Transcript for:
Notion 3.0 Major Updates

Notion just had its biggest event of the year. With this, Notion announced the shift from Notion 2.0 to 3.0. And we got a ton of new features. The most exciting ones are granular database permissions. Finally, agents in Notion, plus a new map view. But there's also a lot more to cover. So, in this video, we will go over everything announced at Make with Notion and how you can make the most of it. Buckle in because this is going to be an exciting one. First, granular database permissions. This is the one thing I've been asking from Notion for years. For many companies, this is the missing link that was stopping them from building truly scalable notion systems. From client portals all the way to secure HR documents, this unlocks so many use cases. But there are also a few things to keep in mind. in order to find these new granular permissions. You need to go to the main instance of your database. So probably in your back end and open it as a full page. And on here what you can then do is you can click into the share settings in the top right corner and you will see other than this pop-up a new option page level access. And this is basically the principle right? We will have our general access levels for the database itself. And then we can write an exception on the page level. Now before we dive into the details of exactly how we can write these rules to give people access, I think it's very important that we quickly revisit how notion permissions work in general. These are the six levels that basically exist. Right? We can give someone full access to something in notion which means they can edit it and most importantly they can share it also with anyone else. We have the canedit option which means the user can make any changes to the thing but they can't invite other users right that's the main uh difference between full access and can edit are they able to invite someone else then we have canedit content this is a special permission level that is only available on a database right if we go back to our system I see here okay this dude right MF consulting I don't know who that is I can go in and say instead of full access I would like to have can edit content And this it also tells me right means that they that person will be able to modify entries in the database right so I can change the name can change the properties but they cannot change the database views or the structure of the database right so they can't go in and rename the owner property to um responsible right or they can't delete the status property again this option is only available if you look at a database as a full page if I open up any other entry right let's just say we are on this one this is just an entry in database You see if I go here to my permission levels um the full access one I only have can add and can comment right that's it's very important a thing that trips people up off quite often uh can edit content always uh only when you look at the database then you have can comment which is exactly what it says right a user cannot make any changes to it they can only leave comments on the page can view is even more restrictive you can view the content but you cannot uh even leave a comment and then of course no access which means you don't even see that the thing exists. Importantly, notion has recently in uh started to change the UI a little bit. And now whereas previously if something was no access, you just didn't see an entry at all. Nowadays, it shows this little no access button. So, someone um sees that a page is there, but they don't know, you know, what uh what's inside or any of the information about it. The granular permissions update doesn't change the type of permissions that we have. it just helps us assign them in a much smarter way. So if you go back to notion um previously what we could do right is we could either say okay for the whole database let's change the permissions let's say that here this user should only have can comment access and that means now right for every single entry in this database the user has can comment only and if I wanted to change something for specific entries the only way to do this was to do that individually by clicking into the entry and saying actually this one right that's something where I like the person to have different rights. And you see that also in the share settings, right? Because it tells you like, okay, based on the, you know, uh demo task, right? The the entry where this uh the database where this entry lives in, the person has can comment access. But I can now change this, right? I can either restrict it further. I can say that person actually can only view this one or I can increase it. I can say okay um let's give this person um full access. And we see right this little popup that um on this page right we have different share settings than otherwise. But of course this is quite annoying right having to do this on individual basis really cumbersome and not really possible uh at scale. Now this is different. So here we see that in a bunch of entries MF consulting is the responsible person. So what I can do if I want to make sure that uh that person cannot change any tasks from other people but can only update their own tasks I could go in and I could say okay in general right on this database can comment right or even can view that is the permission that I want for everyone here but I'm creating now a rule so I'm going to click on here and say based on the owner property that person right who's the owner should be able to edit so you see right I select first okay uh how do We determine the rights and this will always be a person property at the moment right so you see we have the owner and the created by property but we can't say okay if status is a then do why we have a workar around for that I'll share in a moment but the main rule will always be based on a person property and then we can pick one of the elements and as you can see right the elements that we have available here is can edit can comment and can view so few things uh right like to note it's not canedit Ed content can edit content is not on there because the permission is set specifically on the entry but giving them can edit permissions on the entry in the database will mean that they can change the properties of it. So most of the time this would be the setup that you would want in this situation. So let's create this rule. And now this means right if I a I can just review this rule right and I can change it from here. I can add more rules. And if we go into any of these entries, we can see that in the share access, right? We see okay, who has access here right now? Well, um, MF Consulting has can view access through this, but if they are the owner, right, they will be able to edit it. This is incredible because now we can finally programmatically determine who has access to a database. And you see also actually, right, uh, we get this indication here on the owner property that this this is an important thing. This changes who has access. Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty details and a few cool workarounds that you want to keep in mind, I think it's very important that we revisit a few more principles on permissions in notion because otherwise you're going to create a mess out of this. So, what else to keep in mind? Well, the very first thing that you should remember is wherever possible, please use groups to assign permissions. Particularly on the database level itself, right? on these bigger pages. You don't want to have to manage 17 individual people. You want to make sure that you have a group, right, for your different access levels. So, probably all for the whole team, right? And then maybe the admins uh in notion and then maybe leadership, right? That's sort of like a typical three tier setup. Uh maybe you have also an HR group, right? Whatever your different permission cycles uh are in your company, those are the groups that you should have. And then you should always uh add permissions based on the group, right? So, uh, this is a bad example because it's in a private page right now and there's no group on it. But you don't want to have MF consulting on here, right? As a user, you want to have the group on there where this person belongs to. Uh, and then, of course, individually, you will typically give individual people access, but a recent change that uh is very important, you know, is you can now actually mention groups in people properties. So, you can use that, right, to also then mass assign. Importantly, groups don't work with the MI filter yet, right? So if Matias is a part of the you know notion group and I assign a notion group here Matias won't be able to see those tasks in his meu right again we need a few workarounds for that but it's great to give access right to sort of like a whole group if you for example say okay I want everyone from the team X right on on documents for example I want everyone from the HR team to be able to update the HR documents but everyone else should only have can view much more efficient right than doing it on individual user basis That's one part. The second part is highest permission wins. This is really really important because one thing that you can't do with the rule effectively is to say well um that person should have less rights right it looks a little bit like it right it says mean I can set this to can view you right if if he has you know full access in general to the database but if he's an owner right I set him to can you know can I sort of reduce someone's permissions through that and the answer is no. um in notion doesn't matter sort of like where permissions come from notion will always grant the user the highest one which also means for example right if MF consulting was in the group notion admins and I added notion admins to this page right as a group and through the consulting one he would have you know full access through the group can view well he would get full access and the same vice versa if I give him individually can view but the group where he's in full access, he would have full access. You can only increase the permissions through that which is very important, right? It follows this general principle uh and the best practice when it comes to permission management. So you always want to go from the part of like least uh permissions and then you know increase it slowly for people. Um, of course, this has sort of like a natural tension with one specific use case where you say, okay, in general, I want everyone in this in the database, right, to be able to see everything, but there are a few elements that I want to take out for that. We need to think around the corner a little bit. I have a work around for that in a moment. But yeah, the important thing to keep in mind, right, for now, the default way of working here will be to reduce the permissions on the main database to the lowest level that you want to have across all the users. and then use the page rules to increase those permissions wherever necessary. And yeah, then just a general reminder that all your databases by default should be set to canedit content. Right? If you go into your databases, you want to make sure that only the admins have full access. Everyone else can edit content only because otherwise they can, you know, start messing with your database structure. So let's dive into a few use cases and setups. This is the reminder, right? in order to set granular permissions, set restrictive permissions for the whole database and then increase access through your page rules. The very first example might the one that I already kind of mentioned the edit your own stuff. Here we want to make sure that everyone in the database has can view only. So they can't mess with someone else's tasks but they can edit their own entries. This is basically what we did in the example. So you want to make sure that in terms of the main settings, no one has full access, right? So let's uh reduce that person to can view and let's reduce the group that I've added here to can view and of course this would probably not be the admin group but it would be the all group in your workspace. Then we say okay anyone in owner can edit and this now means right that Jill cannot update my tasks but she can update her own tasks. fairly simple, fairly common principle, right? Particular when it comes, for example, to documents that you want to add to a database, making sure that through this, right, you don't have any surprises when it comes to edits. Now, before we move on, let's just double check the experience for the other user. Here I am right on demo task, logged in as the main account, and I've given MF Consulting can view only, but can edit content if they the owner. If I now look at the main database, right? Demo tasks do that account. One thing that you'll notice is well first off, okay, I can't change things here, right? That is correct. Organize family game that I can't like rename the thing for that person. That is perfect. And if I now check, for example, one of my entries, right? Schedule the dentist appointment here. We can now, you know, like uh and do something