Database automations

In this Article

Improve your efficiency by automating the most tedious parts of your work

Database automations are sequences of actions that happen any time a specific change to a database occurs. Automations consist of both “triggers”, the cause of the change and “actions”, the result of the change.

Database automations can be useful in many scenarios, including:

Whenever a task status changes, assign it to a specific person
Whenever a page is added, send a notification in Slack
Whenever a property is changed, edit a page property in another database

Pricing

Database automations are only available for customers on Paid Plans, with limited access for non-paying users. Free Plan users will be able to:
• Create Slack notification automations
• Use automations that are included in templates, without the ability to edit these automations.

Database automations can be created, edited or deleted by anyone with full access. The only exception are Slack automations, which can only be edited by the automation creator.

If your automation targets a different database, you will need at least can edit content permissions for that database. In other words, the automations you configure can only edit content you could otherwise edit manually.

Creating a database automation

While on a database, click the ⚡ on the top right and click + New automation
Add trigger(s). There are two kinds of triggers:
- Page added: When a page is added to this database or database view, do this action
- Property edited: When a property is edited in this database, do this action
Add action(s). There are four kinds of actions:
- Add pages to: Add pages to a different database
  - Select the database you want to add pages to and edit properties of the new page
- Edit pages in: Edit pages in a different database
  - Select the database you wish to edit and add filters to find the appropriate pages
  - Now select which property you’d like to edit. You can edit multiple properties at once
- Send Slack notification to…
  - Select a Slack workspace and channel you’d like to send a notification to.
- Edit property in this page
  - Select a property you’d like to edit and what change you’d like to make.
Click Create

Pausing and deleting database automations

If a database automation isn’t useful to you anymore, you might want to edit, pause, or even delete it.

While on a database, click the ⚡ on the top right
Hover over the automation and click •••
Select Edit, Pause, or Delete

FAQs

How frequently is the database scanned for “changes” in properties?

Database automations work over a three second window. For example, within this three second window, a user can remove a trigger and delete any changes, resulting in no property change to the automation.

Do automations work on pages in the entire database, or pages in a single database view?

Either one. During the creation process, you can specify if the automation should run on pages in the entire database, or in a specific view. If any filters in that view change, the automation will then apply to the adjusted list of pages.

If you have more than 1 trigger in your automation, does it run if only 1 of the triggers occurs (“OR” logic) or if all the triggers occur (“AND” logic)?

Triggers are set up as “OR” statements, meaning if any of the triggers occurs, the automation will run.

Can guests with full access to a database create automations?

No.