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Monday API - link items and subitems

  • November 23, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 1863 views
C

Hello everyone,

I have the following questions about a use case and I would like to know what is possible with Monday API :

  1. In a board I would like to use an item as a “parent”, and link this item with other items considered as “children” (quite similar to items with subitems) by adding an ID reference. Do you know if we can use Monday API to say that when a children row is updated (status for example), it also updates data in the parent row ?

  2. I would like to know if with the Monday API we can do the following actions : let says that we have two subitems a and a’ from two items in two distincts boards. These sub items have the same ID reference in a column, and the items also have the same ID reference.
    Is it possible to do : when data from a subitem a from item 1 in board A is updated, it also updates subitem a’ from an item 1’ in board A’ ?

Thank you for your great help,

Corentin

4 replies

basdebruin
  • basdebruin
  • Community Expert
  • November 23, 2021

hi @corentin.dalfarra

Sure you can do thing like this with the API. The logic however needs to reside in the app / Integromat. The API just let you read and write boards / items / columns etc., it has no specific calls that retain relationships. So, to do what you want you need to store the relationship somewhere externally in a datastore. I have build several apps that do this kind of relationship things.

I am wondering (your point 1.) what you do when you have two or more “subitems” connected to a parent. What do you want to see when any of these “subitems”'s status changes. The PAI has no support for the battery widget inside the column.

C

Hi @basdebruin

Thank you for your answer !

Okay so I will need a relationship database to manage what I want to do with the API.

Yes it is exaclty the use case : let say that i have one parent row and ten children rows. I would like that for example formulas that gathered figures for each children row and summarize to parent row, or another example could be that when I have all children rows with a specific status, the parent row status also updates (similar to automations actually).

Does it make sense to you ?

Have a great day,

Corentin

basdebruin
  • basdebruin
  • Community Expert
  • November 23, 2021

hi @corentin.dalfarra

Yes and no to your question 🙂. There is a lot more to consider (I think).

The API is not capable of reading the output of a formula column. The formula column is calculated in your browser and nowhere within monday you can access the result. It is only visible in your browser. Is that a good implementation? I guess not. But you don’t want a backend to read what is in your browser. You online savings account will be emptied is seconds 🙂

For statuses there is indeed an automation that works between parent en subitems. That changes the status on a parent whenever ONE of the subitem statuses CHANGES. SO, let’s assume you have subitem statuses GOOD, BAD and UGLY. When anyone of your statuses is set to GOOD the parent will change to GOOD too, although you might still have multiple subitem statuses that show BAD or UGLY. The point I want to make is that is triggers on ANY subitem on CHANGE, without taking into consideration what the status of the other subitems are.

Using the API, Integromat, Zapier or internal automations is not the real issue, it’s just another set of skills you need. The real issue is “what do you want to achieve”. Acting on a change is good in most cases but not when you want to aggregate. I created an app Rollup Multiple Boards that was facing the same complexity.

C

Hi @basdebruin

Thanks for your answer,

It is a very clear reply so I know that I will not have the result I wanted with subitems nor API.

I think I need to do some tests with the solution to be sure of “what I want to achieve” as you mentionned !

Thank you again and have a nice day !

Corentin

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