Notion launched Native Automations

Database automations have finally arrived in Notion.
Given that this functionality has been available in both Coda and Airtable, it was highly anticipated by Notion users.
In this article, we'll explore how to configure automations, their characteristics, limitations, and our wishes for an ideal future.
Initial Setup & Definition
Database automations allow certain actions to be carried out in response to meeting a predefined condition (the trigger). For example, when a Status changes to Complete, today's date will be automatically added to the Completion Date column.
Currently, automations are limited to single-stage processes. In other words, it's not possible to perform multiple actions using the same trigger (this has been updated in 2025).

There are two ways to create an automation in a database:Through the lightning icon that appears between "Sort" and the magnifying glassIn the database settings menu, accessed via the three dots "..."
After accessing either option, you'll select the trigger and subsequently define the action to be performed.
First Steps in creating an automation
The first field to complete is the automation title. We recommend making it descriptive. A good structure would be: "When [trigger] → [action] in [database]"
After the title, you'll need to choose whether this automation applies to the entire database or just a specific view.
For instance, if you have a task database, you can choose whether the automation applies to the entire database or just to a filtered view called "My Tasks" with the "Me" filter.
Available Triggers
Currently, there are two main types of triggers:
- When a page is created in the database
- When information is edited in a database item
For page creation, it's straightforward – when a new page is created in the database, the predefined action will be triggered.
For information editing, depending on the property type, you may have configuration options for your automation trigger. In a Status property, you can choose to have the automation execute only if the database item has the "Completed" status. This configuration option is only available for Status, Select, Multi-select, and Person properties.
For other properties, the automation will trigger whenever they're edited, regardless of the specific change.
This was updated in 2024. Now you have much more triggers available.

Available Actions
Following the same pattern as triggers, the available actions are:
- Creating a page (in the same or different database)
- Editing a page
- Sending a Slack notification
- Editing page properties
Regarding page creation, it's important to note that we cannot retrieve any information from the trigger. The only dynamic element available is in the date property, where you can choose to add Today (corresponding to the creation date) or Now (corresponding to the creation date and time).
For page editing, you can filter to edit certain pages that meet specific conditions.
This was alsoupdated in 2024. Now you have much more actions including the ability to send emails, slack messages, webhooks...etc.

Limitaciones
The first limitation is that automations are only available for Plus plans or higher. Free plan users cannot use automations, with one exception: if you purchase a template with automations, you can use that automation but not configure it.
Another significant limitation is the inability to create automations with multiple actions. For example, you can't edit multiple pages when something happens or create a new page and then edit some properties in your database (edit: since 2024, this is possible using variables).
Finally, the inability to select information from the triggering item significantly limits this functionality's use. It would be beneficial if we could use the relation property dynamically, as we can with buttons (edit: since 2024, this is now possible).

Future Expectations
This is the first iteration of the functionality, so many features likely remain in development. The acquisition of Automate.io is starting to show its influence, though currently, the functionality seems limited.
Without trying to predict the future, we can reasonably expect the ability to perform multiple actions and have more dynamic fields to extract information from our trigger. These two improvements alone would significantly increase this functionality's potential.
In conclusion, while it's positive that this functionality has arrived in Notion, it could have benefited from a couple more iterations to meet user expectations.
If you want to learn more about Notion and dive deeper into this functionality and the new formulas, we can help you through our 1:1 sessions.