How to Set Up a Project in monday.com: A Beginner’s Walkthrough (2026)

Quick answer: To set up a project in monday.com, create a workspace for your team and add a board for the project, either from a template or from scratch. Split the work into groups (phases or sprints), then add the columns you need: status, owner, due date or timeline, priority. Enter tasks as items with subitems for detail, and invite your team. Then add views (Kanban, timeline, calendar), a few automations and a dashboard. Plan for your plan: the Free plan covers up to 2 seats, and timeline and calendar views, guest access, automations and integrations start on Standard.

Updated October 2026

monday.com is easy to start with and easy to over-build. A new board looks like a colourful spreadsheet, and it is tempting to add twenty columns on day one. The projects that work best start small: a clear structure, a handful of columns everyone fills in, and one or two views that match how the team plans. This walkthrough takes you from an empty account to a working project in ten steps, with the reasoning behind each choice.

New to the platform? The monday.com profile on Spotsaas covers features and reviews, and our monday.com pricing guide explains plans and seat bundles.

The building blocks: workspaces, boards, groups, items and columns

• Workspace: a folder-like space for a team or department, holding its boards and dashboards.
• Board: one project, process or list of work. Think of it as a structured table.
• Group: a section of the board, such as a phase, sprint, month or workstream.
• Item: one task or deliverable (a row). Items can have subitems for smaller steps.
• Column: one typed piece of information about each item: status, person, date, number, file and so on.
• View: a different way to look at the same board: table, Kanban, timeline, calendar, chart.
• Dashboard: widgets that summarise one or many boards.

How to set up a project in monday.com, step by step

Step 1: Create a workspace for the team

Create one workspace per team or department (for example Marketing or Client Delivery) instead of one per project. Projects become boards inside it, which keeps dashboards and permissions simple.

Step 2: Create the board: template or blank

Add a new board and choose whether to start from a template or a blank board. Templates give you sensible groups, columns and sometimes automations; a blank board gives you full control. Our guide to monday.com templates for project management explains which template types fit which kind of project. Name the board after the project and set who can see it.

Step 3: Structure the work into groups

Groups should reflect how the team thinks about the plan: phases (Discovery, Build, Launch), sprints, months or workstreams. Avoid using groups for status (To do, Done); that job belongs to a status column, which works better with automations and dashboards.

Step 4: Add the columns you need, and no more

Start with four to six columns. These cover most projects:

Customise status labels and colours so they mean the same thing on every board. Consistency across boards is what makes dashboards useful later.

Step 5: Add tasks as items and subitems

Write items as deliverables with a verb: “Draft homepage copy”, not “Homepage”. Give every item one owner and a date. Use subitems for the steps inside a deliverable, but keep them light; if a subitem needs its own timeline and dependencies, it is probably an item.

Step 6: Invite your team and set permissions

Invite team members to the board and decide who can edit. On paid plans, people who only need to see progress can be added as viewers, and from Standard up you can invite guests such as clients or contractors to shared boards. Check the current rules for viewers and guests on your plan, because they affect how many paid seats you need.

Step 7: Add views

The main table is for entering and editing data. Add views for planning and day-to-day work:

• Kanban, grouped by status, for daily stand-ups.
• Timeline or Gantt, using the timeline column and dependencies, for planning and spotting overlaps.
• Calendar, using the date column, for deadline-driven work such as content or events.

At the time of writing, timeline and calendar views were part of the Standard plan and above.

Step 8: Automate the repetitive steps

Automations follow a “when this happens, do that” pattern. Good first automations:

• When status changes to Done, notify the project lead.
• When a date arrives and the status is not Done, notify the owner.
• When an item is created, assign a default owner.
• When status changes to Stuck, notify the lead.

Automations and integrations start on Standard and are metered monthly. At the time of writing, Standard included 250 automation actions a month and Pro 25,000, so keep early automations simple.

Step 9: Connect the tools you already use

Connect integrations such as Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Drive so updates reach people where they already work. Many teams also add a form that creates items on the board, which turns ad hoc requests into tracked work.

Step 10: Build a dashboard and review weekly

Create a dashboard with a status overview, items by owner, overdue items and a timeline or workload widget. If you run several projects, point the dashboard at all of their boards. Then use it in a short weekly review: what is stuck, what is late, what changes next week. A board that is reviewed every week stays accurate.

Start from a template or from scratch?

Choose a template if your project follows a familiar pattern (a project plan, a launch, a sprint, a content calendar or client onboarding) and you want sensible columns and views from the start. Delete what you do not need.

Choose a blank board if your process is unusual, you are migrating an existing structure from another tool, or you want to keep the board very small. You can always add columns and views later.

Common setup mistakes

• Too many columns. If nobody fills a column in, delete it.
• Status as groups. Use a status column so automations and dashboards work.
• Shared ownership. One owner per item; others can be mentioned in updates.
• Inconsistent labels across boards. “Done” should mean the same everywhere.
• Automating before the process is stable. Run the board manually for a week first.

Limitations to keep in mind

monday.com’s flexibility means there is no single right setup, and boards built by different people can drift apart, so agree on conventions early. Several features covered here (timeline and calendar views, guests, automations, integrations) need a paid plan, and paid plans have a 3-seat minimum. Very complex scheduling, such as resource levelling across a large portfolio, may need a specialist tool; our best Gantt chart software and best PPM software guides cover those.

Coming from another tool? See our guides to moving from Trello to monday.com and from Asana to monday.com. Comparing options? See best project management software and the project management software category.

Frequently asked questions