Featured image illustrating a step-by-step guide on syncing monday.com to Microsoft Excel through Unito, depicted by the connected logos through circles and dotted lines.

How to Sync monday.com Tasks to Microsoft Excel with Automated Updates

Published in Use cases on , last updated .

Tracking task progress across apps with the help of an automation platform helps eliminate the necessity of copy-pasting key details, facts and figures to and from your spreadsheet. That’s where Unito shines the most, and that’s what we’ll be discussing in this article: how to report on monday.com tasks from Microsoft Excel. In this context, we’ll be looking at a report tracking the progress of freelance contractors. How do we do that? By syncing monday.com tasks with a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.

Unito turns the details of your tasks into mappable fields that appear in your spreadsheet columns. The key is to use the first row as a table header and give each column an appropriate name that pairs well with the fields in monday.com.

Here’s what our synced monday.com to Excel integration looks like:

monday.com synced to Microsoft Excel with Unito
This is a simplified example of how Unito syncs fields between monday.com items and rows in Microsoft Excel.

Why sync monday.com to Microsoft Excel with Unito?

monday.com is one of the best project management tools on the market with a wide range of use cases to support collaboration. But if you’re building a report to share with executives or board members, they don’t often want to jump into your boards to see how things are going. That’s where spreadsheets come in handy: they’re flexible, functional, and everyone is used to working with them. So you have two choices: copy paste all the key details from your monday.com boards to a spreadsheet, however long that takes, or connect them to an automation platform with two-way sync, such as Unito.

A two-way integration with Unito lets you determine how new rows are created in Microsoft Excel, as well as how those rows update based on changes later on. That means in addition to automating row creation, you can also keep individual rows updated in real-time -or not- based on how you like to work.

Before we build a report in Excel synced with monday.com:

Create a table header in Excel

Go to www.office.com and open Excel Online, then find your spreadsheet. Make sure each column in the first row is clearly labelled with whatever titles you want to map with your monday.com board. If you don’t know where to begin, you can start with this Microsoft Excel template.

Here is an example of a header row. In the next step, we’ll show you how to use the Unito add-in to label the first and last columns of your sheet: “UnitoID” and “Last Modified”. The Unito extension does this automatically, or you can create the titles manually.

Microsoft Excel: Install the Unito add-in

Now, go to www.office.com and open Excel Online.

  1. Then, from your spreadsheet click on File, then Get Add-ins.
  2. In the next screen click STORE and type Unito into the search box.
  3. Click Add and follow the on-screen instructions to install the Unito add-in. 

Three small screenshots showing how to find the Unito Add-In and install it for Microsoft Excel to sync spreadsheets

Follow the on-screen instructions to add Unito to your Microsoft workspace. 

Once the add-in is installed, click Insert the two columns in this sheet.

You’ll see UnitoID and Last Modified. Only columns between those two will sync with Unito. Having them columns in your table header is essential for this integration to function as intended. You can hide them, but don’t delete or modify those columns.

Add Unito to your monday.com workspace

  1. Login to your monday.com account
  2. Then, select Board Power-Ups > Apps Marketplace
  3. Type Unito in the search field
  4. Click on the Unito app, then Add to your account
  5. Now, hit Install, verify your workspace and board and Add Feature
  6. Authorize monday.com then Authorize again (the first button authorizes monday.com in Unito, while the second authorizes Unito in monday.com)
  7. Click Got it.

Unito Step 1: Connect your monday.com board and Excel spreadsheet to Unito

  1. Now you can either go to the Unito App and click +Create Flow or continue from your monday.com workspace once you’ve added the app.
  2. Click Start Here to connect your tools.
  3. Select +Add a tool to this flow in either column and connect monday.com. Then click +Choose account to specify the monday.com account you want to use.
  4. Pick the monday.com board you want to connect to Unito.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to connect Microsoft Excel.
  6. Click Confirm.
Connect your monday.com board and Excel spreadsheet to Unito

Step 2: Set a flow direction between monday.com and Excel

Flow direction determines how new tasks or rows are created by Unito. So with a two-way sync at this stage, adding new rows to Excel will create a matching item in monday.com, and vice versa. Since we’re building a report in a spreadsheet, we’ll choose a one-way sync from monday to Excel.

Set a flow direction between monday.com and Microsoft Excel

Note: Later, you’ll be able to add field mappings to determine which fields will be kept updated in both tools — regardless of the flow direction you set here.

Select Confirm when you’ve chosen a flow direction.

Step 3: Set rules to filter data between monday.com and Excel

This is where you can set up conditions to filter out monday items that you don’t want to appear in your spreadsheet. If you don’t set any rules, then all items in your chosen monday.com board will appear in Excel. If that’s what you want, simply hit confirm and proceed.

Otherwise, Add a new trigger to begin setting up your rules. There can be some variability here, depending on your particular setup.

Set rules to filter data between monday.com and Excel
Here we’ve chosen to sync items based on their monday.com Group

Rules can filter data using several fields in monday.com, though we recommend choosing status or priority.
You can learn more about setting up rules here.

Step 4: Customize field mappings to sync rows between monday.com and Excel

Fields represent the details of your spreadsheet rows and monday.com items. Since you’re sending field data to a spreadsheet, you’ll only be able to sync numbers or text fields.

First, you’ll be asked whether you want to set up your field mappings from scratch or let Unito do this automatically. Since we have to name all of our fields in Excel you’ll need to choose the manual option.

A screenshot of the first step of Unito's field mapping process: picking auto-map or start from scratch.

Most fields will be automatically mapped for two-way updates, but you can modify each individually if you prefer one-way updates in some cases. For example, you may not want changes in Excel to affect your monday.com items, so you could set each mapped field to a one-way sync.

Select +Add mapping, then Select a field in both bases to pair the fields together. Here’s a simplified version of our monday.com to Microsoft Excel field mappings:

Customize field mappings to sync rows between monday.com and Microsoft Excel
We named all of our fields in monday and Excel similarly to avoid confusion. Name refers to the task name, and our update/status fields are text-based so users can provide any information they wish.

Note: If you change a column name in a synced spreadsheet, be sure to update your flow’s field mappings in Unito or else your data will stop syncing.

Click Confirm when you’re satisfied with your field mappings.

Step 5: Save, close, and launch your new monday.com Excel integration

And that’s it! You’ve just built a flow between monday.com and Excel. Congratulations!

If you followed the steps above, your flow ill now:

  • Automatically create new Excel rows based on specific monday.com items
  • Keep your spreadsheet and board updated in real-time.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know.

What’s next after setting up your monday.com to Microsoft Excel integration?

If you want to know what else you can do with Unito, here’s some inspiration to help you power up your workflows:

Here’s a demo of Unito’s Microsoft Excel integration with Asana

Although Asana’s interface differs from monday.com, the same steps and principles apply to syncing tasks to spreadsheets with Unito.