monday.com Subitem Rollup: The Complete Guide (2026)

Direct answer: a subitem rollup brings subitem values up to the parent item: totals, progress percentages, combined statuses, date spans, merged assignees. monday.com covers the display-only part natively with the subitem summary (a mirror column). When the rolled-up value has to work in automations, formulas, dashboards, or exports, you write it into a real column with a rollup app. This guide covers both paths end to end, by goal.

What “rollup” means on a monday.com board

Subitems live on their own hidden board, one level below the items you see. That separation is why a parent item knows nothing about its subitems by default. It’s also why every team that plans work at the subtask level eventually asks the same questions: What’s the total? How much is done? Who’s actually on this? When does the last subtask end?

A rollup answers those questions on the parent row, automatically.

The native options (start here)

Subitem summary on the parent

Right-click a subitem column header → Show summary on parent item. Depending on the column type you get a sum (Numbers), a colored distribution bar (Status), or a range (Date/Timeline). Free, instant, and enough if you just need to see the aggregate.

The all-subitems-done automation

monday.com ships a recipe along the lines of “when all subitems’ statuses are Done, set parent status to Done.” Useful for the binary case. It does nothing at 40% or 80% done. More in setting the parent status from subitem statuses.

Where native stops: the mirror-column wall

The subitem summary is a mirror — a computed reference, not a stored value. As of mid-2026, even with the native rollup improvements that came with multi-level boards, mirror values:

• can’t trigger or feed most automations,
• can’t be read reliably by formula columns,
• are skipped or blank in many exports and dashboard widgets,
• can’t be filtered (“only billable subitems”) or reshaped (“statuses → a % number”).

If none of that bites you, stop here and pay nothing. The rest of this guide is for when it does. The full background is in why the subitem summary column doesn’t work in automations.

Rollups into real columns

A rollup app computes the aggregate server-side and writes it into a normal parent column. The result sorts and filters like any other value, shows up in charts and exports, and can trigger automations. SubItems Pro (our app) does this with one rule per value: source subitem column → function → parent target column, kept current by webhooks. Below is everything you can roll up, organized by goal.

Totals and numbers

Numbers → SUM / AVG / MIN / MAX / COUNT into a parent Numbers column. Budgets, costs, story points, quantities. Walkthrough: how to sum subitems to the parent item.

Progress and completion

• Status → PERCENT_BY_LABEL("Done") → a live progress % on the parent.
• Status → COUNT_BY_LABEL("Done") → “3 of 7 done” counters.
• Checkbox → PERCENT_CHECKED / COUNT_CHECKED / ALL_CHECKED for checklist-style tracking.

Walkthroughs: show subitem progress on the parent and count done subitems.

Parent status logic

• ALL_DONE: the parent takes the label once every subitem shares it.
• MOST_COMMON: the parent reflects the dominant subitem status.
• THRESHOLD_STATUS: “if ≥ 80% of subitems are Done → Ready for review, else In progress.” The native all-or-nothing recipe, generalized.

Dates and timelines

• Date → EARLIEST / LATEST: kickoff and due dates derived from subtasks.
• Timeline → SPAN stretches the parent timeline from the earliest subitem start to the latest end, automatically.

Time

• Time Tracking → SUM_TRACKED / AVG_TRACKED: actual tracked hours totaled on the parent (completed sessions only). No native equivalent exists. Walkthrough: roll up subitem time tracking.
• Hour → SUM_HOURS / AVG_HOURS covers manually entered time values.

People

• People → MIRROR_ALL turns the parent’s People column into the de-duplicated union of everyone assigned to any subitem.
• People → COUNT_UNIQUE: headcount across subtasks.

Labels and categories

• Dropdown → UNIQUE_LABELS: the parent collects every label used across subitems.
• Dropdown/Status → COUNT_BY_LABEL / PERCENT_BY_LABEL: count or percentage per category.
• Rating → AVG (and SUM/MIN/MAX/COUNT) averages review scores upward.

Filtered rollups

Any rule can carry a subitem filter — a Status column plus the labels that should count. Sum Hours where Status = Billable. Progress % counting only In-scope subtasks. Subitems with an unset filter status are excluded by design. Details and worked examples: filtered subitem rollups. Filters are the one paid rollup capability (Basic plan, $8/month). Every column type and function above is free.

Setting it up (two minutes per rule)

1. Add the SubItems Pro — Rollup Sync view to your board and authorize once (monday.com OAuth).
2. Add Rule → pick source column → function → target column (only compatible targets are offered).
3. Optionally add a filter, enable auto-sync, save.

Webhooks keep the value current from then on; Sync now recalculates on demand. Syncs are unlimited and never consume plan actions. Full documentation lives in the user guide.

Choosing between the options

You need	Use
Glance at a total or status bar	Native subitem summary (free)
Parent flips when everything is done	Native automation recipe (free)
Values that work in automations, formulas, dashboards, exports	Rollup app writing real columns
Progress %, threshold statuses, “3 of 7” counters	Rollup app (no native equivalent)
Time tracking totals, People unions, Dropdown unions	Rollup app (no native equivalent)
Rollups that ignore some subitems	Rollup app with filters

For a vendor-by-vendor comparison of the apps in this space, including one-time-pricing and subscription alternatives to ours, see the best monday.com subitem rollup apps compared.

Beyond rollups: the rest of the subitem toolkit

Rollups solve reading subitems at the parent level. The same app covers writing at scale: bulk-creating subitems with inherited parent values, cloning subitem checklists across items, template patterns, and bulk-editing subitems across the board.