How to use synced databases in Notion (automatic sync with Asana, Jira, GitHub, and more)
In knowledge-based organizations—and more broadly all organizations since the remote-work “forcing function” (i.e., out-of-control events forcing novel adaptation) appeared a few years ago, the way you manage individuals and teamwork is important.
It is important because knowledge is abstract and resides in the brain/consciousness of individuals and specific teams. Yet, the whole organization needs access to that knowledge to function effectively and productively.
Keeping knowledge and information up-to-date and the communication channels always open and transparent can help your company enhance the speed of execution, knowledge sharing, and access to information, which can make your decision-making process smoother and more effective.
Access to information and well-organized operating processes can also create advantages for your team members’ well-being within their teams and the broader organization. High-performing individuals tend to like structure and clear processes so that they can contribute their highest-quality work, without getting lost in nonsense bureaucracy and slow, ill-defined processes.
With the same token, establishing clear processes and communication channels is cognitively demanding, and as a leader, you may feel like there is never enough time or energy to fully commit to establishing and documenting your processes, while also aligning the company culture to them (a process that will take time and energy).
With the same token, not taking action on this aspect of your business may result in high hidden costs - the costs of not attracting and retaining high-caliber talent and the ability to scale your business or keep it thriving in the long term. As serial entrepreneur Daniel Priestley points out in his book 24 Assets, well-oiled internal systems are an asset to your business and raise its value.
When it comes to daily work and collaboration, each team and individual may have personal preferences as for the tools they use. There are many tools available for project management, knowledge management, note-taking, and any microcosm in the domain of digital work and life.
As a leader, your job is to enable individuals to do their best work that contributes to the overall organization. The tools they use to move the needle on their work do not matter much, as each person may structure their thinking patterns in different ways depending on their habits, current environment, personality traits, and other psychosocial factors.
The objective of Notion synced databases is to keep your team members working in their tool while reducing silos of information by making everything available in Notion, with the data automatically synced natively from third-party tools. Synced databases in Notion are currently (January 2024) still in Beta and available for Jira Software (not on-premise environments), GitHub, GitLab, and Asana.
On the Free plan, there is 1 synced database available and a 100-row limit. On the Plus plan and above, you can create unlimited synced databases, with a row limit of 20,000 per synced database. Read more on the pricing page.
What are Notion synced databases?
Notion synced databases allow you to dynamically sync data from some third-party tools into a Notion database.
Notion synced databases are native-looking Notion databases that get data automatically from other software tools. The core premise behind this feature is to reduce silos in your team, without “forcing” other members to switch tools.
This minimizes change management efforts and also provides the benefits of integrating data from third-party tools dynamically in your Notion workspace with all the Notion database capabilities you may expect.
The data synced from the third-party tools are read-only, and the database is like a native Notion database. So, you can add properties, create views, templates, and all the other actions you can take with any Notion database. But you cannot edit the data in synced properties from Notion. Instead, all edits happen in the original tool and are synced back to the Notion synced database.
Notion synced databases are currently (January 2024) available for these software tools:
Jira boards and projects
GitHub PRs and issues
Asana projects and tasks
GitLab merge requests and issues
How to use Notion synced databases
The four software tools above currently supported by Notion synced databases emphasize software engineering teams, who are the most likely to use them. Especially when it comes to Jira, GitHub, and GitLab. As for Asana, this tends to be a more general-purpose and industry-agnostic project management application.
There are a few easy steps you can follow to create Notion synced databases from any of the apps above:
Copy the URL of one of the boards/projects/etc. that you want to sync in Notion
Paste the URL on a Notion page and select “Paste as database”
Connect your Jira/GitHub/GitLab/Asana account
That is it. The database will start syncing automatically, populating data slowly from the source (you can leave the page while the first syncing is happening if you want)
Once you create the Notion synced database, you can use it as part of your Notion workspace. You can freely create properties, relate the database with other ones in your workspace, and also create multiple views. The synced data is read-only and can only be modified at the source (Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Asana).
Use case of Notion synced databases
Notion is a widely-used tool for knowledge management (Wikis) within teams, particularly because of its flexibility of data structure and ease of creating and maintaining pages within a workspace.
It does not excel at project management for particularly advanced use cases for software teams and more, in some instances. That is why teams may want to use Jira, Asana, or GitHub to keep their engineering or other teams’ project management efforts outside of Notion.
For the whole company, however, linking project management information dynamically with Wiki documents can be beneficial to keep centralization of data, find patterns, and easily create documentation and SOPs.
That is why a software company used Notion synced databases and created relational properties between the synced databases and their Notion knowledge management system. Engineering managers and organization leaders could easily peak into the progress on specific projects and tasks, while not losing the context of the overall organization in their primary digital workspace. For a global/remote team, this practice can be especially beneficial.
FAQs and edge cases
Finally, there may be some additional questions you may be pondering or edge cases worth noticing when it comes to Notion synced databases. Below are answers to possible questions.
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With the GitHub and Jira synced databases, you can populate a Notion relation property in the synced database automatically. After creating the synced database following the steps above, you can create a relation property to another Notion database in your workspace.
Then, activate the option to sync the relation property automatically. Include the related Notion page URL in the Jira/GitHub items and let the relation value automatically populate.
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To sync people properties from Jira and GitHub to Notion synced databases, set emails in your Jira and GitHub accounts to be visible and not hidden. Read more in the dedicated section of this article.
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Notion synced databases are only available for the software tools described above as of January 2024. However, you can still integrate the data from other tools in Notion by using the API (application programming interface). If your tool of choice has an available API, you can sync data to Notion by using a tool such as Make, Zapier, Pipedream, or similar.
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The updates are continuous, according to the official Notion documentation. There is no mention of a specific time frame for data sync updates.
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