Notion is probably the world's most popular productivity app. It offers a great level of organizational flexibility with its database features.

Notion's databases are incredible tools for organizing information. But sometimes, you want to create connections between those databases. That's where relations and rollups come into play, making your Notion setup even more dynamic.

Relations in Notion: The way to link database together

What are Relations?

Relations are like a formal link between two databases. These are often used when each database has its own purpose and adding extra properties or columns to one database does not solve the organizational issue.

Imagine you have a "Tasks" database and a "Projects" database.

A Relation property allows you to connect a Notion database to another. They are "related" by this property.

This allows you to connect multiple pages from one database to a single page in another database. For example, multiple tasks from the "Tasks" database together will form a project, and they are inherently related. Without this, it would be quite difficult to organize complex relationships between databases without making a mess.

As another example, you can have a database of ingredients for a recipe and and another for the recipe itself.

Then using a relation, you can connect the recipe ingredients to each recipe in the recipe database, so you know what to shop for!

Setting up Relations:

1. Add a new property to your database.

2. Choose the "Relation" property type (↗️).

3. Select the database you want to connect with.

Rollups: Extracting Insights and Pulling Data

What are Rollups?

Rollups work hand-in-hand with Relations. They can pull information linked to a relation i.e. from the related database.

Let's say you have a value in your ingredients database for each ingredient's calorie count.

You can use the rollup to sum the values of the constituent ingredients to the calorie count of the recipe using a rollup and the "sum" calculation type (more on this later).

Setting up Rollups:

1. Add a new property to your database.

2. Choose the "Rollup" property type (🔎).

3. Select the Relation property you want to use.

4. Choose a calculation type (below).

Rollup Calculation Types

• Sum: Totals values from a number property in related items. (Example: Total project cost from tasks)

• Count all: Counts the number of related items. (Example: How many tasks in a project)

• Count values: Counts unique values in a select or multi-select property. (Example: Number of different task statuses in a project)

• Percent checked: Percentage of checkbox properties checked in related items. (Example: Percentage of tasks completed in a project)

• Percent unchecked: Percentage of checkbox properties unchecked in related items.

• Show original: Displays the linked item's content directly.

Use Cases for Rollups

The possibilities are extensive!

Here are a few other examples to inspire you:

• Project Management: Track the total budget, number of tasks, and completion status across projects directly from your Projects database.

  You can use rollups to add budgets across various items from another database using the "sum" property, or use the "percent checked" property to see project completion.

• CRM: Calculate the total value of deals linked to a client in a clients database.

• Expense Tracking: Roll up individual expenses into categories to see a total expenditure for different expense types.

• Habit Tracking: Count the number of days you've completed a habit in relation to a monthly goal.

  You can use the "Count values" rollup for this use case.

In Summary

Relations and rollups add another layer of powerful functionality to your Notion workspace.

By creating meaningful connections between your databases and aggregating insights, you'll unlock a whole new level of organization and efficiency.