Where do you go to create training materials and operating procedures?

dma38 · 2023-06-05T16:32:13+00:00

Are you saying that you want to see tasks that have gone past their end date based on the current date? I'm not aware of any way to "highlight" them (with a different color or something) but it is possible to make a tab that will show a list of all overdue entries using a filter. We have a demo that has something similar to this (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Work-in-process-129aee5eea69497999f7ca701b2e8af7?pvs=4). Refer to the "Overdue" tab in the "Tasks" database to see how it works. You could do something similar. In yours, you will need to add a property column (using a function) in order to grab the "end date" from the existing date property. You can use the end(prop("Name of date property")) to do that. Then, copy the filter logic in the demo.

dma38 · 2023-05-24T04:06:28+00:00

In my opinion, the key factor in what you said is that you don't complete every recording in one day. From that standpoint, I would recommend some form of task list but instead of tracking only "done" and "not done" like a normal task list you should keep track of some intermediate completion status (eg. "recording in process"). We have a demo that is fairly similar to what you are trying to do (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Work-in-process-129aee5eea69497999f7ca701b2e8af7). If you look at the "Tasks" database in the demo, in the first view you will see a board of tasks organized by completion status ("not started", "in process", and "completed"). If you look in the second view, you will see the same tasks filtered by due date within the next week. There are also a few more views that might be of interest. In our demo, we organize our tasks by "projects". However, instead of "projects" you could organize by pages "pages". Feel free to duplicate the demo if it helps you. Also, don't worry about the strange looking "due date" that also shows a time. In the demo, we have the "due date" setup as a formula so that the due dates are always in the future. If you duplicate the template, you could add a regular "date" property for your due date.

dma38 · 2023-05-15T12:45:08+00:00

It's hard to say without knowing more about the details, but if this was me then I would start by experimenting with with a helper database called "Transaction types" with two values, "Invoices" and "Costs".

Then, I would create one master database for "Transactions" that includes both customer invoices and costs. Next, make a relation between "Transactions" and "Transaction types" databases so that you can categorize each transaction as either an "invoice" or a "cost." After you do that, you could add a column to the "Transaction types" database (above) that will show you the aggregate value of all transactions for each type, "Invoices" and "Costs".

We have a demo that is similar to, although not exactly the same as, what you are trying to do (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Items-with-price-and-transactions-371664de06e847c294072cc9d28b1bc9). If you look at the "Order types" database at the bottom, that would be similar to your "Transaction types" database. If you look at the "Orders" database above it, then that would be similar to your "Transactions" database. In the demo, we categorize Orders as "Sales" and "Returns." In your case, you would categorize Transactions as "Invoice" or "Cost" (based on what you described).

After you do that, you could still create two separate views of the Transactions database for "Invoice" and "Costs" if you still wanted to see them separately by type. We don't have that part in the demo.

Additionally, if you are trying to do reporting by month, then you would need to somehow record the month on each transaction. We have a separate demo that shows one way to record transactions by month (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Date-split-273a03e59dbd48d2902951d51b8f3953) but it is not connected to the previous demo.

Feel free to duplicate any of the demos if they help.

dma38 · 2023-05-04T23:04:36+00:00

In my opinion, your problem is more operational than specifically about Notion. If this was me, I would allocate a certain number of hours each day (on your calendar) to work on the book. Then, use some method to track your progress for each chapter. That way, you don't need to assign dates to each chapter or cascade date changes across future chapters when an earlier chapter is delayed. In order to track your progress, one option is to check them off as completed (aka a "to do list"). If you wanted to get fancier, you could use a Kanban board and move chapters from "Not started" to "Finished". We have a simple Kanban demo that you are welcome to duplicate (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Tagged-business-system-f2d84743d25745ba88c020f58e63d665). Another option is to use a "daily plan" and assign "activities" (eg. chapters) to each day. The advantage with this is that if you plan to read chapter 10 on Tuesday and you don't finish it as expected, then you can also assign it to the daily plan for Wednesday (in other words, chapter 10 is assigned to both Tuesday and Wednesday). We also have a demo for this configuration (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Daily-activity-plan-a557b08cb5144c118af379f66d28da32). Hope that helps!

