Recipes and triggers
Every General Caster recipe, when it can run, which plan it needs, which columns it can write into, and how to write into a column of another board.
Everything General Caster does is a recipe that you add to a board from Integrate, like the monday.com automations. A recipe has a trigger, which decides when it runs, and an action, which decides what it does.
The recipes
| Recipe | Item created | Column changes | Any column changes | Status changes | Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perform formula and cast result to column | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Free |
| Perform formula and cast result to mirrored column | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Standard | |
| Perform formula and cast result to item name | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Standard | |
| Convert currency | ✓ | Standard | |||
| Create barcode and upload to a column or an update | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Pro |
| Auto-increment / decrement a Number column | ✓ | Pro | |||
| Create map and upload to a column or an update | ✓ | Enterprise |
Don’t see some of them? Installations made long ago may lack the newest recipes. Install General Caster again from the monday.com apps marketplace: the recipes you already have keep working.
Choosing the trigger
- When an item is created runs once, for values that never change, like a code or a default due date.
- When a column changes runs when that one column changes. It’s the most efficient choice when the formula depends on one column.
- When any column changes runs on every change of the item. Convenient for formulas that read many columns, but it uses more credits.
- When a status changes runs when a Status column changes, optionally only to a given label.
Each run also counts as an action in your monday.com plan: see monday’s automation and integration actions.
Which columns a formula can write into
Text, Long text, Numbers, Status, Dropdown, Date, Timeline, Week, Hour, Link, Email, Phone, Location, Country, Rating, Checkbox, World clock, Tags, People, Connect boards, the item name and Files. Each type expects its own format: see A column did not accept the value. Writing into the item name, a People or Files column, or a column of another board needs a paid plan.
Writing into another board (mirrored column)
A Mirror column shows values of the items connected on another board. The recipe perform formula and cast result to mirrored column writes the result into the original column of the connected item: this is how data moves across boards.
monday doesn’t list mirrored columns in the recipe, so it asks for the ID of the mirrored column:
- Turn on Developer mode: click your profile picture › monday.labs › Developer mode.
- Open the menu of the Mirror column: its ID is shown at the top.
- Type that ID in the recipe.
The recipe doesn’t work when the Connect boards column links more than one board.
The new automation blocks
monday’s new automation builder lets you combine any trigger with General Caster’s blocks: calculate a formula (writing the result, or passing it to the next step), convert a currency, and recalculate every item of a group or board. They are being released: this guide will show them as they become available.