Database automations

Database automations are sequences of actions that happen any time a specific change to a database occurs. Automations consist of both triggers (the events that initiate the automation) and actions (the effect of the automation). Database automations are meant to help save you time and simplify your work, and can be very basic or more complex depending on your needs.

Database automations can be used for many things, including:

• Assigning a task to a specific person when its status changes.

• Sending a Slack notification to a channel when a page is added to a database.

• Database automations are available on paid plans on all platforms.

• Database automations can be created, edited, or deleted by paid plan users who have full access to the database.

• However, Slack automations can only be edited by the automation creator.

• Free Plan users can create Slack notification automations, but no other kinds of automations.

• Free Plan users can use existing automations in templates, but they won't be able to edit them.

To create a database automation:

1. Click ⚡ at the top of a database → New automation.

2. Give your database automation a name if you’d like.

3. Select New trigger to create a trigger. Then select Add trigger to create more triggers. Learn more about the types of triggers below →

4. Select New action to create a trigger. Then select Add action to create more triggers. Learn more about the types of actions below →

5. Select Create.

Automations can have one trigger or multiple triggers. When you set up an automation, you can decide whether the automation will take place When any of these occur or When all of these occur.

You can choose from two types of triggers: Page added or Property edited.

If you choose a Property edited trigger, you can indicate which properties from your database will trigger the automation.

For name, person, number, text, select, and relation properties, you can choose what kinds of edits made to that property will trigger an automation. For example, you might have a list of contacts in a Notion database and set up an automation where the trigger is a phone number starting with the numbers 732, and the action is that person’s state being set to New Jersey.

You can also have more than one condition for your trigger so that two or more things must be true for the automation to occur.

Automations can take one action or multiple actions. You can choose from a variety of actions:

• Edit property will edit the properties of pages in the database you are currently in. For multi-select, people, and relation properties, you can add or remove individual values instead of adding or removing all values at once. For example, you might have a task database where if the task name contains the word “blog”, your name is added to the people property, even if there are other people already assigned to that task.

• Add page to will add a page to a database of your choosing, and edit the properties of that page.

• Edit pages in will edit pages and properties in a database of your choosing.

• Send notification to will send a notification to specific people in your Notion workspace. Your recipient can be up to 20 people in your workspace, or people who are associated with a certain People property in your database. Add a message that you want to go along with the notification.

• Send mail to will send an email from your Gmail account to one or more recipients. Learn more about this below.

• Send webhook will send an HTTP POST requests to the specified URL. Learn more in this article →

• Send Slack notification to will send a notification to the Slack channel you want. Learn more about Notion's Slack integration here →

• Define variables will allow you to create a custom variable using mentions and formulas. You can then use this variable in other database automation actions. Learn more about this below.

The Send mail to action for a database automation will send an email from your Gmail account to one or more email addresses when a trigger occurs. This is helpful if you want to send an email to someone to remind them to complete their past-due task, or to update your team on the status of all of your open projects.

To set up an automation to send an email:

1. Click ⚡ at the top of a database, then select New automation or an existing automation.

2. Select New action or Add action → Send mail to….

3. If your Notion account is already tied to a Gmail account, you’ll see your email address next to Send mail from. If you want to use another Gmail account for this automation, click on your email address → Add Gmail Account.

4. You can set up various parts of your email:

   • To: This could be a person property (like Whoever triggered or Page creator), a person in your workspace, or a specific email address. This email address can be external — it doesn’t have to belong to someone in your workspace or your organization.

     • Select CC/BCC next to the To field to optionally CC or BCC other people.

   • Subject: Enter a subject for your email. Select @ in the Subject field if you want your subject to contain a property from your trigger page, a time or date, a person or group in your workspace, or a link to a page in your workspace. Select ∑ in the Subject field if you want to create a formula for your subject.

   • Message: Enter a message for your email. Select @ in the Message field if you want your message to contain a property from your trigger page, a time or date, a person or group in your workspace, or a link to a page in your workspace. Select ∑ in the Message field if you want to create a formula for your message.

   • Send with display name: This optional display name will appear next to your email when your recipient receives it. Select @ in the display name field if you want your display name to contain a property from your trigger page, a time or date, a person or group in your workspace, or a link to a page in your workspace. Select ∑ in the display name field if you want to create a formula for your display name.

     

   • Send replies to: If you want replies to your email to be sent to someone other than the email address you used to send it, you can use this optional setting to send the reply to a person property, or a person in your workspace.

You can define a custom variable with mentions and formulas. You can then use this variable in other database automation actions. To define a variable:

1. Click ⚡ at the top of a database, then select New automation or an existing automation.

2. Select New action or Add action → Define variables.

3. Click on Variable 1 to give the variable a name, edit the formula, or duplicate it. You can also select Add variable.

4. Select @ or ∑ in the variable field to define your variables.

5. You can use these variables in additional automation actions.

Let’s look at an example of when and how you’d create a custom variable. Let’s say you want to set an automation where when a parent task is marked as complete, all of its sub-tasks are automatically marked as complete.

1. Click ⚡ at the top of a database, then select New automation or an existing automation.

2. Select the trigger as Status set to Complete.

3. Select New action or Add action → Define variables.

4. Select ∑ in the field below Variable 1.

5. In the window that opens, select Trigger page in the list of properties to the left.

6. Put a period right after Trigger page in your formula, so that your formula reads Trigger page.. Once you do this, you’ll see the trigger page’s properties in the list of properties to the left.

7. Select Sub-item. Your formula should now read Trigger page.Sub-item.

8. Save your formula. Now, your custom variable is defined as the sub-items of the page that triggers your automation, or in other words, the page that is marked as complete.

9. Now, in your database automation settings, select Add action.

10. Select Edit pages in....

11. Open the Select database dropdown and select Variable 1. This means that the automation will edit pages associated with variable 1, or in other words, sub-items associated with the page that is marked as complete.

12. Open the Edit a property dropdown and select Status.

13. Open the Select dropdown and select Complete.

14. Select Save.

The next time you mark a parent item that has sub-items as complete, you should see all of the sub-items’ statuses change to complete too!

You can use mentions and formulas in your database automation actions to make your automations work better for you. For example:

• You might want to mention the date in the name of a new page created in your database.

• You might want to set up a database automation to send a notification to someone that mentions a specific page.

• You might want to automatically send a message to someone when a ticket has been resolved, and use a formula in that message that calculates the time it took to complete the ticket.

To include a mention or formula in a database automation action:

1. Click ⚡ at the top of a database, then select New automation or an existing automation.

2. Select New action or Add action. Find the action you want and select it.

3. As you set up the automation action, select @ in the field if you want to mention a date, person, page, or a property from the trigger page in your database. Select ∑ in the field if you want to create a formula.

4. Select Save when you’re done.

To see and manage all of the existing automations for a database:

1. Click ⚡ at the top of a database.

2. Hover over the automation and click •••.

3. Select Edit, Pause, or Delete.