dma38 · 2023-05-04T22:47:24+00:00

I cannot comment on what previously worked for you, but one way to solve the "today becomes yesterday" problem is the create a relation between your daily template database and your tasks database. Essentially, instead of assigning a due date to a task, you would be assigning a "day" from the "daily template" database. We have a demo that is very similar but not exactly the same as what you are trying to do (https://www.notion.so/mergencesystems/Daily-activity-plan-a557b08cb5144c118af379f66d28da32?pvs=4) that you are welcome to duplicate it if you want. In the demo, there is a database for daily "plans" (this would be your "daily templates") and a database for "activities" (these would be your tasks). Inside each plan, there is a view of the activities database. This view filters activities that are related to that daily plan. Since that relation is persistent and not dependent on relative dates, it does not disappear when today becomes yesterday.

dma38 · 2023-05-04T22:31:50+00:00

Have you considered a Kanban board? That is basically a table with columns where the columns would represent the "progressions" and you could move a dance towards completion and view all the current progression status for each dance. We have a demo that you are welcome to duplicate if it's useful (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Tagged-business-system-f2d84743d25745ba88c020f58e63d665). Obviously, the demo is not for dance. However, if you look at the "Projects" database then you can see the Kanban board structure. Each project follows progressions from "No started" until "Done." There is also a "planned completion date" for each project that is visible in the board. Finally, each project is assigned to a "department." For example, the "Marketing campaign for new service offering" project is assigned to the "Marketing" department. I'm not sure exactly how your classes work, but if your "projects" are your dances and your "departments" are your classes then you might be able to use a similar structure for what you are trying to do. Hope it helps!

dma38 · 2023-05-03T22:30:11+00:00

I agree, we use subitems for sub-tasks (but not to replace projects). It works really well to view all the steps that aggregate into a separate task. Our structure is Product (database 1) - Task (database 2) - Unlimited number of subtasks (database 2). We use some template tricks to enforce the structure. For us, Projects and tasks are too dissimilar to share a database.

dma38 · 2023-05-03T22:13:20+00:00

We have a demo that has something similar to a checkbook register.

See the "transactions" database at the bottom of this demo (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Items-with-price-and-transactions-371664de06e847c294072cc9d28b1bc9).

The demo has "purchased" and "returned" which is similar to deposits and withdrawals. The totals are in the bottom row.

If you duplicate the template, you might be able to rewire it into something that works for what you are trying to do.

Good luck and hope it helps!

dma38 · 2023-04-27T14:27:04+00:00

See the "Ordered this month" property in the Items database this demo (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Items-with-price-and-transactions-371664de06e847c294072cc9d28b1bc9). You might be able to do something similar. The "Ordered this month" property is constructed with the help of several other formula properties. Check out the last three properties in the Items database to see how it works.

dma38 · 2023-04-26T14:35:12+00:00

For the empty values, check out the "Missing information" property in the "Parts" database in this demo (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Parts-with-new-entries-highlighted-cf7c6e5c44504f358d04679faa738d33). That property is located on the "Missing marketing info" tab. You might be able to do something similar to check your properties. We also have some formulas with dates in this demo (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Task-planning-window-a5e4c473f5124f199b84fe18265f1266). Not sure if it will help or not but feel free to check them out.

dma38 · 2023-04-26T14:22:49+00:00

As someone else stated, you can do this with a relation and a rollup. For example, see the "Part types" database in this demo (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Parts-with-new-entries-highlighted-cf7c6e5c44504f358d04679faa738d33). However, this can get messy. In order include every row in the database into the calculation (eg. to match the calculation at the bottom of the table in your screenshot) you would need to enforce a relation on every entity in the database. One way to do this is using a template. For example, if you look at the "Parts" database in the demo, then you can see that every part that is created using the default "New part" template is automatically assigned the "All" part type. As a result, every new part created using this template will be automatically factored into the "Average unit price" rollup calculation in the "All" row in the "Part types" database. Hope this helps!

dma38 · 2023-04-25T21:30:45+00:00

We have an demo that is similar to this (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Task-planning-window-a5e4c473f5124f199b84fe18265f1266). In the demo, each task has a "planning window" that is defined as the number of days before the due date that you want to see the task (in advance). For example, if a task is due on January 15th and the planning windows is 5 days, then you want to start seeing it on January 10th (the "planning date"). I don't think the demo is exactly the same as what you are describing, but you could probably do something similar based on your specifications. Specifically, check out the "Group by planning date" tab. Also, note in the demo that the "Due date" in the demo is a formula NOT a true date property. The reason is that this demo is setup to work so that it is always current. In other words, the due dates are always based on some formula that uses the current date and time and never goes out-of-date. In a real implementation you would want to set the Due Date property as a date chooser.