cool, right? That works perfectly. And I can change the status to, you know, not started um you know, in progress waiting. So I can make all the edits that I want to. However, if I now try to make the changes directly on the database, you see, right, even though I have the edit permissions on this entry here, I I currently can't make the currently always have to open the entry to make these changes, right? So the main database, the database view itself is locked down and I can only make those changes by going into the entry itself. That is currently only true though for the main instance of the database. Even in this scenario, you can still give users the better user experience of being able to make changes to entries in the database by using a linked view. So here we have the uh you know different page grant permissions and this is a link view of the demo tasks and same idea here right I can't make any changes for drill right can't make something there but I can uh go for for example my first meeting you know make any changes I want here and in this case I can also now make these changes on the link view right so I can change the properties directly from here so this is something where I expect right in the future the user experience will further improve um uh for uh you know everyone involved But just a thing to keep in mind right that if you use this setup you want to make sure you use a linked view so that the people can actually make these changes in the property there. There's also small bug going on right now in my version where if I haven't opened the entry at all right it doesn't let me click into but after I click into the entry once I can then start making the changes here. So few you know rough corners still to to iron out and to smoothen but in general right gives us exactly what we need. the user can only make changes to the entries that they are responsible for. Next up, let's give people the ability to share their own stuff. Because if you follow my advice of making your databases by default can edit content, that means that people cannot share uh their pages that they create with others, which particularly I know a lot of my uh clients from smaller teams, they have this issue that they kind of want them to do, right? So they then go into the trade-off of saying okay we actually risk that people sometimes might change our database structure because our notion admin can't approve all the share requests. Well now we at least partially to a solution because it is possible to give full access in certain conditions. Now you noticed before maybe right that for our rule of anyone and owner we can only go to can edit as a max condition. So we we can't go higher but we can add a different rule and we can say okay the created by and this one goes all the way up to full access. Now I hope that we get the same option for the regular owner one as well but still it's at least uh one step of the way there right towards making sure that uh people that create pages are able to share those pages also with other people. Now for the fun stuff client portals are finally here. whether it is an actual true client portal where you want to invite uh you know a client that you work with into notion and share only tasks that are relevant for them with them or whether it's more the scenario of okay you have a few freelancers and they should only see tasks assigned to them this is now the solution you can very easily set your main database to no access right so we want to actually remove everyone from here except for the people that are supposed to edit it and let's actually also just quickly delete uh our permission rules and in this base setup right now no one sees anything. If I go back to database right granular permissions there's just no access. So if this was my you know uh client portal they don't have any entries in there yet. But the second we then add back in our page rule of saying okay add a new rule if the owner of a task or like the owner of a task should be able to well and it depends what you want the person to do probably can edit if it's freelancer so they can check off the tasks maybe only can view for a client right so they can only see what you're working on we can create this and then we can have this uh reload and now in a second whoops that was a was going a bit too far right now we have here the tasks in there that that person can update. And if you're wondering why this one task pops in there, right, this is the one where we shared it manually with that person. So it's not an active violation of the page permissions uh just like different sources from which they come, right? But this now also means that for the first time if you use these page rules, you actually get a database. Previously with the old system and what you see here, right? Even if we shared an entry in a database, we didn't um get a proper viewpoint. But with page rules, if you set it like this, then you can use linked database views to now really truly show a subset of the data in a database but nothing else. Now the most complex uh situation in the beginning will be to keep certain things secret. Right? We covered so far how we can increase permissions for individual elements. But one of the most common requests that we actually get is we have all these documents in our company wiki, but we want to keep the HR docs separate and secure. How can we do this? Well, it requires a little bit of thinking around the corner, but it is possible. Basically, we still need to set our database to no access because remember, we need to start with the most restricted permission that we want overall in our system and then we need to add in permissions. But what we will do is we will have a user group for everyone in the company and by default every new page will get this user group so that every new page is shared with everyone but then we can write dedicated automations to toggle this all group off. Here's how it works in our system, right? Demo pages. Uh we have now uh this property like share with right it shouldn't be the owner because we want the owner separate to be able to make changes there. But we have this uh general property and this is the team and we have a automation or like our general setup is that here we say okay in general only I the admin has access no one else. But if you're shared if you know if you're in the share with uh elements you can see this which means right in this case since everyone is in team if you go to the public end right on demo pages if we refresh this for a moment that thing will show up and there we are demo pages test that