Specific Uses Cases of Notion Database Automations

In this section, we will see step by step some real use cases of Notion automations to try to cover most of the actions available:

• Link an expense to a monthly report: We will link an expense item to a monthly report based on the date of the expense.

• Send an email after a form is filled: We will send an email after a Notion form is filled out.

• Create recurring tasks: We will create a task that repeats weekly once it has been completed.

Link an Expense to a Monthly Report

First of all, we will try to link an expense to a monthly report regarding the date of the expense.

Note that I have include this automation myself in my Finance System (view finance system).

For this, we will need two databases that we will keep simple.

Expenses database with:

• Expense Date as a date property (Important: set this date to today by default)

• Amount as a number property

• Report as a relation property of the Report database

Reports database with:

• Timeline as a date property with start and end date

• Expenses as a relation property of the Expense database

• Total Amount as a formula property

For the total amount you can enter the following formula:

Expenses.map(current.Amount).sum()

Let's create a report of the current month. You should now have something like this:

Now let's begin the automation. Like you know, simply press the lightning button on the Expenses database and name your automation "Set Monthly Report." Let the scope be "all pages in Expenses."

For the trigger, we will set it to "Page added" as we want the report to be linked when we create our expense.

For the Action, we will choose the option "Edit pages in" and select the "Reports" database.

Now we don't want to edit all the pages inside the report database, but only the one that matches the date we create the expense. To do so, we will click on the "all pages" and set a filter like this:

To finish, we need to choose the property we will edit. We will choose the "Expenses" property, select "add" (to add the page), and choose the page we just triggered.

That's all! Now when you add a new expense, it will automatically linked this one to the current monthly report.

To make it better, consider setting the expense date to today by default.

Try it, wait a few seconds, and you will see your expense linked to your report.

Send an Email After a Form is Filled

Now, let's try to send an email from a Notion form that has just been filled.

First of all, create a simple form that will be used, for example, to report a bug. It is important to have an email field in this form to make the automation work.

To learn how to create a form in Notion, read this article for a step-by-step guide on creating Notion forms (learn to create Notion forms).

Your form should look like this:

Let's just start our automation. Name it "Send Confirmation Email," set the scope to "all pages," and add "Page added" as a trigger to let the automation be triggered when a form is submitted.

For the action, you will choose the option "Send email to." There, you will probably need to connect your Gmail account to it; nothing really complicated.

Once done, you can customize your email. First, choose in the "To" field the property email to send the email to the person who just filled out the form. The rest, you can customize as you wish!

That's all! Now, when someone fills out your form, an email will be sent to confirm receipt of the inquiry.

You can try it yourself by sharing the form, copying the URL, and filling it out.

Create Recurring Tasks

The last automation we will see is creating a similar task a week after every time this one is completed.

For this, we will need one tasks database with:

• Date as a date property

• Completed as a checkbox property

• Repeat as a number property

Let's create a task, for example, "Grocery," that we will repeat every week, every Wednesday. For this, we will set the date to the next Saturday and the repeat to 7 (for 7 days).

We will also set the view to a calendar view to see the automation working live.

You should have something like this:

As usual, click on the lightning symbol to start creating the automation. Name it "Set Recurring Task" and set the scope to all pages in Tasks.

For the trigger, this time we will choose the option "Property", choose the "Completed" property, and set it to "checked". This way, the automation will trigger when we complete the task.

Now let's set the action. We want to create the same task 7 days (the value of the repeat property) after we complete the task.

But first of all, I want to show you the use of variables in automations. We'll start by selecting "Define Variables" and create a variable to represent the date seven days from now. Once you have chosen the option, click on the name to rename your variable "Next Date," like so:

Now, click on the formula symbol and set the formula like so:

This formula means that we will add the number of days of the repeat property of the page triggered to the date of the page triggered. This way we will have a date 7 days later.

Next, we need to create the new task. We will choose the option "Add page to" and select the "Tasks" database.

First let's set the name of the new task identical of the completed task. We will use a formula for this. Click on the formula symbol and set the formula like so:

Now we will edit the Date property by setting the value of the variable we just defined. You will find your variables among the options.

Finally, we will also set the repeat property of the new task identical to the repeat property of the completed task in order for our automation to continue working. Click on the formula symbol and set the formula like so:

We are done! To be sure, your final automation should look like this:

Note that we could not use the defined variables option and directly set the formula in the date property. It was just to show you how to use variables as it can be really helpful if you want to reuse a formula several times.

Now, if you complete your original task, you should see a new task appear 7 days after this one (it can take a few seconds for the automation to work), and it will repeat every time you complete the task!