Solving Notion's Biggest Problem In 24 Minutes

Don't wait for new features. Let's build them ourselves.
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One of the biggest hurdles for adopting Notion in your company? Permissions. Notion excels in situations where you can adopt a culture of transparency, i.e. share all projects and tasks within the whole team.
But sometimes, that's just not feasible. Even in super transparent companies, certain documents need confidentiality. Most notably HR and finance docs.
Unfortunately, that often means settling for a less efficient Notion structure with several databases.
Luckily, there's a new workaround that can help you create a distributed file system in Notion while retaining a central location for all your documents.
It's the perfect solution if you want to implement Notion as your Knowledge Management Tool of choice. However, it still has its limitations. If you're trying to build hundreds of client dashboards, then this is the wrong approach.
Keep in mind that this approach requires the use of Notion's built-in Database Automations, which are only available on paid plans. You can however use automations also on free plans, if you download someone's template that already includes them. In that case, download the free Notion Template linked above.
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:45 How To Build A Perfect Notion Workspace
02:38 Where Great Notion Systems Fall Short
03:18 Partial Sharing In Notion Workaround
04:15 Building The Database Setup
06:33 Connect Your Local Wikis to the Master Wiki
09:25 Build Your Notion Master Wiki Display
12:18 Create a unified Status Property in your Notion Wiki
14:22 Format Your Master Wiki
17:14 Create Template for your Master Wiki
19:55 Building a Notion Wiki Dashboard
23:33 Where this workaround falls short
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Notion and the Notion logo are trademarks of Notion Labs, Inc., and are used here with permission.
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[@julioguc]

Matthias, It's a very clever solution for access levels. Congratulations! and Thank you for sharing you knowlegde.

[@mfreihaendig]

Thanks! Got super excited when I thought of this randomly halfway through a client call 😅 If you find any other ways to implement that, lmk 💪🏻

[@julioguc]

@@mfreihaendig It's simple and efficient, the perfect combination. Greetings from Peru 🇵🇪

[@ashleyguberman323]

Fantastic, as always. I’ll be using this for a client this afternoon.

[@mfreihaendig]

Amazing! Let me know how it goes and if you find any cool tweaks of this 😇

[@peetung]

Thanks for this video on permissions! This is very good information, and hits my business's exact use case!

[@mfreihaendig]

Oh amazing, so happy to hear that! Would love to hear how it goes if you implement this 😇

[@nancycauwels4967]

🤯 You ARE a genius. Thanks for sharing this Matthias!

[@mfreihaendig]

Thaaaank you 😇 I‘m actually rebuilding my website right now and adding a few short testimonials like this to make it more fun - could I use this? 😎

[@nancycauwels4967]

@@mfreihaendig Of course! I can give you 100 more if you'd like ;) Thanks for asking!

[@gpwahyunanda]

Notion Formula 2.0 is a gamechanger, thanks for demonstrating it, Matt!

[@mfreihaendig]

Oh yea, crazy what you can do with it!

[@kunikus1214]

Genius. Absolutely brilliant.😄

[@mfreihaendig]

😍😍🔥

[@willymerdiansyah]

Even though I can't implement it now, because I have several hierarchies (like you said at the end of the video), at least I understand the logic behind your 'trick' 😅 - so clever. thanks Matthias.

[@mfreihaendig]

Yeah it’s only a niche solution unfortunately - but in those situations it will come in very handy 😎

[@user-qe3wg6cm6q]

Awesome!!! Thanks

[@mfreihaendig]

Your welcome 😇

[@brandonfertig]

Interesting. Teamspaces usually do the trick for me, or my clients, but I assume the benefit here (which my current “teamspace setup” lacks is a centralized, master docs space. Is that right?

[@mfreihaendig]

Yes exactly - it’s one of Notion’s superpowers, allowing you to have a single source of truth. Really cuts down on siloes and reduces the effort of having to look in 10 different places 😎

[@danilodurazzo4908]

Hi Matthias, great video. One question: have you found a workaround for when someone deletes an entry on the child databases? I understand the corresponding item won't be deleted from the master database, I am right? Thanks in advance

[@mfreihaendig]

You’re right, the Notion native setup shown in this video can’t handle deletes automatically - but you can easily solve this like such: 1) create a view on the master database filtering for “empty” relations and make it a regular process (weekly / monthly) to go in there, select all entries and delete them 2) borrow the automation that I show in this video for deleting entries to do that on autopilot: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oKvHqYiOa7Odqac

[@danilodurazzo4908]

@@mfreihaendig Amazing, this does it. You are great!

[@jordanz9580]

Thanks Matthias! I am following the step by step, I have one problem: When I auto sync at Management wiki to Master wiki - after I put " management entry" - link with management Wiki - set property to " This page" . I Stucked at here, unlike your screen you have " this page" to choose from, I do not. Now how can type or put "this page"?

[@mfreihaendig]

There’s a bug currently that stops the right reference from showing - hopefully resolved soon. In the meantime, you could just download my template and take it from there since existing automations keep working 💪🏻

[@nliebeaux]

@@mfreihaendig Thanks for asking ! i did Matthias's exercise last week, worked fine as a test. Want now to go "for real" and the "This Page" link isn't showing. I'll wait !

[@Legendarybeatzonline]

If you have a database already and I create another database using formulas and relation to display data I want, but the user doesnt have permissions for the original database, can they see they content? When I tested, it looks like they have to have permissions for the main database as well still. Is this correct? 😊

[@mfreihaendig]

Yes, every user needs to have access to the master database that consolidates all the information plus to each distributed database that contains content he should have access too 💪🏻

[@Legendarybeatzonline]

@@mfreihaendig oh ok.

[@Legendarybeatzonline]

Hey Matthias, how can I get a hold of you. I think I solved how to do it. But want to run the concept by you first. Kind of a one push solution.

[@danferreira-lima]

Using page templates, does this method work?

[@mfreihaendig]

No, since you need to create a clone entry in the other database at the same time

[@natnaelhailemichael]

Can I use buttons instade of automation for the first part

[@mfreihaendig]

You could - but it leaves more room for error and missing files since you can’t be 100% that all users will always use the button

[@bartekstanda8282]

When is the update coming out?

[@mfreihaendig]

Which update? 🤔

[@paris.granville]

Why did you have to bring the crypto bros into it. Boring!!!!

[@mfreihaendig]

Because it’s also a key emerging technology that will change the world as we know it 😎 Plus, it’s fun!