person we can see it and if we create any new entry in here we have an automation running that says okay when a page is added make sure that you add the team in here right so I know create a new entry new entry For now, this is not filled yet, but it will fill it through the automation in a second. And once that's the case, right, it also shows up in here. So now we have a situation where everything that we create is public, but we can then write these other automations. Let's say for example, okay, when we set the tag to HR, then remove that group and replace it. So let's add sort of like our pop uh secret entry in here. We'll wait a second, right? the automation will assign team but now I assign the HR tag and then in a moment it will actually remove this currently top secret is there right we've added a tag and now it gets removed and that person no longer has access to it this is the very simple loop that you will need to deploy in these situations where you want to by default have everything public but restrict access for someone now of course we can make this experience a lot smoother most of the time uh when it comes to these HR pages we don't want to first apply a tag and then have it been hidden because it's then visible for a moment. Right? So if you want to make sure that it's never visible at all, you would do something like this through a button, right? So you would say, okay, if I click this button, then let's make sure that we uh add only that uh you know that we remove this immediately along uh those lines or like we drag it in uh and when we drag it in we apply the tag or remove the group. So there are a bunch of ways to make sure that sort of like this happens instantaneously and through that you'll be able to build these systems where you have a shared knowledge base but can sort of wall off certain elements. And then there's of course one last challenge here. How do you allow users to add entries to database if you lock it down completely? Uh as you can see right on my again other user account uh there's no new button here to add an entry to it. Since again the main database is completely locked down for me. I don't have access to it. I only have access to my entries. I also cannot uh just add entries like this, right? Like sort of task and try to drag it in here. I do see the thin line which would indicate that I can drop it here. But if I do so actually notion will push it out a second, right? So I can't really create something like that. I can only drop it of course into the entry because I have edit permissions here. But that's not a new task. I can also not use a normal button. Right? So what I've done here is I've set up two buttons. One to add a task directly. Right? when the button is clicked add page to tasks as a new item and as a person with access to database I can click this new task but as a person who doesn't have access I can't right I don't have access to the underlying database so I cannot run this button what works though and which is sort of like the missing piece here is the form right we can set up on our database a form for new entries and then we can link a button to say okay when the button is clicked open that form and And this now allows me to as a user might go in say okay I want to add a new task right sort of test task. Let's submit this. I should have done this actually as a modal so it's a bit easier to navigate but I'll just go back one second. And now we see this test task pop up here because what I've done is I said um owner edit property the default will be the person who uh created it. So whenever someone adds something through a form, they are automatically added as an owner and owner is the property that gives them the permissions. So through that loop, right, you can then create this experience. But let me just change this uh you know from the full open to the um modal open uh because that's just a little bit more convenient. But yeah, uh that is kind of right like the workflow that you want here. One last challenge. How can you allow users to add entries to this database if it's locked down? Right? On a lockdown database, I don't have an option to add something. I don't have a new button. I cannot even drag something in here. Right? So, if I have a task and I want to drag it in here, uh notion it looks as if I could do, right? But if I actually do so, notion will bump it out in a second because I don't have permissions for it. And of course, I also cannot just use a normal button, right? So here I have a button and it's set up to well add an entry to this database. As someone with access to the main database I can do so right new task super simple as someone who doesn't have access to the underlying one I don't have permissions to run this button. So the workaround that you need to use is a second button a form. So what I've done is I've set up a form on this database uh that allows me to add entries right which says okay whenever this form is filled out we add it as a task. And now that means as a user I can click on this form right and it opens up this entry and I can say okay new task and I could have embedded it actually that would have been a bit of a smoother experience but let's just click on submit and then let's navigate back to the main page and we see new task now pops up here and that's because I've set the owner property to have the default of created by which means what's happening if someone fills out a form a new entry is added it automatically sets the created by um sorry the owner to the person who just edited this and then we have the rule that says okay if you're the owner then you can access it and this then sort of closes this loop right of having on client portals or anywhere else where you have limited permissions the ability for people to add new entries without you know having to contact an admin every single time. Next is an update that might be even bigger not necessarily on its own but what it means in a larger context. notion 3.0 and that basically means that notion itself right refers to notion 1.0 as the initial version with just pages. Then we had notion 2.0 where we added databases into the mix right which was a huge jump in functionality. Notion 3.0 is now all about agentic workflows which means that the AI inside of notion can now do your work for you. I am really excited for this because it solves one of AI's biggest problem, the first and last mile issue. As you know, of course, JBT, Claude, Gemini, they're all good at giving you an answer if you give them a lot of context first and then afterwards, you still need to take that answer