Welcome
Post an update, and the right columns fill themselves.
Your team already writes everything that matters into item updates — lead details, ticket fields, order lines, forwarded emails. Update to Columns reads that update the moment it's posted, pulls out the parts you care about, and writes them straight into your board's columns. Set it up from monday's automation centre with no code, or hand the whole job to AI. This guide covers installation, every recipe, all the scheduling fields, and what to do when a column stays empty.
Section 1
Getting started
Install the app, agree on how your updates are written, and add one recipe per field you want filled — three steps.
1.1 Install the app
- Open the monday.com App Marketplace from the top-right of your account, search Update to Columns and click Add to your account.
- Approve the requested permissions when monday asks — the app needs to read item updates and write to item columns.
- Once installed you land on the Quickstart doc, and every integration recipe becomes available on any board under Integrate.
- The account starts on the Free plan automatically — 50 actions a month, no card and no trial to activate.
1.2 Agree on an update template
The app matches on text you choose, so the updates it reads have to be predictable. Agree on a short template with whoever writes the updates — or, better, let a form or a forwarded email produce it automatically. A lead-intake update might look like this:
- First Name — James
- Last Name — Cameron
- Status — Open
- Email — jamesy@example.com
- Description — James interested in our product.
The repeated field names are the anchors the app looks for. Write them as plain lines, or as a real table inside the update — there's a recipe for each.
Email:, put Email: in the recipe — including the colon, or the colon ends up in your column. This is the most common setup mistake — see Troubleshooting.
1.3 Add the automation recipe
- Open your board and click Integrate (top-right).
- Search Update to Columns and pick the recipe that matches how your value is written — for the table above, "When an update is created copy the content from this Field in the table and export to Column."
- Click each underlined field to fill in the text to look for and the target column, then click Create automation.
- Repeat for each field. Five fields means five recipes — or one custom recipe chaining all five actions together, or one AI recipe that fills them all.
Post a test update on any item and the columns fill within a few seconds.
1.4 Feed the board straight from email
- Open Options → Board settings → Create items via email and click Copy.
- Send — or forward — an email to that address. monday creates a new item and posts the email's content as an update.
- That update is exactly what your recipes read, so the columns fill by themselves.
- Add an item name recipe so the new items aren't all called the same thing.
Set up a forwarding rule in your mail client and the whole intake — lead, ticket or order — runs without anyone touching the board.
Section 2
How it works
A text extractor wired to your board — it reads the update that just landed, and writes what it finds where you told it to.
2.1 The three parts of every recipe
Every recipe in the app is built from the same three pieces. Once you can see them, the whole catalog reads as variations on one idea.
A trigger
Always the same: when an update is created on the board the recipe lives on. Editing an old update doesn't count.
A locator
How to find the value: a label on the same line, text between two markers, a cell in a table, the first email address, a link, a field in an attached file, or an AI instruction.
A destination
The column — or the item name — that receives the value. Each action fills exactly one destination.
One action per field
A five-field update needs five actions. Add them as five separate recipes, chain them into one custom recipe, or let a single AI recipe fill every column at once.
2.2 What happens on each update
The app reads the specific update that triggered the run — not the whole conversation, and not the item's other updates. It applies your locator, converts the result into the shape the target column expects, and writes it.
- Nothing found, nothing written. If the locator finds no match, the column is left exactly as it was — so a later update that omits a field won't wipe what an earlier one set.
- A match overwrites. When a value is found it replaces whatever was in the column.
- Recipes are independent. Several recipes on the same update run separately and in no guaranteed order — don't build one that depends on another finishing first.
- Failures are visible. When something goes wrong the app posts a notification on the item saying exactly what happened.
Section 3
Automation recipes
Every recipe triggers on update created. They differ only in how they find the value and where they put it. Mix as many as you need on one board.
3.1 Text from the update body
The everyday recipes. Each one takes a piece of the update's text and writes it into a column.
Same line
“When an update is created copy the content that follows this Text and export to Column”
Copies the text that comes after your field, up to the end of that line. The workhorse — it finds the label anywhere in the update, not just at the start of a line.
Same line — number only
The same, but keeps only the first run of digits on the line. Use it for Numbers columns when the line reads Quantity: 12 units.
Between two texts
“When an update is created copy the content between this Text and this Text and export to Column”
Copies everything between a start text and an end text, across as many lines as it takes. Ideal for long descriptions and forwarded email bodies.
