Notion VIP: Notion Automations: The Definitive Jumpstart

Transcription:

The only way to gain a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of Notion so you can truly leverage what makes it special is by building systems from scratch.
And there's no better system to learn from than the Notion VIP framework for tracking your wealth because it brings together all of Notion's advanced features in a relatively simple system.
In this video series, we're recreating the framework to learn Notion's key concepts.
In this one, you'll learn to configure automations by configuring a simple automation that I use in every Notion database.
For your to reference as you practice, and to use until you've completed your own version of the system, its available as a template to members of Notion A-to-Z, along with all my other templates and resources.
If you're not yet a member, consider joining us so you can make the most of Notion.

Let's start with the fundamentals of automation.
Whether you're automating in Notion, or Airtable, or Slack, or Zapier, all automations share a few core attributes.
They all start with one or more triggers.
A trigger can be an action, like editing a property of a database.
Or it can be a scheduled trigger that happens at a specified frequency.
After the trigger, an automation an automation executes one or more actions.
Common actions are:
- editing another property of the item that triggered the automation;
- updating another database; or
- sending a notification.

In a Notion database, you quickly access its automations from lightning icon at the top-right.
If it doesn't have any existing automations, it will automatically open a new one for you to create.
You'll give it a title.
You can apply it to the full database or a specific view.
And then you configure you triggers... and actions.

In any database app, it's a best practice for the primary attribute — in Notion's case, the Title property to be unique.
No two titles across all databases in a Notion workspace should have identical values.
What I like to do is combine other properties to formulate title.
In a database of people, for example, two people could easily have the same name, but their email address are always unique.
So for the title, I combine their first name, last name, and then their email address in parenthesis.
With an automation, we can do this automatically.

In the Notion VIP Wealth Tracker, we use automations to combine other properties in the title property for the Holdings database and the Valuations database.
Holdings is a little more complicated because it chooses the properties to combine based on various conditions.
We'll learn how to do that when we explore the if() function.
For Valuations, it's simpler.
It's always this custom date format and the title of the related holding, separated by a bullet character.
So, let's unpack that.

If we go into the database's automation's, we have the Auto-Title automation already in place.
I'll turn it off so we can we can reconfigure it together.
I'll click New automation and name it "Auto-Title #2."
For the trigger, we'll update the title any time the Holding relation is edited OR the Date property is edited.
By switching from All triggers to Any triggers, the automation will execute for either one of the specified triggers rather than needing them all to be true.
So, when either of those properties is updated, for the action, we want to edit a property.
Specifically, the Auto-Title property.
Now, in order to use that custom date format, my version uses a formula, but since we're focused on automations here, I'm going to take a simpler approach.
To use the value of another property, you click the @ symbol.
And we want the instance of the property for the trigger page.
And first, we want that page's Date.
And then we'll add a space, that bullet character, and another space.
And then we want the Holding property.
So we'll click the @ symbol again.
Choose the trigger page.
Then click Done and enable the automation.
So, if I adjust the date for this top valuation, after just a few seconds, the title will update.

Now, you'll notice that the date renders as an @mention and the holding is a reference to the item in the Holdings database.
Let me show you a quick way to convert it to text and eliminate those dynamic references.
Let's go back into the automation and click the sigma symbol to edit as a formula.
Then we'll surround it with parenthesis, add dot, then the format() function.
And that converts all the contents to text.
So, when I revert the valuation to its original date, the title updates with the same values in plain text.

That gives you a solid foundational understanding of automations in Notion.
Get comfortable recreating the one we used here, then experiment with other triggers and actions.
You'll find it helpful to reference the wealth tracker, the Bulletproof framework, and other templates in Notion A-to-Z.
I'll see you soon to learn another key Notion concept from the wealth tracker.

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