How to update existing monday items with a Google sheet (Integration)

Often when importing into monday.com, you'll already have items in your board that you want to update with new data.

In this tutorial, we'll show how you can import data from a Google sheet in order to update your existing monday.com items.

This tutorial will also work for importing CSV or Excel files too!

Install the Data Importer app for monday.com

Connect to your Google Account

1. Select the Google Sheets application from the dropdown list, then press the blue Connect button.

2. A new tab will open up that will allow you to connect your account with Google. Choose the Google account that you want to authenticate for. You can always connect to a different account later if you need to.

Set-up your Google Sheets Integration

1. Navigate to your large Google Sheet. Ensure that the header names are in the first row.

2. Copy the url from the browser search bar.

3. Paste the url into the 'Google Sheets Url' field.

4. Select the sheet name that you want to import data from. In this case it is just Sheet1.

5. Select the fieds that you want to import from your sheet.

Select a match column with your existing monday board

1. Select your existing monday board and the group you want to import your sheet in to.

2. Open the 'Advanced Settings' option and select 'On' for update existing items.

3. Select a match columns and a match field:

Match Column: The column from your current monday.com board that you're going to match with the 'Match Field'

Match Field: The column from your Google sheet that you're going to match with the 'Match Column'

It's important that the match column and match field are in the same format and contain the same values. This is what Data Importer will use to match your sheets rows with your monday rows in order to update the correct item. 

In this example well be matching the email in our monday board which can be found in the 'Item' column with the 'Email' field from the Google Sheet.

4. If there's any rows from your Google sheet that don't already have a match in your monday board, then Data Importer will create a new item for you in you r

Optional: Map Columns to your monday Board

You may also want to update existing columns rather than add new columns. This will overwrite the item value that already exists for that column. 

1. Click on the column settings button to open the modal.

2. In the 'Column Mapping' section, you can select the columns from your existing monday board that you want to map your Google Sheets columns to. Data Importer will automatically set the column type to the type of the existing column. 

4. If you don't map to an existing column, a new column will be created. You can set the type of this column in the 'Column Type' section.

Press Run and wait for Data to load

1. Once you’ve filled out all the required fields, press the blue Run button.

2. For large imports, Data Importer will run these in the background so that you can close the view and continue with your other tasks. 

View Your Data

1. Once you've opened your import, you'll be able to see your new board that contains all your imported items and columns.

2. You'll notice that your existing items have been updated with your newly imported data from your Google sheet. Any new items and columns will be added to the board too.

Automatically sync your Google Sheet with your monday.com board

Now that you know how to import a Google Sheet into a monday board to update existing items, you can automate your imports by using Data Importer's scheduler. This means your boards will automatically refresh with the latest data, even when you're offline or not signed into monday.com

You can customise the schedule by frequency, days of import, time and timezone.

You can view all your scheduled imports in one table from all of your applications.