Between two texts + prefix
The same, then glues a fixed string to the front — https://, TICKET-, a currency symbol. Skipped if the value already starts with it, so re-runs never double it.
From a table in the update
“When an update is created copy the content from this Field in the table and export to Column”
Reads a real table pasted or typed into the update, finds the cell matching your field exactly, and takes the cell immediately after it.
3.2 Contact details and links
These need no label at all — they recognise the value by its shape.
Email address
“When an update is created find the first email and export to Column”
Scans the whole update for anything shaped like an address. Choose the 1st, 2nd or last match when signatures mean there's more than one.
Phone number
“When an update is created find the first phone and export to Column”
Same idea for phone numbers, with the same position choice. The number must include its country part; separators are stripped before writing.
Link
Takes the hyperlink whose address contains your text — zoom.us, drive.google, your own domain — and gives the Link column the display name you choose.
3.3 Rename the item
Three recipes that set the item name instead of a column. Essential on boards fed by email, where every new item otherwise starts life unnamed.
From the same line
“change item name to the text that follows this: Text”
Turns Item 1 into something readable.
From between two texts
For names that aren't on a labelled line — cut between a start and an end marker instead.
From a table
The table version. Pair it with the table recipes so one pasted table names the item and fills every column.
3.4 Attachments
Files attached to an update live inside that update. These recipes lift them out, or read what's inside them.
Move files to a Files column
Copies the update's attachments into a proper Files column, where they're visible from the board and safe from the update being deleted. Filter by extension, by file name, or move them all.
Read a PDF / DOCX — same line
Opens the attachment, extracts its text and applies the same-line rule to it. Signed quotes, order confirmations, forms with a real text layer.
Read a PDF / DOCX — between
The between-two-texts rule applied to the file's contents instead of the update body — more forgiving, since extracted PDF text often breaks lines oddly.
Read a file into the item name
Two more recipes, one per locator, that name the item after the document's own reference number or title.
.pdf and .docx only — not .doc, not .xlsx, not images. A PDF also needs a real text layer: a scan or a photo saved as a PDF has nothing to extract, and the app has no OCR.
3.5 One custom recipe for the whole intake
Adding a separate recipe per field works, but monday's automation builder also lets you chain several Update to Columns actions into a single custom recipe — one "when an update is created" trigger followed by as many "and then…" actions as you need.
- In Integrate, start from any Update to Columns recipe and open it in the automation builder.
- Click + and then to append the next action, and pick another Update to Columns action.
- Fill in each action's blanks — its own text to look for and its own target column.
- Click Update automation. All the actions now run from one trigger.
There's no limit either way on how many Update to Columns recipes a board can carry, and they don't interfere with each other. If the board receives two different kinds of update — say new leads and support requests — give each set a condition text matching a phrase unique to its format. Each set then ignores the other's updates, which also keeps your monthly action count down.
Section 4
Recipe fields
The same handful of blanks appear across the recipes. This is what each one does — and which mistake each one causes.
Field text Required
The label the app searches for. Everything after it, up to the end of the line, becomes the value. Case-sensitive and character-exact — include the colon if the update has one.
Start text / End text Required
The two markers a "between" recipe cuts between. Both must exist, and the end text must appear after the start text — otherwise the recipe silently does nothing.
Ignored text Optional
A string removed from the result after the cut. Use it to strip a repeated word from inside a captured block — a stray Note:, a label that appears mid-paragraph.
Condition text Optional
A guard — the recipe only runs if this text appears somewhere in the update. The clean way to run different recipes on different update types on one board.
Prefix Optional
A fixed string glued to the front of the result. Not added twice if the value already starts with it, so the recipe is safe to re-run.
Position Optional
For email and phone: which match to take — 1st, 2nd, … or last. Signatures and reply chains usually hold several; last is often right for forwarded mail.
Link name Optional
The text a Link column displays instead of the raw URL. Leave it empty and the column shows the URL itself.
File name / extension Optional
Which attachments to act on. Leave the name filter empty to act on every file. The upload recipe accepts all or a specific type; the read-file recipes understand .pdf and .docx.
Target column Required
Where the value lands. Some recipes pre-filter the list to sensible types — the link recipe offers Link and Text columns, the file recipe offers Files columns.
Section 5
Supported columns
The app writes plain text into whatever column you point it at, then converts that text into the shape each column type expects.
