Formula: Boards & Subitems — how to use it
Combine numbers from any board — including subitems — into one formula, and show the result live on your dashboard.
Before you start
You need:
- Permission to edit the dashboard you want to add the widget to.
-
At least one board with a numeric column — a
Numberscolumn, or aFormulaorMirrorcolumn that resolves to a number. - View access to those boards. The widget reads data as you, so it can only ever show numbers you could already see yourself.
Installing the widget
- Open the dashboard Go to the dashboard where you want the number to appear, or create a new one.
- Add the widget Click Add widget, then choose Formula: Boards & Subitems from the apps section.
- Start from the template A new widget offers Start from a budget vs. actual template. That creates two variables and a variance formula for you. You can also start empty and add your own.
Setting up your first formula
The widget works in two steps: define variables (each one is a single number pulled from a board), then write a formula that combines them.
1. Define a variable
Open Settings and add a variable. Each one has six fields:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name |
How you refer to it in the formula, e.g. BUDGET becomes
{BUDGET}. Letters, numbers and underscores only.
|
| Board | Which board to read from. Variables can each use a different board. |
| Group | Optional. Limit the calculation to one group instead of the whole board. |
| Source | Items reads the board's own rows. Subitems rolls up values from every subitem beneath them. |
| Column | The numeric column to read. Formula and mirror columns are supported. |
| Aggregation | How to reduce many rows to one number: sum, average, count, min or max. |
2. Write the formula
Reference variables with braces and combine them with + -
* / % and parentheses. Click a variable chip to insert
it at the cursor.
Examples
({ACTUAL}-{BUDGET})/{BUDGET} — budget variance, shown as a percentage
{LOGGED}/{ESTIMATED} — utilisation, shown as a percentage
{REVENUE}-{COST} — gross margin, shown as currency
The formula is checked as you type. If the syntax is wrong, or it references a variable that doesn't exist, you'll see the reason immediately and Save stays disabled — a broken formula never reaches your dashboard.
3. Choose how the result looks
Pick Plain, Currency (with any symbol you like) or Percent, and set the number of decimals. Optionally turn on thresholds to colour the result green or red — and set whether higher or lower is the good direction, so "under budget" can be the green case.
Percent formats already multiply by 100. Write
{LOGGED}/{ESTIMATED}, not ({LOGGED}/{ESTIMATED})*100 — otherwise
101% renders as 10,167%.
How refreshing works
The widget re-reads your boards every 60 seconds, and immediately whenever you switch back to the browser tab. Edit a value on the board and it will catch up on its own — no manual refresh needed.
Plans
Every feature is available on every tier — including subitem roll-up. Nothing is held back for a higher plan. The price follows your monday account's size, and accounts of up to 3 seats are free. New installs get a 14-day trial of everything.
Subscriptions are handled entirely by monday.com in your account's billing section. If a subscription lapses, the widget stops displaying results until it's renewed — your variables and formula are kept, and come back untouched.
Uninstalling the app does not cancel your subscription. Cancel it in monday's billing settings, not by removing the widget.
If something looks wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Board or column not found | The board or column a variable points at was deleted or renamed away. Open Settings and re-pick it. |
| Division by zero | A variable used as a denominator currently sums to zero. Usually an empty column or a group filter that matched nothing. |
| Invalid formula syntax |
Usually an unbalanced parenthesis, or a {TOKEN} whose variable was renamed
or removed.
|
| No response from monday | A network or session hiccup. Reload the dashboard. |
| A number you didn't expect | Check that both variables use the same aggregation. Comparing an average against a sum is the most common cause of a surprising result. |
Support
Email [email protected] with your account name, what you configured, and what you expected to see. Screenshots of the widget and its settings make this much faster to answer.