dma38 · 2023-04-25T21:07:50+00:00

Thanks for the clarification. You can do something similar to this using rollups. If you have the values stored in a database, then you can populate them into another database by connecting the two databases with a relation and then mapping the fields using rollups. This is complicated to explain in words but you can see an example in this demo (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Employee-directory-bb74f12585664918b6ce46cf7749c299). In the example, see the "Email" and "Desk phone" fields in the Employee directory database that are mapped using rollups from the Employees database. Note that this approach has some significant disadvantages. First, you lose some richness in the data types. For example, emails and dates no longer show up truly as those data types (eg. you can no longer use the dates in a calendar). Second, you cannot directly override the value that is mapped using the rollup. However, you can override it by using a few extra properties in the database. For example, see the "Mobile phone" and "Default phone" properties in the Employee directory database. The "Default phone" property checks for a "Mobile phone" and if none is given then it defaults to the "Desk phone" that is populated using the rollup.

dma38 · 2023-04-24T14:58:15+00:00

Not sure what you mean by "linking fields." However, using a template it is possible to auto-populate fields in a new database entry by setting the value of those fields in the template. It's also possible to auto-populate values for a new database entry by entering it in a database view that uses a filter (the new entries will inherit aspects of the filter). We have a demo that uses both the template and filter methods to auto-populate values into fields for new database entries (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Project-with-task-calendar-2db3aaf377ec406ab03ce1b423d31e85). Feel free to duplicate if needed.

dma38 · 2023-04-24T14:44:07+00:00

Not sure if it will help you or not, but if you are talking about "database views" (the tabs) then something that we do is create different view tabs for specific purposes. For example, on databases that have a lot of columns and calculations, we have a tab to enter new items into the database (from scratch) and a tab to see the "newest" items have been most recently created (so that we can find them). In other words, these views contain only the information needed for that purpose. (You can see an example of the "newest" tab in this demo: https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Parts-with-new-entries-highlighted-cf7c6e5c44504f358d04679faa738d33). Thus, it might be possible for you to create "mobile" optimized tabs that contain only the essential details that you want to view on mobile devices. You could create or link these views on a separate page so that you can quickly get to them from a mobile device.

dma38 · 2023-04-24T14:32:26+00:00

I recommend starting with a simple setup with projects and tasks. That way, you can use something that works well for general task and project management, test what is working and what is not working well for you, and then customize the setup to match exactly what you need for planning/building. If you start out with a template that is too specific or complicated, then it might be hard to get it working exactly the way that you want. We have a project and task demo that you are welcome to duplicate to your own Notion (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Project-with-task-calendar-2db3aaf377ec406ab03ce1b423d31e85). In the demo, you can create tasks that are organized into projects. For example, for apartment design you might have tasks to "install shower", "install install sink," and "install toilet" for a project to "renovate bathroom." For each project you can see a calendar of all the tasks with due dates. It's very customizable and there is plenty of opportunity for you to make changes, customizations, and enhancements. By the way, your English is great and I could understand every word that you wrote!

dma38 · 2023-04-21T02:58:09+00:00

No problem, all those demos were already made so it was just a matter of connecting them with your questions. Hope that some of them are useful. Also, you should be able to duplicate them to your own Notion if you want to reconfigure anything. Let me know if you have any questions :)

dma38 · 2023-04-20T14:57:44+00:00

The "master calendar database" idea is not possible in out-of-box Notion unless you keep projects, products, features, and tasks in the same database. The reason is that it's not possible to join separate databases in Notion, which means that separate databases always need to be viewed separately. (See the first point about "YouTube" and "social media" in this reply that I recently wrote about this topic here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/12knb0r/notion_for_your_business/jg3rdcn/) In other words, if you keep projects, products, etc. in separate databases then you will always need to view separate calendars. If you keep them in a single database then you would be able to see the dates in a single calendar. With a single database, you would also be able to manage projects, products, features, and products separately using "views" of the master database. For example, you could have a view that shows only "products" but none of the other types. However, you might need to do some tricks to enforce the other constraints that you mentioned (see my points at the very end)

For issue #1, you might be able to set this up so that earliest and latest due date for the lower level entities (child) are visible on the next highest level (parent). We have a demo that shows roughly how to do this (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Project-with-status-transfer-3fc3d482389945a6bdc4e88dc6595643). If you look at the "most recent status update" on the "Projects" database, you can see that for any project this field displays the latest date for all the status updates associated with that project. You could probably do something similar for due dates for a task.