Text & Long Text
The parsed text exactly as found. The safe default while you're tuning a recipe — it accepts anything. Long Text is the best target for multi-line "between" captures.
Numbers
monday rejects anything that isn't numeric, so use the number only recipe when the line contains units or currency.
Status
A label matching the parsed text. Missing labels are created automatically — which also means a typo in an update becomes a permanent new label.
Email & Phone
The address or the number. Phone separators — spaces, dashes, brackets — are removed before writing, but the number still needs its country part to be found at all.
Date
Common formats are understood and normalised for monday. An unrecognised date is skipped silently — nothing is written and no error appears.
People
Filled by looking up a monday user by email address. Feed it an address, never a name — and the address must belong to a user on your account.
Link
The URL, shown with the link name you set in the recipe — or the URL itself if you leave that empty.
Files & item name
Files arrive through the upload files recipe; the item name through the dedicated item-name recipes.
Section 6
Update to Columns AI
The recipes above need a predictable template. The AI feature doesn't — you describe each column in plain English, once, and a single recipe fills the whole board from any update.
6.1 Setting it up
- Add the Update to Columns AI board view to your board (+ → Apps → Update to Columns).
- The view lists every column on the board with a text box under it. Write an instruction in the box of each column you want filled.
- Leave a column's box empty and the AI ignores it entirely. Use the filter at the top to hide the columns you aren't using.
- Click Save. Instructions are stored per board.
- Add the single recipe "when an update is created, match the content to the columns using AI" to the board.
You don't add an AI recipe per column — one recipe on the board covers all of them.
6.2 Writing instructions
Plain English works. Three keywords give you precise, deterministic control when you need it.
the text after
Format: the text after "your key".
From Users on Monday: 55 you get 55.
between
Format: between "start" and "end".
Each marker can be a whole sentence, not just a word.
prefix
Format: add prefix "your text".
Combines with the others: add prefix of "https://" and get the text between "URL:" and "\n".
free text
Anything else, in your own words: the customer's company name, the total amount, digits only, the urgency — Low, Medium or High.
6.3 Getting the best results
- Be specific about the shape, not just the meaning. "The delivery date, taken from the line starting with 'Deliver by'" beats "the delivery date".
- Give an example inside the instruction when a column is fussy — examples in your instruction are treated as authoritative.
- List the allowed labels when the target is a Status column, or you'll grow new ones.
- Dates come out as
MM/DD/YYYY. If your updates use day-first dates, say so in that column's instruction. - Nothing found is fine. The AI is instructed never to invent a value — if it can't find one, the column is left untouched rather than filled with a guess.
6.4 What leaves monday.com
The regular recipes run entirely on our own servers — update text and column values are never stored, and nothing goes to a third party. The AI recipe is different: for boards where you've saved AI instructions, the text of the triggering update and your column instructions are sent to a third-party AI provider to be parsed, and the result is written back.
Update to Columns was extended with this optional AI capability; the licence terms and privacy policy were updated to cover it and the terms of its use by those who choose to use it. If your updates carry regulated or sensitive data, review those documents — and simply don't add the AI recipe to those boards.
Section 7
Plans & usage
Pricing scales with how many values the app writes for your account each month. Start free, upgrade when you outgrow it.
Pricing is per account, not per user — everyone on the account shares one allowance, and there are no per-seat licences to assign. Every account starts on the Free plan automatically; monday runs the trial for the paid plans, so nothing extra needs activating on our side. Billing and plan changes happen through monday: Administration → Apps → Update to Columns → Billing.
To see where you stand mid-month, open Integrate → Update to Columns on any board: the Account usage tab shows the actions used against your allowance, and Board integrations shows how many recipes that board is running.
7.1 What counts as an action
One action is counted each time the app successfully writes something:
- A value written into a column — one action.
- An item renamed — one action.
- A file moved into a Files column — one action per file.
- An AI recipe — one action per column it fills, not one per update.
A run that finds nothing, or that fails, doesn't consume an action. So an update matching three of your five recipes costs three. The rough sum is monthly updates × fields per update.
7.2 If you stop paying
Nothing is deleted. The account returns to the Free plan: your recipes and AI instructions stay exactly where they are and keep running until the 50 monthly actions are used up. AI recipes stop, since AI needs Pro or Unlimited. Upgrade again and everything resumes.
