Resources
Automation & monday.com glossary
Plain-English definitions of the terms that come up when you start automating your business.
A
- AI agent
- An AI agent is software that can take actions to complete a task, not just answer questions. For example, it might read an incoming email, look up the customer in your CRM and draft a reply for a person to approve.Related: AI Agents & Automation
- API
- An API (application programming interface) is the official way one piece of software lets other software read or change its data. Most integrations between business systems are built on APIs.Related: Custom Integrations
- Approval workflow
- An approval workflow routes a request, such as a quote, invoice or leave request, to the right person for sign-off and records the decision. Automating it removes chasing and shows where each request is up to.Related: AI Agents & Automation
- Automation
- Automation means letting software carry out repeatable steps that a person would otherwise do by hand, such as sending reminders, moving data between systems or creating tasks when something happens.Related: AI Agents & Automation
B
- Board
- In monday.com, a board is a table where a team tracks a type of work, such as leads, projects or support tickets. Each row is an item and each column holds a piece of information about it.Related: monday.com Implementation
- Business process analysis (BPA)
- Business process analysis is mapping how work actually flows through a business, step by step, to find delays, double handling and risks before changing systems or adding automation.Related: Process & Business Analysis
C
- Change management
- Change management is the planning, communication and training that help people adopt a new way of working. A new system only pays off if the team actually uses it.Related: Training & Support
- Column
- In monday.com, a column holds one type of information for every item on a board, such as a status, date, owner or number.Related: monday.com Implementation
- CRM
- A CRM (customer relationship management system) keeps track of your leads, clients and every interaction with them in one place, so the whole team can see the full history and next steps.Related: monday.com Implementation
- Current state
- The current state is how a process works today, including the workarounds, spreadsheets and manual steps. Mapping it honestly is the first step to improving it.Related: Process & Business Analysis
D
- Dashboard
- A dashboard pulls numbers and charts from your work into one view, so managers can see progress, workload and bottlenecks without asking for a report.Related: monday.com Implementation
- Data migration
- Data migration is moving records from an old system into a new one, such as clients, deals or projects, while keeping them accurate and linked correctly.Related: Custom Integrations
- Double entry
- Double entry is typing the same information into more than one system, such as a CRM, a spreadsheet and an accounting package. It wastes time and causes errors, and is one of the most common things automation removes.Related: Custom Integrations
F
- Field mapping
- Field mapping is deciding which piece of information in one system goes into which field in another when you connect or migrate them, for example a CRM's 'Company' going into Xero's 'Contact name'.Related: Custom Integrations
- Form automation
- Form automation turns form submissions, such as enquiries, onboarding forms or requests, into tasks, records and notifications automatically, so nothing waits in an inbox.Related: AI Agents & Automation
H
- Hand-off
- A hand-off is the point where work passes from one person or team to another, such as sales to onboarding. Hand-offs are where work most often stalls, so they're a common target for automation.Related: Process & Business Analysis
I
- Integration
- An integration connects two systems so information flows between them automatically, without someone copying it across.Related: Custom Integrations
- Item
- In monday.com, an item is a single row on a board, such as one lead, one project or one ticket.Related: monday.com Implementation
L
- Large language model (LLM)
- A large language model is the type of AI behind tools such as ChatGPT and Claude. It's trained on large amounts of text and can read, write, summarise and classify language.Related: AI & Automation Consulting
- Low-code
- Low-code tools let you build apps, workflows and automations mostly by configuring them visually rather than writing code. monday.com, Make and Zapier are low-code platforms.Related: AI Agents & Automation
M
- Make
- Make (formerly Integromat) is a visual automation platform for connecting apps and building multi-step workflows, with detailed control over how data is transformed along the way.Related: AI Agents & Automation
- monday CRM
- monday CRM is monday.com's customer relationship management product, for tracking leads, deals, contacts and client activity alongside the rest of your team's work.Related: monday.com Implementation
- monday service
- monday service is monday.com's service management product, for handling support tickets and internal requests with queues, response times and automated routing.Related: monday.com Implementation
- monday.com
- monday.com is a work management platform where teams plan, track and automate their work on configurable boards. It includes products for CRM, service desks, software development and marketing campaigns.Related: monday.com Implementation
N
- n8n
- n8n is a workflow automation tool that can be self-hosted, so your data stays on infrastructure you control. It suits more technical automations and businesses with data residency requirements.Related: AI Agents & Automation
- No-code
- No-code tools let non-technical people build forms, workflows and automations entirely by clicking and configuring, with no programming.Related: AI Agents & Automation
O
- Onboarding workflow
- An onboarding workflow is the set of steps to bring on a new client or employee, such as collecting documents, setting up accounts and booking a kick-off. Automating it makes every onboarding consistent.Related: AI Agents & Automation
P
- Process map
- A process map is a diagram of the steps, people and systems involved in a piece of work, from trigger to finish. It makes delays and double handling visible.Related: Process & Business Analysis
- Prompt
- A prompt is the instruction or question you give an AI model. Clear prompts with context and examples produce far more reliable results.Related: AI & Automation Consulting
R
- Recipe
- In monday.com, an automation recipe is a ready-made rule written as a sentence, such as "When status changes to Done, notify the client owner".Related: monday.com Implementation
S
- Single source of truth
- A single source of truth is one agreed place where a piece of information lives and is kept up to date, so everyone works from the same numbers instead of conflicting spreadsheets.Related: Solution & Technical Design
- Solution design
- Solution design is planning how systems, workflows and integrations will fit together before anything is built, so the build is faster and nothing important is missed.Related: Solution & Technical Design
- Subitem
- In monday.com, a subitem is a smaller task nested under an item, such as the individual steps of a project.Related: monday.com Implementation
- Sync
- A sync keeps the same information up to date in two systems, so a change in one appears in the other automatically.Related: Custom Integrations
T
- Target state
- The target state is how a process should work once it's improved: who does what, in which system, and what's automated. It's the blueprint for the change.Related: Process & Business Analysis
- Trigger
- A trigger is the event that starts an automation, such as a form being submitted, a status changing or a date arriving.Related: AI Agents & Automation
W
- Webhook
- A webhook is a message one system sends to another the moment something happens, such as "a new order was placed". It lets automations react instantly instead of checking for changes on a schedule.Related: Custom Integrations
- Workflow
- A workflow is the sequence of steps a piece of work goes through from start to finish, such as enquiry, quote, approval and invoice.Related: Process & Business Analysis
- Workflow automation
- Workflow automation is using software to move work through its steps automatically: creating tasks, notifying the right people and updating records, so the team focuses on the parts that need judgement.Related: AI Agents & Automation
Z
- Zapier
- Zapier is a popular no-code tool for connecting apps with simple automations called Zaps, such as "when a form is submitted, add a row to a spreadsheet".Related: AI Agents & Automation
Let's find the hours your team is losing
Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We'll talk through what's not working and give you an honest view of where to start.