What I'm changing in my Notion setup after the Ambassador Summit
Master databases on one locked page, fewer formulas in big databases, five borrowed workflows and one question to ask before you build an agent.
Summary: A dashboard that holds its own database can be rearranged for everyone by one accidental sort, and its properties changed by one wrong click. After the Notion Ambassador Summit I'm moving every master database to one top-level page, locking each database, and showing only filtered linked views on my dashboards. I'm also going light on formulas in large databases, moving to the desktop app, waiting on custom blocks, borrowing five workflows from other ambassadors, and using one question to decide between a Custom Agent and a worker, and the thing I'm doing most of is talking to the other attendees.
My biggest a-ha moment from the Notion Ambassador Summit was something kind of boring: that navigation should be based on your databases, rather than pages.
I’ve always started with a more traditional ‘home page’, then added subpages or databases underneath, which has always felt a bit fragile. When a database is the top-level structure instead, every item in it is a page, the breadcrumbs work on their own, and a lot of the problems that come with pages-as-structure go away. I'm surprised I'd never thought of it, or seen enough of other people's templates to clock it, but seeing it in Notion's own workspace was validation enough that it's how I should set mine up.
Read on for more Notion nerdery from my recent trip to the Notion HQ in San Francisco!
Master databases live on one page
So first things first, let me explain the detail on this one. The gold standard for a Notion workspace is to start by putting every master database on one top-level page (eg. clients, projects, tasks, whatever you run on). Some people call this ‘the vault’. Each of your dashboards can then pull in filtered linked views of that data, like a 'Me' view of your tasks.
Okay, but why?
A dashboard that holds its own database is easy to break, because the database's default view is the one everyone sees. One accidental sort on the dashboard rearranges it for the whole team. A linked view has its own sorts, filters and groups, so sorting it on your dashboard changes nothing on the vault or on anyone else's page.
Properties are a different story. A property renamed or deleted from a linked view changes the real database, for everyone, so the second half of the setup is the lock. Open each master database on the vault page, click the ••• menu and choose 'Lock database'. Rows stay editable, so the team keeps working as normal, and properties and views can't be changed without unlocking first.
Every master database sits in one place too, so you stop hunting through sub-pages for the real one. And because the items in each database are the pages, the breadcrumbs do your navigation for you, with no hand-built menu to maintain.
I’m sold, how do I do this? If your databases currently live inside dashboard pages, click the ••• on each one and choose ‘Turn into page’, then use ‘Move to’ and pick the vault page. It’s a move rather than a copy, so relations and any linked views you already have keep pointing at the same data. Then go back to each dashboard, add a linked view of the database, and set the filters there.
ACTIVITY: Open your workspace and list the databases that currently live inside dashboard pages. For each one, decide whether it belongs on a top-level vault page and whether the dashboards that use it would still work as linked views.
Formulas slow big databases
One of my favourite sessions was Notion showing how Notion uses Notion, and I came out of it with a long list of ideas. The tip I’m applying first came from Thor, who works with databases far larger than anything I run. Where you can, use an automation to write the value into a property instead of a formula, and look hard at whether each formula is needed at all, because formulas are what slow the load speed on a large database. A formula is recalculated when the database loads, so the more formulas and the more rows, the slower it gets. An automation runs once, when something changes, and the property just holds the result. If your master databases are the big ones, this is where it applies.
ACTIVITY: Find the databases that load slowly, then go through their formulas one at a time. For each, ask whether it’s needed at all, and if it is, whether an automation could write the same value into a property when something changes. A ‘Priority label’ formula that combines Status and Due date, say, becomes an automation triggered when either property changes, writing the label into a select property instead.
Custom blocks are worth waiting for
Custom blocks came up at the summit and they’re the thing I’m most looking forward to. They’re in private alpha, so I can’t show you one yet, but I’ve built two with early access.