Section 8
Frequently asked questions
The questions that come up most.
What should I keep in mind when typing text into a recipe?
The app acts on the first match it finds in the update, and matching is case-sensitive — the text in the recipe must appear in the update exactly as written. It doesn't only look at the start of a line; it searches the whole update for your text.
Include the colon if the update has one — Email:, not Email — otherwise the colon ends up in your column. And a phone number without its country part won't be found.
Does it work on updates that already exist?
No. Every recipe triggers on update created, so it acts on updates posted after the recipe was added. Historic updates aren't back-filled, and editing an old update doesn't trigger a run. To process an old item, post its content as a new update.
Can one recipe fill several columns?
Each Update to Columns action fills one destination, so a five-field update needs five actions. You can add them as five separate recipes, or chain all five into a single custom recipe under one trigger — same result, one automation to maintain.
The AI recipe is the exception: one recipe fills every column that has an instruction. It's available on Pro and Unlimited.
Does it work with subitems?
Subitems live on their own board in monday, so a recipe added to the parent board doesn't see subitem updates. Add the recipe to the subitems board to automate those.
How fast does it run?
Normally a few seconds from the update being posted. AI recipes take a little longer because the text has to be analysed. During heavy bursts the app backs off and retries against monday's rate limits, so a run can be delayed by up to a few minutes — but it isn't lost.
Will it overwrite a column that already has a value?
Yes. When a recipe finds a value it writes it, replacing whatever was there. If it finds nothing it leaves the column untouched — so a later update that omits a field won't wipe the value an earlier one set.
Can I handle two different update formats on one board?
Yes — that's what condition text is for. Add both sets of recipes, and give each set a condition matching a phrase unique to its format, such as New Lead versus Support Request. Each set then ignores the other's updates, which also keeps your action count down.
Can different boards behave differently?
Entirely. Recipes are added per board, and AI instructions are stored per board too, so each board can read a completely different update format. The only thing shared across the account is the plan and its monthly allowance.
Does the update have to be typed by a person?
No. Anything that creates an update works — a person typing, an email sent to the board's address, an integration, or another automation. The board email route is the most popular; see Feed the board straight from email.
Can I use it on a board fed by a monday form?
Forms write directly into columns, so there's usually nothing for the app to do. Where it helps is when a form has one long free-text answer that actually contains several fields — a recipe can then split that answer out across columns.
Which languages does it work with?
The regular recipes match text literally, so they work in any language — put the label in the recipe exactly as it appears in the update. Right-to-left text works for the same reason, although RTL tables may not resolve as expected; use the same-line recipe there.
The AI feature handles multiple languages, and you can write its instructions in English even when the updates aren't.
Is my update data sent anywhere outside monday.com?
For the regular recipes, no — parsing happens on our servers, update text and column values aren't stored, and nothing is forwarded.
For the AI recipe, the triggering update's text and your column instructions are sent to a third-party AI provider to be parsed. That happens only on boards with an AI recipe and saved instructions. See 6.4 What leaves monday.com.
How do I know it worked?
The column fills in. Beyond that, the board's Automations → Activity log shows every run, and when something goes wrong the app posts a notification on the item explaining what happened.
Silence with an empty column means the locator found nothing — start at the top of Troubleshooting.
Can I try the AI feature before upgrading?
Start a trial of Pro or Unlimited from Administration → Apps → Update to Columns → Billing — the trial includes AI in full. There's also a demo video if you'd rather see it first.
Is it priced per user?
No. The plan covers the whole monday account and every board on it. There are no per-seat licences to assign, and it doesn't matter which user posts the update.
Section 9
Troubleshooting
Start by opening the board's Automations → Activity log. Whether the recipe ran at all splits every problem into two very different halves.
9.1 The recipe ran, but nothing landed
The app searched and found nothing matching your locator. Almost always: capitalisation (email: won't match Email:), a missing or extra colon, a trailing or non-breaking space pasted in from Word or Outlook, look-alike characters (hyphen vs en-dash, straight vs curly quotes), or the wrong recipe — a label inside a table isn't on a "line". The fix: copy the label out of a real update and paste it in, character for character.
Dates are the one case that fails silently. Ambiguous formats like 03/04/2025 can be March 4th or April 3rd — prefer 2025-04-03 or 3 Apr 2025. Extra text captured alongside the date (Due: 12/05/2025 (confirmed)) also breaks parsing. Send the value to a Text column first to see exactly what was captured, then tighten the locator. Using AI? It outputs MM/DD/YYYY — say so in the instruction if your source is day-first.