right and implement it. But with notion agents living right in your workspace and being able to do pretty much anything that you can do in Notion, they have the information and can act on it. To access the new agents, simply click on the floating chat bar in the bottom right. And sort of the sign that the new version is live for you is that you have this whole sidebar popping out, right? You also have this option to switch between chat modes. Um and yeah, basically as soon as you have that, you know, okay, now it's time to play with some really cool features. For example, we have now access to databases, which means I can ask it something like um how many open tasks are assigned to me in and then we can just do demo tasks, right? And mention that database and now it will go ahead, it will query the database and it will tell me uh what it is. And you see it sort of tells me along the way what it's doing, right? Okay, it's searching the database. It's figing out. Okay, and we have seven open tasks. And then it even tells me right based on what it made that decision because of course my prompt here was a little bit unclear and just makes sure that I understand what it's thinking about. But this is just the beginning since notion agents have basically all the capabilities of what you can do in notion at least as long as it works with the API and they are good at strategizing step by step. You can give it really long prompts and will execute amazingly well on them. Here's an example, right, that we use now all the time at our consultancy to generate actually backend systems and it's a two-part prompt where the first one instructs it instructed to help us think through what properties we actually need, right? in case you need to create that structure. But once you have that structure, right, there's an also a whole master prompt that goes step by step what we found works best to make sure uh that it, you know, creates a proper system without running into any errors. To show you how this works, uh I'm just going to paste our mega prompt in here, which is basically an explanation for a simple CRM database setup, right? Containing of four interconnected databases. And while it goes now off on the side and starts to you know figure out the best process route and you will see things popping in here right we have the title we have an icon here's our back end now right it will start adding the databases to those pages updated with the properties and so on and so on while it works in the background just want to say a few more things that you need to keep in mind here first notion agents um as I mentioned right they can query your databases they can create them they can change the properties properties in it. So you can also go into an existing database and say actually you know can you add these properties in there or can you modify it like that and then of course can also add things to it. So for example right if you have uh some meeting transcripts maybe using notion AI you can ask the agent afterwards to identify the um action items and add it to your task database. Super powerful. It can also browse the internet. So if it creates databases, you can use it for simple enriging and we just see right here on the side as it creates these database right sets up the properties according to our instructions gives the sample data and so on. It can browse the internet to pull information in do simple enriching and overall right turns into this really powerful assistant. One thing it can't do yet is for example create linked database views. And that's really the only thing at this point that stops this from setting up a full notion template for you because right you will be restricted to the backend databases. And of course, right, it can outline a dashboard, but it won't be able to actually add the elements. And we'll we'll check that in a right because it tells me now it has completed the first four phases. So now we can just in okay we have phase four and five. I forgot about it. So, we'll have to wait another moment, but we'll see in a moment how it can create these pages for us, but yeah, without the actual content. So, it's not perfect yet, but it's absolutely incredible what it can do. So, here our database is now complete even with sample data right across the board. So, we can imagine how it work looks like uh different views and now to add to this right what you can of course do once you have the system in place and whether it's AI generated or your existing one I can have AI now add things. So let's for example say okay just had a call with ashy you know co-owner from notion don't remember his exact name please look up his details add him to our serum uh and then you know whatever other context you have and then instead of you filling out that data in notion right it will do that right so okay I'll look up a kotari and turns out notionai knows his second name so it doesn't really need to browse the web but it still will do so right found the relevant uh information and now will add these pages right so I expect in a second that the entry shows up here under negotiation and you can just start to see the potential here because imagine right that instead of having to go into notion and sort of add your tasks for a day or add you know like the things around different places you just talk to AI if you do what I do right where usually I just dictate I don't even type anymore that means you have now a personal assistant right living right in notion that understands exactly how you function right we have our new entry here I can open this up I can see okay company notion perfect primary contact trackar, right? Can look at it. It filled out, right, the notes that it found on the internet about him and yeah, absolutely amazing. Taking it one step further, we now need to generate a proposal for Ashray, right? So, I'm going to ask it to check certain pages in my notion system that might have some relevance, but ideally I would just add my meeting transcript of course with them and ask it to please create an offer. This of course gets even better if you have already some sample offers or like some guidelines on how to write them in notion. We currently still have it outside, right, with a different AI, but we're moving it now into notion. And you see how it then starts building this page for you. And again, it has access to all these notion blocks. It knows how to build these pages. So you see, right, that it creates something that out of the box already looks great. You might have to go in and might have to adjust some of the language or just tell