Notion Explained: Relations & Rollups

Notion's most distinctive advantage is its unique integration of documents and databases. The Relation and Rollup properties make that feature even more powerful.

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💡 RESOURCES

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👋 MEET WILLIAM

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#Notion #Productivity

[Lyriks_]

This is not a good notion video,

this is a stellar relationship database explanation (not just notion); the depth of which i was pleasantly surprised !

[adenwhw]

I have to say it's a very underrated video. Thank you William for presenting such an informative and well-organised tutorial.

[davidsotropa]

This is an extraordinarily well thought out video. Anyone at any level of expertise would be able to understand it. Bravo!

[jfbmusic]

Hi William, thanks for an excellent breakdown and relaxed presentation on relations and rollups. As other commenters have pointed out, this goes beyond Notion itself and can be applied in other similar database apps, like Airtable. But of course, document integration makes Notion a great choice for many, including me!
Much appreciated!

[thecraigmcrae]

Super well done and useful with some great examples, thank you.

[milesmatic]

Awesome - I've been looking for a video like that on Notion!

[FaithNgJiaen]

thank you so much for this! it really helped!

[adeelkhan]

Thanks for the great video!! Very clearly explained. One question is there a possibility of linking multiple databases for a same column so that I can use different roolups? I tried it but the value is disappears. Do you know how one can do??

[toroblanco]

What Notion calls database in a Relational Database world it's called a table and tables make up a database. It's other way around in Notion.

[dfxdfx]

Hi, Will. I was wondering if it is possible to have a relation between a database and a Calendar. For instance a database of my running performances and a Calendar which shows when those astonishing performances took place. I tried but I'm not satisfied with the outcome. I don't even know whether it wil keep relating them (for each running day) or I'll have to add a relation every day (which would be a useless waste of time).

[huandha]

can I merge all project calendars into one calendar in Notion?

Unfortunately, I did not find such a function, maybe you can help me. Thank you

[jerroldnikolaisen]

Hi William, trying this again. I was using a mac on safari. So now i'm trying on chrome. I sent a reply with the scenario on it but it didn't post. That with the doubling of comments - Frustrating.
Without the preamble : Table ("Database") 1 = Organizations, Table 2 = People. A person could be related to an organization by one or more association type: employee or a volunteer or a stockholder, director, etc. So the relationship is that of an "Association" where each association has a type (as discussed).. Further, any one person will have associations with multiple organizations and likely multiple associations within a single organization. So the relationship between Organizations and People is called Associations where the association needs its own Fields ("Properties"). I'd think it needs a junction table. But I haven't had much luck creating this. Any advice?

[Zerudite]

Is there any way to paste a relation value to a Notion table from external sources?

I get that you can copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V) relation values on the same table

(even across different relation columns, probably even across tables)



but copying and pasting a relation value to an external source turns it into a URL pointing to the relation block (a notion, so URL pointing to a page representing the relation)



and copying and pasting that URL value
(that was pasted onto something outside of Notion eg Excel or notepad)
does not paste the relation value back onto the table



pasting relation values from tables exported as .csv also does not work



Does notion add some sort of weird hidden metadata to the relation values when we copy it off a table or something? And if so, how can we use it to paste relation values (the URLs) onto a notion table from external sources?

[jerroldnikolaisen]

By the way, I have considered using a Junction Table in between the two tables. It doesn't behave very well. I expect this is how it is done but I cannot find anything online discussing it.

[dfxdfx]

Hi Will. Me again. Is it possible to relate a property to two different databases? (I mean, I tried but I couldn't, so I was wondering if there was a workaround it that spared me to move all my data to a single database). Question number 2, I was giving some thought to creating a master tag page, as I've seen in a couple of videos of your colleagues, but, as far as I understood, with that system you cannot use colors for your tag, is it correct?

[jerroldnikolaisen]

Hi William. A different subject. When you pull up a list from a related database, the list pops up not sorted. This is a bit of an issue with long lists. I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be sorted. Is there a way to change this?

[jerroldnikolaisen]

Again. The comment was double posted. Does anyone else see this?

[DingoAteMeBaby]

Im glad I installed that 3.5x speed chrome extension...

[jerroldnikolaisen]

Hi William, trying this again. I was using a mac on safari. So now i'm trying on chrome. I sent a reply with the scenario on it but it didn't post. That with the doubling of comments - Frustrating.
Without the preamble : Table ("Database") 1 = Organizations, Table 2 = People. A person could be related to an organization by one or more association type: employee or a volunteer or a stockholder, director, etc. So the relationship is that of an "Association" where each association has a type (as discussed).. Further, any one person will have associations with multiple organizations and likely multiple associations within a single organization. So the relationship between Organizations and People is called Associations where the association needs its own Fields ("Properties"). I'd think it needs a junction table. But I haven't had much luck creating this. Any advice?

[jerroldnikolaisen]

Again. The comment was double posted. Does anyone else see this?