards column. I’ll add “Alex Green” as the contact.

Now pop back to our doc and check it out – it automatically added a link to Alex’s contact page! I’m totally geeking out over here.

The Future of Dynamic Docs

This feature is totally transforming the usefulness of not just Monday Docs in general, but especially the Monday Doc column. It opens up the ability to automatically customize docs based on item details.

This is going to allow you to automatically customize your doc. And keep in mind that what you can do is you can create a template, then set it as a default template for that Monday Doc column.

How awesome would it be to set up a doc template with all these dynamic variables, and then any time you add a doc to an item it’s automatically populated? Talk about a time saver!

Unfortunately, there’s one limitation right now – you can’t actually save a Monday Doc column doc as a template. Bummer! That means we can’t quite use dynamic variables in doc templates yet.

Hopes for Dynamic Doc Templates

But this is just the beginning. I’m hoping Monday either:

1. Allows us to use these dynamic column variables in standalone docs (which can be set as templates)

OR

2. Enables saving Monday Doc column docs as templates

Either of those would unlock the ability to create complex, detailed document templates that automatically populate based on item data. That would be HUGE!

So while we’re not quite there yet, this dynamic column variable feature is still pretty darn awesome and makes Monday Docs way more powerful. I can’t wait to see where Monday takes docs next!

What do you all think of this new feature? How would you use dynamic column variables in your docs? Let me know in the comments!