monday.com guide · 6 min read

By Arnav Ghatage, founder of Fortimus — we build Mirror Item Multiple Boards·Last updated

Switching your monday.com item-sync app? Five things to check first.

Several apps put the same item on more than one board. They look similar on the marketplace and behave very differently once you are a few months in. This is the checklist I would use to evaluate any of them — including ours — plus what a migration actually involves.

Upfront: I build one of these apps, so I am not a neutral party. What I have kept neutral is the checklist — every question below is one you should ask any vendor, us included, and the answers are things you can verify yourself on a free plan before you move anything.

Check 01

How does it count items against your plan?

This is the biggest cost difference between apps and the one people discover last — usually when they hit their item ceiling months earlier than expected.

Ask the vendor

If one item is shared to three boards, does that use one item of my quota or three?

500 items, each shared to 3 boardsItems used
Counted per board1,500
Counted once (Mirror Item)500

Our answer: Mirror Item counts it once. One item on five boards is one item against your plan.

Check 02

What happens to subitems?

Most cross-board tools treat subitems as an afterthought. If your work lives in subitems, this decides whether the app is usable at all.

Ask the vendor

Can a subitem be mirrored on its own? Can it become a top-level item on the target board? Can one subitem sit under two different parents?

Our answer: Mirror Item does all three, in any direction — subitem→subitem, subitem→item, item→subitem. See how subitem mirroring works.

Check 03

Does moving an item break the sync?

Boards get reorganised. If the link silently breaks on a move, two teams keep editing what they think is the same item and quietly drift apart.

Ask the vendor

If I move a synced item to a different board or group, does the connection survive?

Our answer: With Mirror Item the sync connection stays intact when items move between boards.

Check 04

Can you control sync direction per board?

A client-facing board usually should not be able to write back into your delivery board. One global setting is not enough.

Ask the vendor

Can I make one target board read-only while others stay two-way? Which columns sync, and can I exclude some?

Our answer: Two-way by default, switchable to one-way per board, with per-column control over what syncs.

Check 05

Who can change it, and where does the data live?

Cross-board sync touches every team that uses it. If anyone can reconfigure it, someone eventually will.

Ask the vendor

Can I restrict who edits app settings? Is there an audit log? Where is the app hosted, and under what compliance?

Our answer: Admin-only settings, event-level audit logs, and hosting entirely on monday Code — SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and HIPAA compliant.

Migrating

What switching actually involves

Less than people expect. Your boards, items and columns are monday.com objects — they belong to you, not to the app. Switching means re-establishing links, not rebuilding data.

1

Pick one board pair

Start with the least critical pair you actually use. Not a scratch board — a real one with real edits, so you find out what breaks.

2

Line up your columns

Mirror Item matches columns by name and type. Rename the ones that should sync so they match; leave board-private columns named differently.

3

Turn the old sync off for that pair

Never run two sync apps against the same board pair at once — competing writes cause loops and values that flip back and forth.

4

Mirror and verify

Bulk-mirror the items, then edit from both sides and confirm the change lands. Check subitems and updates specifically.

5

Repeat, then uninstall

Move pair by pair. Uninstall the old app only once nothing depends on it — your items and data stay either way; only the syncing stops.

Nothing here is specific to us — run the same sequence whichever app you land on.

Test it on two scratch boards

Free plan · Editor’s Choice · 5.0 ★ on the monday.com marketplace. Mirror a few items, edit from both sides, and see how it behaves before you move anything real.

FAQ

Switching questions

Something not covered? Ask me directly — I answer these myself.

How do monday.com item-sync apps count items against your plan?+
It varies, and it is the single biggest cost difference between apps. Some count an item shared to three boards as three items used. Mirror Item Multiple Boards counts it once, so 500 items shared to three boards each costs you 500 items, not 1,500.
Will switching item-sync apps break my existing boards?+
No. Your boards, items, columns and data are monday.com objects and belong to you, not to the app. Uninstalling a sync app stops the syncing; it does not delete items. The work in switching is re-establishing which items should be linked to which boards.
Do I have to rebuild my columns when I switch?+
With Mirror Item, no. It matches columns by name and type across boards, so columns that already line up start syncing automatically. Columns you want to keep private to one board simply need a different name.
Can I move a synced item to another board without breaking the link?+
With Mirror Item, yes — moving an item between boards keeps the sync connection intact. This is worth testing on any app you evaluate, because a broken link on move is a common source of silent data drift.
Can I try an item-sync app before committing?+
Mirror Item Multiple Boards has a free plan, so the sensible approach is to create two scratch boards, mirror a handful of items, and run your real workflow against them for a few days before moving anything that matters.
Can two sync apps run at the same time during a migration?+
Technically yes, but do not point two apps at the same pair of boards at once — competing writes cause loops and unpredictable values. Migrate board pair by board pair: turn the old sync off for that pair, set the new one up, verify, then move on.