The country part is required — a bare local number isn't recognised. Separators in the update are fine; they're stripped before writing. If the wrong number is picked up, set Position to last or to a specific index. If the number always sits after a label, the same line recipe into a Phone column is more reliable — no pattern needed.
The email recipe scans the whole update, and signatures, disclaimers and quoted replies all contain addresses — by default the first wins. Set Position (last is usually right for forwarded mail), or use the same line recipe against your own label instead.
People columns are filled by looking up a monday user by email address — a person's name will never work. The address also has to belong to a user on your account; watch for a personal address in the update where the monday account uses the work address.
It has to be a real table — text laid out with tabs or spaces isn't one, so use the same-line recipe there. The value must be in the next cell (a label in the last cell has no next cell), and the cell text must match exactly and completely — First Name won't match a cell reading First Name:. Right-to-left tables may not resolve as expected.
Both markers must appear, and the end text must come after the start text. If the start text occurs twice, the first occurrence is used, then the first end text after it. If the value runs to the end of the update there's no end marker to find — use the same-line recipe, or add a closing marker to your template (a line of dashes works well).
It reads real hyperlinks; a URL typed as plain text that monday didn't linkify is invisible to it. Your search text is matched against the address, not the visible text — to catch a link reading "Join meeting" that points at a Zoom room, search for zoom.us. If several match, the last one wins.
Check the extension filter (set it to all, or match the real extension) and the file name filter (leave it empty to move everything). The target must be a Files column — if the list looks empty, the board has none. The files must be attached to the update, not to the item.
Only .pdf and .docx are supported, and the PDF needs a real text layer — a scan has nothing to extract and the app has no OCR. Extracted text also breaks lines differently from what you see on screen, so a same-line locator can fail where a between-two-texts locator succeeds. Password-protected or corrupt files produce a notification on the item.
Each recipe writes a single value into a single destination; if a label appears twice, the first occurrence wins (for email and phone, change this with Position). Make the labels distinct in your template — Contact 1 Email, Contact 2 Email — and add a recipe for each. For genuinely repeating rows, one item per row is the right shape for monday.
9.2 Notifications the app posts on the item
The target is a type the app can't write to — Dropdown, Timeline, Location, Rating, Formula, Mirror, Connect boards and similar. Point the recipe at one of the supported types; a Text column always works, and monday's own automations can convert onward from there.
A value was found but monday refused it: non-numeric text sent to a Numbers column (12 units — use the number only recipe), a column renamed or deleted after the recipe was made, or required fields on the board blocking the write. Try the same value into a Text column — if that works, the problem is the value's shape, not the recipe.
The item was archived or deleted between the update being posted and the recipe running. Nothing is wrong with your setup and the run isn't retried. If you see this in bulk, check the board's other automations for a rule that archives items on creation.
The account has used its allowance — 50 on Free, 300 on Standard, 1500 on Pro. Recipes stop writing until the counter resets on the 1st, or the plan is upgraded. The notification links straight to plan selection; you can also reach it from Administration → Apps → Update to Columns → Billing.
The AI recipe is on the board but the account is on Free or Standard. Your regular recipes keep working normally — only the AI recipe is blocked. Upgrade, or replace the AI recipe with regular ones.
9.3 Nothing runs at all
The recipe may be on a different board — installing the app doesn't add recipes anywhere by itself. The trigger may not have fired: all recipes run on update created, so editing an existing update, or writing in the item's chat rather than the Updates tab, does nothing. If it's a subitem, the recipe has to live on the subitems board. Also check that the automation isn't paused, and that its creator still has access to the board.
The monthly quota is the most common cause mid-month — check for a notification on a recent item. Otherwise: the update template changed (someone reworded a label, or a mail client started wrapping lines differently), a column was renamed or deleted, the trial ended and the account dropped back to Free, or the automation's owner lost board access and monday paused it.
Your monday account URL and the board name; a screenshot of the recipe as configured, showing the exact text in every blank; a copy of a real update that should have worked, as text so we can see the exact characters; the target column's name and type; any notification the app posted on the item; and roughly when it last worked, if it used to. Send it to appsupport@unitask-inc.com.
Section 10
Need more help
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