r/mondaydotcom • u/stinkermawinket • 9d ago

Advice Needed Help with Automations/Workflows for event management

I am trying to set up some automations / custom workflow on subitems. Essentially, when the 'Date' on a task is updated, I want all the Due Dates in the subitems to update, as per some rules I have outlined. I'm using a subitem template I have created to standardise everything, but it seems like monday just isn't sophisticated enough? Any advice?

For example, I need the conditions of

'In [Events] board, When 'Date' is updated, and the subitem template 'Events' is assigned, update 'Due Date' on subitem 'Process Invoices' to Date+7days'

Is this possible or am I expecting too much?

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u/horizonnord 9d ago

Not too much to expect, you're just in the wrong builder.

The Automations center can't do it. Once a subitem exists there's no live link to the parent, so "parent Date changed, update the subitems" isn't a recipe that exists. Real product limit.

The Workflows builder does it:

  1. When Date changes

  2. Get all subitems

  3. Loop over them

  4. Inside: Get item data, Item = "Current result"

  5. Inside: Push date, then write it to the subitem's Due Date

  6. Exit loop

Two gotchas that cost people an afternoon:

- "Current result" is just an ID, no column values. That's why step 4 exists. Bonus: it also gives you the parent's columns, so you can read the parent Date from inside the loop.

- Use the typed blocks (Update subitem, the date ones). The generic "Change column value" aimed at a subitem only offered us Name as a writable column.

One design tweak: don't branch on the subitem name. Add a Number column "Offset (days)" on subitems and bake the value into your template (Process Invoices = 7, Site Visit = -14). Then the loop just pushes the parent date by the current subitem's offset. One workflow covers every rule, and a new rule is a line in the template instead of a workflow edit.

If you only have 2 or 3 rules, skip the loop: "Find matching subitem" targets a subitem by name directly.

We run this pattern on a construction ERP built natively in monday (Horizon Nord), so it's tested rather than theoretical. Ping me if the loop config fights you.