The first took the database of Notion ambassadors and plotted them on a world map, so you can see how many of us are clustered where. I hadn’t seen that done in Notion before, and I don’t think it was possible, because a custom block can read a database in a way the existing HTML block can’t. The second is a photo shoot scheduler. I used to run shoots in a timeline view grouped by whether an item was a shoot or some other kind of task, and the custom block does the same job but colour codes which shoots are tentative and which are locked in, and lays it out in a design of my choosing instead of the default timeline.
When they’re released publicly I’ll show you both and walk through how to build your own.
ACTIVITY: Start a list of the parts of your workspace you’ve wanted to look different and couldn’t make work in the HTML block, and anything that would be better if it could read a database while it rendered. That’s your queue for when custom blocks go public.
Meeting notes are easier in the desktop app
I’m moving from the browser to the native desktop app, mainly because AI Meeting Notes only works properly there. In a browser Notion can only hear your microphone, so a video call is half a transcript. The desktop app records system audio, labels speakers on one-on-one calls, and typing /meet on any page starts it. (It needs the Business plan, so check that before you build your meeting workflow around it.)
ACTIVITY: Run your next two meetings with AI Meeting Notes, one in the browser and one in the desktop app, and compare the transcripts. The browser version only hears your microphone, so the difference shows up fast.
Five workflows I'm borrowing
Brendan: rename Nosey, Notion's built-in AI chatbot, to 'Company AI'. A name that says what it is and does makes it clearer to your team what to use it for.
Jean-Baptiste: film on a day you're already taking meetings, so your own marketing happens inside a day you're working anyway and you never need a separate shoot day. He calls it 'film your sexiest day'.
Jerwin: leave Notion AI's model selector on auto. It knows which model suits the task better than you do, and you stop choosing every time or accidentally leaving it on a model that's too expensive for the job.
Tony: give each project its own team space, since agents scoped to one project are easier to manage.
Audrey: keep one team space for each personal domain instead of a private page, even when you're the only member, for the same reason as Tony's (an agent in that team space runs inside the boundary of one domain).
One question before you build an agent
The rule I'm taking home is to use Custom Agents for anything probabilistic, and Notion Workers for anything deterministic.
Probabilistic means the same input can get a different answer, and that's fine. Whereas deterministic means the same input gets the same result every time. The test is whether a different answer next time would be a bug. If it would, build a worker.
| Job | Would a different answer be a bug? | Build |
|---|---|---|
| Read a stuck task and write one small starting action (Next Step Nudge) | No. Two different good first steps are both fine | Custom Agent |
| Pull Search Console data into Notion each week | Yes. A different number on the second run is a problem | Worker |
| Your job | Your answer | Your build |
My examples: Next Step Nudge is my free Custom Agent which offers a suggested next step for any task (probabilistic, this could be answered in many different ways), whereas my Search Console sync uses a worker to gather my website search traffic data (deterministic, there is only one answer).
ACTIVITY: List the automations you're planning and run each one through the middle column before you open Custom Agents.
The biggest change is outside Notion
The change that matters most after the summit isn't in my workspace at all. It's in the Slack channels, video calls and WhatsApp threads where I'm now talking with the other attendees, people I'd never have met otherwise, about what each of us is building and where we're stuck. There's a lot to learn from each other about putting the newest tools to work, so go to the meetups, and find an online space of your own where you can talk through what you're learning or the problem you want solved!
FAQ
What is a vault in Notion?
It's a top-level page that holds your master databases, each with 'Lock database' turned on. Dashboards can then show filtered linked views of the data and never hold it.
Does a linked view protect my database?
It protects the views. Sorts, filters and groups on a linked view are its own, so they don't change what anyone else sees. Property changes made from a linked view do change the source, which is why the master database gets locked.
Should I use formulas in a large database?
Go light on them. Formulas are recalculated when the database loads, so they slow large databases down. Use an automation to write the value into a property instead.
What's the difference between a Custom Agent and a worker?
Use a Custom Agent when the same input can get a different answer and that's fine. Use a worker when the same input should get the same result every time.
Do I need the desktop app?
Only for meeting notes. The browser version can’t hear the other side of a call, so everything else works fine without it.
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