Switch from monday CRM

Move from boards to a real CRM data model

Tonic Desk imports your monday CRM boards from CSV or Excel exports. Each board becomes a pipeline, Status columns become deal stages, and the updates feed on every item comes across as activity entries.

Most teams finish in around 20 minutes

What transfers

Items from each board imported as the appropriate Tonic Desk object (contacts, companies, or deals)
Status columns mapped to deal stages within their pipeline
Numbers, Text, Date, Dropdown, and Checkbox columns preserved as custom fields
Person column resolved as owner assignment (matched by email address)
Connect boards relationships preserved as contact-to-company links
Updates and comments imported as Activity entries with timestamps
Tags from monday's Tags column carried across as Tonic Desk tags

Step by step

1. Export each board as CSV or Excel

Open monday and navigate to your first CRM board (typically a "Leads" or "Contacts" board). Click the board name menu in the top-left, choose More actions, then Export board to Excel. monday generates a file with one row per item and one column per board column. Repeat for each board you want to bring across.

2. Decide on your pipeline mapping

Before importing, sketch how your monday boards map to Tonic Desk pipelines. The common pattern: your lead-board becomes Tonic Desk's first pipeline (top of funnel), your account-board or pipeline-board becomes the second pipeline (active deals). monday's Status columns become deal stages within each pipeline.

3. Export your contacts board

monday CRM stores contacts on a dedicated board. Export this board the same way: More actions > Export board to Excel. Make sure all Person, Email, and Phone columns are visible before exporting — hidden columns are excluded from the file.

4. Upload to Tonic Desk

In Tonic Desk, open Settings > Import. Upload your contacts board first, then your account/company board, then each deal pipeline board. The preview screen lets you confirm which monday Status column maps to which Tonic Desk stage. Custom columns (Numbers, Dates, Text, Dropdown) map to Tonic Desk custom fields with type detection.

5. Import updates as activity

monday's updates feed (the comment and activity column on each item) exports as a single text column. During import, check Treat updates column as activity so Tonic Desk parses each update into a separate Activity entry on the contact or deal, preserving timestamps and authors where possible.

Field mapping reference

Source Field	Tonic Desk Field	Notes
Item name (Contact board)	first_name + last_name	Split on the first space
Person column	owner	Resolved by matching the user's email
Email column	email	Direct match
Phone column	phone	Direct match
Company (Connect boards)	company	Auto-linked when the company board is imported first
Item name (Deal board)	name	Deal name, direct match
Numbers column (value)	amount	Numeric value preserved
Status column	stage	Each Status label maps to a Tonic Desk stage
Date column (close date)	close_date	Direct match
Dropdown columns	custom fields	Picklist values preserved
Updates column	activity entries	Each update becomes a separate Activity entry

What doesn't transfer (and workarounds)

Board automations — monday's automation recipes are workspace-specific. Workaround: document active automations (the "When X happens, do Y" rules) and rebuild the important ones with Tonic Desk's automation builder.
Mirror columns — Cross-board mirror columns reference live data and do not export with values. Workaround: re-import the source board first, then the mirror's value gets resolved via the Connect boards relationship on the target side.
Formula columns — monday formula results export as static text. Workaround: recreate formulas as Tonic Desk derived fields if you need them to recalculate, or accept the static value if it is a snapshot.
Files column — Files stored on monday items do not export as part of the CSV. Workaround: download files individually from monday before canceling, or use monday's API to bulk download attachments.
Dashboards and reports — monday dashboards stay with monday. Workaround: Tonic Desk's reports cover the equivalent of pipeline value, conversion by stage, and owner performance. Rebuild your top three dashboards as Tonic Desk reports.
Notifications and integrations — Slack, email, and other notification recipes do not transfer. Workaround: reconfigure notifications under Settings > Notifications in Tonic Desk.

Tips for a smooth switch

Map your boards to pipelines before you start importing. The mental shift from monday boards to a CRM pipeline structure trips people up — sketch it on paper first. Lead-board to first pipeline, account-board to second pipeline is the most common pattern.
Make every column visible on each board before exporting. Hidden columns are excluded from the export file, and it is easy to miss a custom field that gets used in one Smart Search.
Import your contacts board first, then your company/account board, then deal pipelines. That way contact-to-company links resolve naturally during the deal import.
If you use Connect boards heavily to link items across boards, those relationships preserve as Tonic Desk's contact-company associations when you import in the right order.
monday's updates feed can get noisy. Consider filtering updates to the last 12 months before importing — most teams find historical updates beyond that point are rarely referenced and just inflate the activity timeline.
Status columns sometimes use color labels with the same name across boards. During the Tonic Desk import preview, double-check that "Working on it" on the Leads board maps to a different stage than "Working on it" on the Accounts board.

How does monday's board structure map to a CRM data model?

monday is generic-purpose: a board can represent anything. monday CRM's standard template uses three boards — Leads, Contacts, and Accounts — plus a Deal pipeline board. Tonic Desk maps Leads/Accounts boards to Companies, the Contacts board to Contacts, and Deal pipeline boards to Deals organized by pipeline. Each Status column on a deal board becomes a stage. The structure is more rigid than monday's free-form approach but maps cleanly when you import in the right order.

What happens to my Status column values?

monday Status columns are colored labels — Tonic Desk treats each label as a deal stage. During import, the preview screen shows your Status labels and lets you confirm or remap them to Tonic Desk stages. If you use the same Status column name across multiple boards, each board's labels are kept separate so cross-pipeline mappings stay clean.

Can I bring across the updates feed on each item?

Yes. monday exports each item's update feed as a single text column. During import, enable the "Treat updates column as activity" option and Tonic Desk parses each update into a separate Activity entry on the contact or deal, preserving the author and timestamp where they appear in the export.

What happens to my monday automations?

monday's automation recipes are workspace-specific and do not export. Document your active automations as a checklist before canceling — most teams find they only actively rely on three or four ("When status changes to Won, create task" and similar). Rebuild those in Tonic Desk's automation builder, which uses a similar trigger-and-action structure.

Are mirror and formula columns supported?

Mirror columns export with empty values because they reference live data on a source board. Once you import the source board into Tonic Desk and link it via Connect boards relationships, the mirrored value resolves naturally on the linked side. Formula columns export as static text — recreate them as Tonic Desk derived fields if you need ongoing recalculation, or keep the static value if a snapshot is fine.