The 5-minute monday.com permissions audit: Is your board too open?
- Jul 15
- 7 min read
It probably started with a few people, a straightforward process, and enough columns to keep the work moving. Then the team grew, and new hires joined. Contractors were invited. Clients needed updates. The board collected pricing, internal notes, contract terms, and other information that wasn’t part of the original plan.
But the original permissions stayed exactly where they were.
If you’ve started wondering, “How do I know if my monday.com board is too open?” this audit gives you a practical place to start. You’ll review one real board, classify the sensitivity of every column, and leave with a clear list of access changes to make.
Quick answer: What is a monday.com permissions audit?
A monday.com permissions audit is a structured review of who can see and edit the information on your boards. The Green/Yellow/Red method classifies each column as broadly visible, internal only, or restricted. It helps your team identify sensitive data, surface disagreements about access, and decide which permissions or architectural changes are needed.
It isn’t a security certification. It is a fast way to stop guessing about who should have access to your monday.com data.
Start with your data, not the permission settings
It’s tempting to open the permissions menu and start changing settings. That skips the decision that needs to happen first:
How sensitive is the information on this board?
A permission setting only works when your team agrees on what it is supposed to protect. Without that agreement, permissions tend to reflect whoever happened to build the board.
The Green/Yellow/Red audit starts with monday.com data sensitivity before moving into platform controls. You review each column based on what it contains, who needs it, and what would happen if the wrong person saw or changed it.
The first pass can take about five minutes on a simple board. When the exercise surfaces disagreement, take longer. That discussion is part of the audit, not a delay in completing it.
How the Green/Yellow/Red permissions audit works
The audit uses the familiar progression of a traffic light to make data sensitivity easier to discuss.
Green means go: broad visibility
Green information is appropriate for anyone who already has access to the board.
Common examples include:
Task or project names
General status updates
Owners
Due dates
Public-facing deliverables
Basic timelines
Ask: Would there be a meaningful consequence if any current board user saw this information?
If the answer is no, the column is probably Green.
Green doesn’t mean everyone should be able to edit the column. A project status may be safe for the full team to see while only the project owner should be able to change it.
Yellow means pause: internal only
Yellow information is useful to the internal team but shouldn’t be visible to clients, vendors, contractors, or other external guests.
Common examples include:
Internal notes
Vendor information
Draft pricing
Process details
Internal estimates
Team capacity
Quality review notes
Ask: Is this appropriate for the full internal team but not for someone outside the organization?
If the answer is yes, classify it as Yellow.
Yellow data often belongs on an internal working board. When a board also needs external collaboration, Yellow columns may need view restrictions or the external work may need its own shareable board.
Red means stop: restricted access
Red information should only be available to a defined role, team, or small group of people.
Common examples include:
Salary or compensation information
Profit margins
Contract terms
Legal notes
Personnel information
Leadership evaluations
Sensitive financial details
Account credentials or access information
Ask: Would the wrong person seeing or editing this create a financial, legal, personnel, contractual, or client relationship problem?
If the answer is yes, the column is Red.
“Restricted” should mean something specific. Name the team or role that needs access, such as Finance, Human Resources, executive leadership, or the legal team. “Only certain people” is too vague to become a maintainable permission rule.
A Red classification isn’t a criticism of the board. Some boards should contain highly restricted information. The classification tells you that broad access isn’t appropriate.
How to run a monday.com permissions audit on a real board (step-by-step)
Step 1: Choose one active monday.com board
Start with a board your team uses regularly, especially one that has grown beyond its original purpose or audience. Avoid templates and test boards because the audit works best when real data and access decisions are involved.
Step 2: List everyone who uses the board
Identify the groups that currently have access or may need it soon, such as employees, managers, contractors, clients, or vendors. This gives your team a specific audience to consider instead of asking whether information is simply “sensitive.”
Step 3: Review each column individually
Move across the board one column at a time. For each field, ask who needs to see it, who needs to edit it, and what could happen if the wrong person had access.
Step 4: Classify each column as Green, Yellow, or Red
Assign one sensitivity level based on what the column actually contains. Don’t aim for a certain balance of colors, and don’t assume Green is better than Red.
Step 5: Flag disagreements
If two people classify the same column differently, write it down and discuss why. These disagreements often reveal unclear ownership, inconsistent use, or sensitive data that has gradually found its way onto the wrong board.