it to adjust that. But still right the within 5 seconds uh effect right of this being on the page pulling from the um you know resources that we generally have is pretty pretty impressive. It understood our core offer from the documents that I gave it, right? Our notion transformation sprint. Uh it knows what phases we go through, right? Our blueprint phase in the beginning for a deep audit, then the actual iterative build phase, the launch, right? Makes it clear uh to them like what what we stand for, right? The things that matter to us. And yeah, I think just really incredible. Now, one thing that you might be noticing is that I'm still prompting around a bit, right? I still say go to this database, check out these resources and then every single time right there's a little bit of extra effort which if you just want to get things done quickly is of course um a little bit of friction. Now luckily we can remove that too because the new notion agents can get a really thorough system prompt where you just provide this by default. So let's go in here. Let's click on personalize and you just get there right through the chat window clicking on here. Let's give him a name. Why? Let's call him Dwight. We can actually give him some accessories. So, I'll like him to have maybe like the the wizard, right? I think that that is a very uh good one. And you can see use a page to define notion as personality and guide its behavior. So, that's what I want to do. I want to set up this profile. And by default, right, we can sort of say, okay, let's pick one of the the default uh personalities, but I want to create my own. So, that's what I'm going to do. And you see now this is a new page in my private area. This page is set as my notion AI's profile page. So I love this, right? This is so meta. We are using a notion page to inform like a notion agent how to behave. And you see on here right we are basically have now an outline for the system prompt. And just like you might know right that chat GBT has this memory feature where it remembers things about you or if you use clawed code right um in the terminal and you uh you know you create have it create these markdown files to update its own knowledge this is basically the same. So notion AI after you write into this you can also ask it then later to remember certain instructions. So for now right we can leave most of this clear right but in terms of memories we can say um when asked to create tasks always add them to um just demo tasks uh and assign them to meas if I don't uh set a due date they explicitly ask me for it before adding them, right? That could be one example here. And now we can go in, right, and test it. So here's I ask, please add film video for make with notion to my to-do list. And I no longer need to reference this, right? It knows that it's supposed to do that. So it's going to check it out, right? Finding it and adding it. And it asks me what's the due date, right? Because those are my instructions. So let's add tomorrow and have it do it. And again, this was now a very simple example. I just told it what database to use, but that's kind of like the first system instructions that I recommend that you do. Go in there and outline all the databases in your system that you use, the project, the task, right? Like your whole uh database system so that AI knows exactly where to drop things. You also definitely want to add something, right? Like by default when it creates new pages, it often adds them into weird locations, maybe your private pages. So another very good thing to do here is to instruct it to um never add pages to my uh private section unless explicitly asked to uh always add pages um to uh as children of the page that you're currently on. Right? That would be one version. Another one if you use a central documents database right would be to instruct it to always add these pages there so that they go into the exact right place. Now the important thing to know is that currently every user needs to set up these instructions on their own. So you can't just create um sort of a company instruction for everyone. But that's why what we recommend to all our clients now is that you go in and you create sort of a default system prompt, right? That everyone in the company supposed to paste in. That one will instruct and outline the general architecture that your company uses, right? Your general project, product and knowledge management and then user can adopt it from there. Also this system prompt and integration with notion AI is pretty robust. So you can get really thorough here and build out whole decision matrixes right where you say okay if we are in this situation do that if we are in that situation do that right? So you can kind of really branch this carefully and of course you can add all the general prompting best practices here. So one of the things right that I uh like to do particular since the release of uh Jet GBT 5 right is to instruct it to um before tackling any task always write yourself a checklist with the necessary um steps. Once you feel like you completed the task, uh, reference the checklist to be sure. Now, of course, if you write it in blanket like this, it's a double-edged sword. It will make all your chats a bit longer, a bit slower. So, you might want to adjust this and actually say, okay, if I ask you to quickly add something to something, don't do this. If I ask you to think or for like more complex stuff, right, do this. Uh, and with that, give it a bit more um, uh, guidance. But still I think this is great. Another best practice that I recommend is uh particular with notion AI um before making any changes to a page or database entry always preview your suggestions and ask for my approval first because it can be quite easy right particular for users also who are not too familiar with AI to ask it to make changes. For example, I could do something like, hey, um, can you update the name of the deadline property uh, in demo tasks to due date, right? And this is fine. I want this and I can revert it afterwards. But if someone who's less uh, you know, into the whole notion system might be doing this, right? You don't want it to just go out and you know make these changes. So you see in this case actually also didn't reference first to these ones, right? So u database entry technically not database. So I need to make this part of the prompt a little bit more robust but we just want to make sure right that this by default doesn't happen. You can always undo it but yeah just to avoid accidental edits. Now to make the most of agents you don't just want