Guides · Updated 7 Nov 2026

How to track time in status on monday.com

Time in status is how long an item spends in each stage: three days in Working on it, five in Waiting on client, one in Review. It is the quickest way to see where work waits.

The do-it-yourself way, and where it drifts

The usual build is a date column per status, an automation that stamps the date when the status changes, and a formula that subtracts dates. It works for one status on one board. Then it drifts:

• An item that returns to a status overwrites its date, so the first visit is lost.
• Items that existed before the automation have no dates at all.
• Weekends and holidays count as waiting time unless the formula removes them.

The date columns are needed because, as monday.com's help center says, automations cannot trigger from the Activity Log or the Creation Log: one automation has to stamp the date, and a second one reads it.

What to measure

• Days in the current status: how long the item has been where it is now.
• Total time per status: every visit added up, so an item that bounced between Review and Working on it three times shows its real total.
• Days since last activity: how long since anyone last changed the item, which catches forgotten items that never change status.

How Stale & SLA does it

Stale & SLA reads the board's activity log and writes the answers into ordinary numbers columns: Days in current status and Days since last activity on every item, and a Total days in <status> column for each status you choose to track. Because they are numbers columns, you can sum them by group, chart them on a dashboard and filter on them.

The history comes from the activity log, so items that existed before you installed the app get their numbers too. How far back that log reaches depends on the plan: one week on Basic, six months on Standard, one year on Pro and five years on Enterprise. The app reads up to the newest 10,000 changes of the tracked status column in each board's log; if a board has more, the app's dashboard widget and board settings note that older history was not read. With business hours on, time counts in working days of the board's calendar, and the holidays you list do not count. The Status timeline item view shows one item's path, status by status.

Frequently asked

Does it count weekends?

Only if you want it to. In calendar mode every day counts. With business hours on, only the work days and hours of the board's calendar count, minus its holidays.

What if an item goes back to a status?

Each visit is added to that status's total, and Days in current status starts again from the new visit.

Does it change my other columns?

No. It writes only the numbers columns it creates. If a numbers column with exactly one of its titles already exists, it uses that one.