Step 6: Create an access action list
Record what needs to change for each Yellow or Red column. This might include restricting view or edit access, changing the board type, removing users, or moving sensitive information to a different board.
What your permissions audit results tell you
The final result shouldn’t be a security score. A board with 15 Green columns isn’t automatically safer than one with 15 Red columns.
The results help you determine the board’s appropriate access posture.
A mostly Green board may support broad collaboration
A mostly Green board contains information that can generally be seen by its intended users.
It may work well as a Main board for internal collaboration. It could also be a candidate for a Shareable board when the board’s purpose involves clients or external partners.
That doesn’t make external access automatic. Review every Yellow and Red exception before inviting guests. One sensitive column is enough to make an otherwise Green board inappropriate for broad sharing without additional controls.
A mostly Yellow board is usually an internal working board
A mostly Yellow board contains the details a team needs to run the work but wouldn’t normally share outside the organization.
This often points to a Main board for internal users. If clients need access to part of the process, consider whether they need a separate Shareable board or a smaller client-facing view of the work.
Trying to make one board serve both the internal team and every external audience can create a long list of permission exceptions. Sometimes separating the working board from the client-facing board is the cleaner choice.
A mostly Red board may need private access or a structural change
A mostly Red board may appropriately belong in a Private board. Finance, Human Resources, contracts, legal work, and executive planning often require a limited audience.
A mostly Red result can also reveal an architecture problem.
If a board is supposed to support broad day-to-day collaboration but most of its columns require restrictions, sensitive data may be living in the wrong place.
Moving that information to a separate restricted board may be easier to govern than maintaining many column-level exceptions.
A mixed board needs targeted controls
Many boards will contain all three classifications.
That isn’t automatically a problem. It means the board needs a hybrid permissions approach:
Green columns remain broadly visible.
Yellow columns stay internal or are hidden from guests.
Red columns receive narrow view and edit restrictions.
The board type reflects the intended audience for the workflow as a whole.
The audit helps you identify exactly where those controls belong.
Your monday.com permissions checklist
By the end of the exercise, you should be able to answer each of these questions:
Who is the intended audience for this board?
Is the current board type appropriate for that audience?
Which columns are safe for broad visibility?
Which columns should stay internal?
Which columns require restricted access?
Who needs to view each restricted column?
Who needs to edit each restricted column?
Are permissions assigned to teams and roles or to individual people?
Does any sensitive data belong on a different board?
Are any former employees, contractors, clients, or guests still able to access the board?
Who owns future permission decisions for this board?
When should the board be audited again?
If several answers are unclear, your monday.com setup may not be secure enough for the data it now holds. That doesn’t mean you need to rebuild everything. It means the system has outgrown the access decisions made during its original setup.
FAQ: monday.com permissions audit
How do I know if my monday.com board is too open?
Your board may be too open when people can see information they don’t need to do their jobs, external guests can see internal context, or users can edit fields they only need to view. Run the audit column by column. If you can’t clearly name who should see and edit each Yellow or Red field, the current access model needs review.
Who should have access to my monday.com data?
Access should be based on what someone needs to complete their work. Most users don’t need access to every board, item, and column. Define access around teams and roles, then give each group the visibility and editing rights required for its part of the process.
Is my monday.com setup secure?
No five-minute exercise can certify that a monday.com setup is secure. The audit can identify obvious exposure, unclear access decisions, and sensitive data that needs tighter control. A full review should also consider user types, workspaces, board types, board roles, item restrictions, column restrictions, and how access is maintained when people join, leave, or change roles.
Can someone see a monday.com column without being able to edit it?
Yes. Column view access and column edit access are separate decisions. A person may need visibility into a status, budget, or approval without being able to change the value. The audit should document both decisions for every Yellow and Red column.
How often should I run a monday.com permissions audit?
Run the audit whenever the board’s audience or purpose changes. Common triggers include adding a client, inviting a contractor, onboarding a new department, reorganizing a team, or storing a new type of sensitive information. An annual or twice-yearly review can also catch access drift on long-running boards.
Build permissions into your monday.com system
A permissions audit can show you where access needs attention, but the strongest systems don’t treat permissions as a cleanup task. They build access decisions into the architecture from the start.
The Builder Blueprint Series teaches teams how monday.com permissions work across users, workspaces, boards, items, and columns, and how to apply the right level of access without making the system harder to use. Learn more about the series, or contact Magic Button Labs to talk about building a monday.com system that can support your team as it grows.