to limit it to actually your sort of like operational personal assistant but also think about the workflows that just happen recurringly in your notion workspace and how you could automate them. Notion already announced, right, that we will have agents on a schedule or on triggers. For now, we still need to go into the sidebar, right, to trigger it, but soon it might be something, okay, if a page is added to this database that matches these conditions, run this agent. But again, right, we can get 80% of the way already here. So on this page, I have a roundup. So once a week, um, I have an automation that goes to my LinkedIn, pulls out all the LinkedIn posts and creates a roundup draft so we can post on our business profile, right? Just like, hey, here's what we talked about this week. And what comes out of CHBT is good content wise, but looks horrible. So I just had AI write a guideline on how to format it. So this comes from uh, notion agent. And now every week I just instruct it to hey you know according to the instructions that you've written for yourself please update this right and you see now the things come in from before it writes itself the checklist uh that it has to uh go through before making any changes. Uh so we are sure right it will actually go through everything and you see right in a second our before that really ugly um just like text block turns into this thing that with one click I can now copy and paste to my LinkedIn company profile. Just two quick words on permissions and security. A notion does not use your data for training purposes. So that's great. And second notion agent respects a user's permissions. So, in particular, in combination with a previous update from this video, right, that means you can safely deploy this to your workspace and don't need to worry that someone is able to edit databases or pages that are not supposed to have access to. But of course, this has to go hand inhand with the general AI education in your company. And if that is something you have a problem with, right, with making sure that everyone in the company understands AI, integrates it into their day-to-day workflows and so on, well, then have a talk to us, right? It's one of the things that we started doing a lot with our clients because notion is an amazing foundation but it also happens to be then the perfect place to layer AI workflows on top of it. So more and more right in our engagements we've been talking about okay how can companies make now the most of AI. So yeah if you want to have a chat about that and see how you can increase the AI literacy in your company well you know where to find us. And I can't quite believe that I'm saying this, but we're getting another notion database view. I already thought it was exceptional that we got the feed view earlier this year, but now there's another one around the corner. Maps. Now, in the past, demoing this for you would have taken actually quite a bit of time to set everything up. But now that I have notion agent, I just asked it to do this, right? So full circle asked it to research the best coffee roasters and bakeries in Berlin and create me a database with them, right? To track them, tell me what they're famous for and add this new location property to it. So as you can see, if I hover over it, I now see where that is, right? I get this like little map preview. And to go with it, we have a map view, right? I can swap to that. Whoops. And then I actually see the different entries on a map. Like how awesome is this? And you can hover over them, right, and see a little preview of the entries. And of course, right, I can click into any of these entries uh and check it out. So, right, the barn, like I've been there quite a lot, right? Side port. Pretty nice. Sophie the bakery, right? Not too bad. And then let's see what else do we have here in Psburg. We have lameo five elephant. No, can just click it up and then right it opens my notion entry. Now, in order to set this up for yourself, right, you can go to any database that you have and then add this new property type, click on plus, right? And then simply look for the place option, right? Right in the special ones. And for any place, right, if you click on it, it doesn't have any presettings in there, but then when you click into a place, right, you can now just type to search for something. So, we could uh let's take another favorite of mine, right? Uh look for Oops. And you see once I do this right, it wants to see whether I can use my location. Right? I will not allow to do so. I don't need it. But I want to look for Albert uh bakery Berlin, right? And then wait for a second. There it is. And now I have this on the map. And then for the map view, right, of course can switch to this one or just click on here, add a new map view. I've had this as a beta in my workspace for a while. It's been so painful to record these videos without showing database views. So been a real real struggle. And then you see, okay, what can we do? We can show page icons if we have them, right? It's sort of if we if we hover over them, right? It's like this little um thing uh that we then otherwise would display. We can choose what map we want to pick, right? Is it location or place if we have several? So, same as with calendar. And then you can choose whether uh you want to open your pages, you know, in center fold or in a different way. Other than that, there are not too many options yet, right? We can change the size of it, right? We can make the map just a lot larger. We could add some conditional coloring, right? If we wanted to, for example, differentiate between bakeries and the others. Do we have that actually in there? Yeah. Type and bakery. So, let's make actually sure we have for coffee roasters purple and for bakery um I would like oops property for the bakery I would like um green. Uh and then we can go back to our map right and say okay conditional color um based on the type. And now we see right we have um the coffee roses in one color and the bakeries in the other. Other than that, not too many options yet, right? We can't, for example, say, okay, if we click on the hover, right, show me uh certain properties, but I'm sure that will be added soon. And yeah, already super cool what we can do with that. We can also like add pins, right? If we wanted to, for example, here, right? And then whatever that is, right, and indicate, okay, this is another place that we visited. Super useful also to plan your trips. And again, right, the combination with AI is super cool because you can have it, for example, plan out the next itinerary