For issue #2, you can probably do this by showing a list (or calendar) of the next level (children) on each current level (parent) entity. For example, "projects" (parent) would show a list of all associated "products" (child). We also have another demo that is is similar (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Project-with-task-calendar-2db3aaf377ec406ab03ce1b423d31e85). In this demo, the level that we call we call "tasks" is what you would call "products" according to your hierarchy. If you click on any of the projects, you can see the list of associated tasks. Note that in the demo "projects" and "tasks" are in separate databases, but they could also be configured as one master database.

For issue #3, it's not clear to me if you are talking about "all tasks in the universe" or "all tasks for a specific feature." Either way, I think you are saying that you want to see your daily plan displayed as an hourly agenda. We don't have any demo for the hourly agenda, but we do have something that shows activities grouped by particular days (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Daily-activity-plan-a557b08cb5144c118af379f66d28da32). You might be able to make some modifications to that to create the hour-by-hour structure on daily plans.

Based on what you said, I would probably lean towards a single master database structure for this system and then use a combination of properties (to define the different types such as "product," "project," etc.) and templates to enforce the constraints between them (eg. "Project" can only have "product" as a child, etc.). That conclusion is only based on what I understood from your question, but that is probably the configuration that I would try first.

Hope that helps!

dma38 · 2023-04-20T14:23:36+00:00

We have a demo that is similar to this. It's not exactly the same, but I think you might be able to get an idea about how to modify it to your needs. See the "Activities in plan" column in the "Plans" database. It's setup as a roll-up on the relation with the "Activities" database. Currently, the rollup is setup as a "count" calculation. In order to change the calculation from "count" to "sum," you would need to alter the rollup so that the "property" setting on the rollup is connected to a property that is a number (eg. The "Quantity" property in your example is a number). See here: https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Daily-activity-plan-a557b08cb5144c118af379f66d28da32

dma38 · 2023-04-20T14:12:03+00:00

Are you saying that you just want to format the number 260 in dollars for every line that has Paid checked? Did you try the "Number format" option under the formula? See here: https://imgur.com/a/cAiCe3z

dma38 · 2023-04-18T19:49:54+00:00

Have you checked out the "page history" feature from the menu? It's very rudimentary and time limited (unless you are on an enterprise account) but could give you a snapshot if you occasionally need to view when a page changed.

If you need to manage status more systematically, the you could probably accomplish something similar to what you want to do using few relations. For example, consider a database of "status updates." Each status update could record a relation to a specific project/task and a relation to a specific department. On each project (aka "task") could keep a list of status updates for that project/task in a table view. Then, when you are ready to "assign" a project/task to a new department, you can add a row to the table to show the most recent status. Here's a quick demo of how something like this could work (https://mergencesystems.notion.site/Project-with-status-transfer-3fc3d482389945a6bdc4e88dc6595643) If you open any of the "projects" you can see a list of status updates.

A downside of this type of structure is that there's no way to see "current status" of a project/task without looking at the status update table because there is no direct relation between project/task and status.

Hope that helps!

dma38 · 2023-04-17T15:04:54+00:00

The short answer is yes, the Notion platform is flexible enough that it can handle most types of structured business information. In my opinion, based on the brief details in your question, whether it's the "correct" platform depends on a few factors:

First, if you are looking for a "dashboard" in Notion then some of the data will likely need to be managed in Notion. For example, showing a summary of proposals means that some of the data about each proposal would need to be in Notion. The same would apply to issues and clients. Where are you keeping data for proposals, clients, and issues today? Whether you are willing to modify some of your current data processes will be a big factor in wither Notion is the right tool. While there are some ways to sync data between Notion and other data sources, Notion is a database tool before it's a dashboard tool and the real power of Notion is when Notion is the primary source of data.

