Notion Integration

Connect your Notion workspace to import database pages as tasks in Sunsama.

The Notion integration in Sunsama lets you browse your Notion databases, import pages as tasks, keep Notion in sync via automations, and export tasks back to Notion as a backlog.

Installation and account management

Adding the Notion integration and connecting your databases

There are two ways you can integrate Notion:

  • From your Workspace Settings
  • By clicking the Notion button in the right hand panel (may be hidden under the + button)

Click the “Add” button and grant Sunsama the requested permissions.

If you have multiple workspaces, select the one you want to integrate first. You can add more Notion workspaces later.

Select your pages

Next, select the pages in your workspace that you’d like to integrate into Sunsama.

Connecting additional pages

If you want to add another database after setting up your Notion integration, you can do so two ways:

  1. Use Notion’s “connections” feature:

    • Go to your page in Notion
    • Click the three dot menu button in the top right corner
    • Scroll down to find the “Connections” section, and find “Sunsama” to add the page. The page should now appear in your Notion integration after refreshing Sunsama.

  2. Remove and re-add the Notion integration which will let you select databases and pages to share with Sunsama. Note: This process will remove any filters and automations you’ve set up.

Connecting additional Notion workspaces or removing them

Navigate to your Workspace Settings, scroll down to the Notion integration section, and click “Manage”. From this page:

  • Click “Add another Notion Workspace” to connect another workspace in Sunsama
  • Click “Remove” to disconnect a Notion workspace from Sunsama

Browsing and importing tasks

Accessing the Notion integration

To open the Notion panel, you can:

  • Click the Notion icon in the right-hand navigation panel
  • Use keyboard shortcut Shift N
  • Use the Command Palette (CMD+K) to search for Notion

Browsing Notion workspaces, pages, and databases

Sunsama gives you access to all databases within the pages you’ve selected in your Notion workspace, and displays the tasks (pages) in your databases. You can switch between multiple Notion workspaces via the icon at the top of the panel. Select a database to view and import contents, with search functionality available.

Properties

You can customize the Properties button to select which property data displays on task cards in the Notion panel.

Group

For easier browsing, click on the Group button to select which property you want to organize the tasks into groups by.

Filters

Click the Filter button to create customizable filters and filter groups to display only desired tasks.

Sorts

Click on the Sort button to select a property by which to sort the order of the tasks in the Notion panel. A small triangle allows toggling between ascending and descending order.

Importing tasks

There are three ways to import Notion tasks into Sunsama:

  1. Drag and drop the task from the Notion panel into your Sunsama task list.
  2. Switch to calendar view (keyboard shortcut Tab) and drag tasks directly onto the calendar at desired times to create working sessions.
  3. Click the task and select “Add to today” or choose a specific date.

Interacting with imported tasks

Imported tasks

Once a Notion task is imported into Sunsama, it becomes a Sunsama task, with an embedded Notion task. You can tell which tasks in your kanban are imported from Notion via the Notion icon on the card. Clicking on this icon will bring you to the task in Notion.

Notion task details

Click on a Sunsama task that’s linked to Notion to see a preview of your Notion task embedded inside the Sunsama task.

If the task has a checkbox property, you can interact with that checkbox, and this will be synced with the checkbox on the task in Notion.

Interacting with Sunsama specific task information

Your associated Sunsama task acts like a worksheet for your Notion task. Inside your Sunsama task, you can add notes, time tracking information, subtasks, and comments without messing with your Notion task. Use your Sunsama task to track the minutia of the task that your collaborators might not care about in Notion.

Note: completing the task in Sunsama does not affect the task in Notion, unless you have set up completion automations, which are covered in Keep Notion in sync via automations.

Keep Notion in sync via automations

Notion automations let you control how your tasks in Notion should be updated when you import or complete a task.

How to use automations

To add automations, click on the Automations tab at the top of the Notion panel and click “Add an automation step” for when you import a task or complete it in Sunsama.

The automations you add will apply only to the selected database.

Import automations

Import automations control how Sunsama updates your Notion tasks, inside Notion, when you import a Notion task into Sunsama. There are two types of import automations:

Update in Notion

Select which supported property of the task to update in your Notion database and configure how you’d like that property updated.

You can add multiple automation steps, each with distinct possibilities depending on that property type.

Update in Sunsama

Channel automation

This type of automation will assign a channel to the imported task. Click on the #channel to select which channel the task should be assigned to.

You can set up multiple steps for this update, each with conditions to determine if that channel should be assigned. This way you can correctly assign the appropriate channels to different tasks in your database based on certain property conditions.

Completion automations

Completion automations control how Sunsama updates your Notion tasks, inside Notion, when you check off an imported task inside Sunsama.

Update in Notion

Select which supported property of the task to update in your Notion database and configure how you’d like that property updated.

You can add multiple automation steps, each with distinct possibilities depending on that property type.

Use Notion as your backlog via task export

Drag and drop tasks from Sunsama into Notion and use Notion as a highly organized backlog for your tasks instead of Sunsama’s lightweight backlog.

Export task to Notion

Exporting makes it super easy to declutter your Sunsama. You can simply drag and drop tasks to file things away in your Notion database if you aren’t finding time for them or just want them to do later.

Drag and drop a task into your Notion panel in Sunsama to export it. This removes the task from Sunsama and creates an entry/page in your selected Notion database with the title synced over. Any subtasks and notes will be synced over as text on the newly created page in Notion.

Notes on export

When you export a task, Sunsama will export the title and display the subtasks and notes of the task in the text of the newly created page in Notion. Channels, comments, related objective information, and time tracking information won’t be exported.

Troubleshooting and FAQ

I am not seeing all of my Notion tasks

Currently, Sunsama can only show you ~100 tasks at a time. You can work around this by creating a filter in Sunsama’s Notion panel that will show you the most relevant 100 tasks.

My databases are missing. How can I find them?

Databases may not be showing for a few reasons:

  1. You have not shared the database with the Sunsama integration.

    • Go to Notion and open the database of interest or one of its parent pages
    • Click on the three dot button in the top right corner
    • Scroll down and find “Connections”, and add Sunsama

  2. You have recently created or shared your database with Sunsama or you recently added the Notion integration. Notion does not provide immediate access to changes so it can take up to an hour before these databases will show.

  3. The database you are looking for is just a view of the original. Notion unfortunately does not expose access to their views. As a result we are only able to show the original database in its raw format in its original location.

  4. Your databases are dangling. There are a few cases where your databases are not nested in the path you expect and are instead shown at the end of the list. This will happen when the database:

    • has a private parent in their path
    • has a block as a parent in their path instead of a page or a database

If your database is not showing in the hierarchy in the Notion integration panel, also try searching for it by name. If found, this will also “pin” it to recent databases.

Notion databases still not showing?

Try disconnecting the Sunsama connection in your Notion workspace. Then try adding it in Sunsama again.

The Notion API is notoriously immature and these sorts of issues wouldn’t be unexpected. If you continue having issues please email support@sunsama.com with a video showing where in your Notion hierarchy the database lives, what the database’s sharing settings are, and what you see in Sunsama. If you don’t have a screen recording tool you already love, we recommend using Loom.

How can I add tasks from Sunsama to my Notion database?

You can add tasks to Notion from Sunsama and use Notion as your task backlog. Do this by dragging a task from Sunsama into the Notion panel. That will move it from Sunsama into that Notion database.

For more information, see Use Notion as your backlog via task export.