for your trip for the city and then add all these pins and then you can share it with your friends and be like, well, this is the program that we have. Moving on, notion also announced big changes to the certification program. As you know, I'm a notion certified consultant and it means that we have sort of the stamp of approval from notion telling others, right, we know what we do. And in the past, it's been quite difficult to get the certification and even was closed for a while. But as of today, Notion A reset all certificates, so everyone has to get reertified and they're opening up the program again. So if you are waiting to get certified, now is the perfect time. The Notion team actually invited me into the beta to test these new certificates. So we are again certified from day one. And I can tell you it's been a really great experience. The notion team has put a lot of effort into all the learning materials. They are super exhaustive, super thorough. And I would actually recommend to anyone right who really cares about notion to go through them even if you don't plan on taking the certification because the depth in which they go is actually pretty insane. But yeah, of course, if you need help with any of these changes, right, that we talk about in this video or with rolling notion out to your company in general, well, you know where to find me and my team. I have a link for you down below in the description. If you want to take any certification yourself, this is the place. I'm dropping the link below. And you see you have in the beginning you have the um sort of essential badges and then later on you can do the proper big exams. There's a ton of learning resources. The notion team has honestly done an amazing job putting this together. It's incredible what we have here. And yeah, uh in terms of the credentials, well, you'll have your beginner badges. They are fairly straightforward. And then you have the bigger certifications which will take a lot more time. They also closed books uh closed book and procured exams right so you will be on webcam it's also a paid one um but yeah again the other ones are all free and the learning materials are free either way and they are super super helpful so highly recommend you check this out if you plan on pursuing any kind of notion career notion also announced new AI connectors this time for Gmail box outlook and notion mail these AI connectors allow you to connect notion to the other tools And then AI will also pull from these sources. For example, if you use the Slack connector and you ask a question, notion AI will be able to summarize, for example, your latest conversations in any channel. So these were the biggest changes at make with notion, but we still have a few small things that we're now going to speedrun. For the most part, these are actually changes that we already covered in the past weeks on the channel, but Notion used the opportunity of make with notion to put another emphasis on them. So we want to also quickly talk about them. First we got another look at notion MCP right and all the cool things that you can do with it. Basically you can also teach any other AI how to use notion if you don't want to use notion agents right or you work a ton in chat GBT or in claude or any other tool right you can plug it right into your notion system and also have it take actions for you. I have a full guide right right when the MCP came out for the first time on how to set this up. still very relevant, absolutely amazing. Linking it in the description. We will also get better AI analytics for workspace. Very exciting. As you might know, on the higher plans, you already get some really interesting workspace insights to track activity across the board, right? It's one of the tools that we use to track adoption rates for bigger client projects. Right now, right, it's mostly for regular activities like page views and who does, you know, creates the most things, what are your most popular pages and so on. But soon we will now also get additional insights here on how people leverage AI across our workspace. Database containers is a feature that I already previewed a few uh weeks ago on the channel where I'm not too sure to be honest where this is going. Uh I'm currently not the biggest fan of it yet. We are not using it anywhere. Basically what it allows you to do is you can set up within one database. Right? So this is one database page and we can have different data sources in here. Right? So we're no longer limited to kind of just one database schema. We can have several similar to the way that before that, right? When you set up a link view, we could pull in from different sources. You can do something along the lines here as well. I have a full video down below in the description explaining a how this all works and how to make sense of it and why I currently would recommend that you don't use this feature just yet. Quick tip, it's not a way to merge three different task databases in one view. They will all still stay independent. So yeah, again quite not not quite sure what it's about, but we'll sure we see some more about this in the future. And of course, we finally got offline mode. I can't believe that they actually released offline mode before their big event and then still gave us so many awesome features, right, like granular permissions. I really don't know what else we're going to ask for now that two of the biggest community requests have been fulfilled. If you have some ideas, let me know down below. But yeah, notion offline mode super helpful, right? can go to any page now, mark it as offline to download it and then when you need to work with it, it will be available. Plus, if you're on a paid plan, it will automatically download by your last 20 pages uh in favorites and the last visited 20 pages, making it a bit more convenient. Again, if you want a full walkthrough of that link for that in the description. So much for make with notion. What an event. Now, I'd love to hear from you. Did they deliver? Is there anything else that you were hoping for? And most importantly, now that we have offline mode and granular permissions, what else are we going to ask from the team? Let me know down below in the comments. And if this got you all excited to start using Notion for your business, because let's be honest, this is the perfect time, but you don't know where to start. Well, I've got you covered. Here is a video, I think over there, that goes over everything from an empty page to fully build out notion system in one video. might just click here and I will see you in a few