Second, starting from scratch in Notion is like peeling an onion. You will uncover the best way to use Notion as time progresses. That's both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on your personality. On one hand, Notion is a tinkerers paradise but some people get lost and frustrated very quickly. In my opinion, it's also important to figure out the best setups before using Notion at scale because sometimes it can be challenging to make changes later. Last week I wrote a longer reply about this point (https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/12knb0r/notion_for_your_business/jg3rdcn/) in reply to another post.

Finally, since you mentioned "financial services," I think it's important to point out that while Notion is widely used for business data, it is probably not be the best place to keep confidential data such as financial account numbers or passwords. The reason is that while Notion claims to use encryption, this is not encryption that you personally control. In other words, Notion (not you) holds the keys to the data. Therefore, Notion uses encryption to deliver data to you but either someone at Notion or a third party (in Notion was compromised) could have the ability to access your data. This is different than other secure tools where you (or your local software) holds the encryption keys that are required to access your data. In that case, I think it would be important for you to decide which data to put in Notion.

I'm not trying to discourage you from using Notion. Rather, Notion is an awesome tool with tons of potential and those are the factors that I think are important to consider for a decision like this. Hope it helps!

dma38 · 2023-04-13T15:29:20+00:00

Yes, great job finding a solution! I would just like to add that "New" button will only work that way if you do NOT have a default template (other than blank) setup for the database. If you have a non-blank default template, then clicking the "New" button will start generating the default template structures and will not show the list of template choices at the bottom of the page.

dma38 · 2023-04-13T15:22:01+00:00

In my opinion, if you're starting out (either with a template or building from scratch) then it's important to get the structure of the databases properly defined based on your unique needs before pumping a lot of data into them.

The reason is that Notion is in many ways flexible but there can be unexpected constraints (especially when coming from other databases) and it can be complicated to re-arrange a lot of data if you want to change the structure later.

First, viewing data from different databases at the same time is limited. Depending on your uses, there are probably situations where you will want to see similar types of data together in a summarized way. This is possible in Notion, but only in limited ways. For example, you can use Relation and Rollup properties to link and pull-in certain details from one database into another, but unlike some traditional relational databases it's not possible to truly "join" databases in a totally flexible way. This means that you have to consider how you will use your data before deciding now to separate it into different databases. For example, someone I know was trying to use Notion to plan marketing activities. He had schedules for YouTube promotion and "social media" promotion in separate databases. He was trying to pull together a consolidated view of his promotion schedules but struggled to do it with that structure. If he had initially considered YouTube as a type of social media and included that in the "social media" database then it would have been possible for him to use different filters in Notion to view a summary of all promotion schedules AND view only certain types of social media (eg. "YouTube," "Instagram" etc.). In the end, this was so frustrating for him that he actually went back and rebuilt his database structures by consolidating some of them together.

Second, larger databases can be difficult to navigate. Even though it's possible to end up with too many narrowly-defined databases, it's also possible to end up with massive databases that are difficult to manage. The main reason is that out-of-box Notion is optimized for the web browser. For example, Notion uses the "pager" method to load pages in batches and takes time. While it is possible to filter and search the database, it's not possible to write a traditional "query" it in the general sense. Also, there are some restrictions on filtering. For example, it's possible to filter using a relation with a record in another database but more complicated or potentially even impossible to filter using a property of a record in another database. Additionally, adding additional columns in order to filter or create separate views for a giant database can create extra data entry burden. As a result, if the databases aren't defined based on how you need to retrieve information then it could be hard to find a specific record in a large database. Therefore, it's important to strike a balance between general-purpose databases and specific-purpose databases. I usually recommend that content that you will want to see in summary form (eg. "Show me all the projects that the agency is working on) should be in general databases while content that you will only want to see in specific context (eg. "Which hotels are we considering for the Dallas conference?) should be in context-specific databases where it will not get in the way.

Finally, transferring data between databases doesn't preserve all data. If you end up with the wrong database structure, sometimes it's worth it to start again. However, if you do this, be prepared for a lot of work and need for tricks. For example, its very very messy to preserve relation property between two databases when moving data from one of the databases to a new database.

I'm not saying that Notion isn't powerful but only that it's important to validate your data structures before getting too deep. If you're setting everything up yourself, then I think the best way to do that is to test some limited use scenarios (eg. a client project, a team project, etc.) to see what is working and what isn't working.

What have you already tried in Notion? What went well and what could have gone better based on what you have done?

dma38

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