The Notion platform federates task and project management, note taking, online document editor… Oriented no code, it is presented as an all-in-one digital workplace oriented to team management.
What is Notion?
Claiming 20 million users worldwide, Notion.so is an all-in-one digital workplace. It combines various collaborative tools for note taking, task management, project management (around a kanban board) and document storage and exchange. Oriented to no-code development, its graphical interface, in wiki mode, is fully customizable. Like Airtable, it allows you to create a database. But also formulas to automate calculations, display content under certain conditions, or edit and share web pages.
The icing on the cake, Notion is equipped with an API designed to connect the platform to third-party applications: Office 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Salesforce … According to the latest Okta Business at Work 2022 barometer, Notion is the fastest growing app in terms of adoption in 2021, both in terms of number of customers (+240%) and users (+663%).
If you are not familiar with task management applications, Notion.so may take some getting used to. The way it works is quite simple. Each task or note is synchronized with different views: document, calendar, timeline… It is also possible to create a mini-database through a data table, and to apply tags, filters, sorting or calculate sums and percentages.
Available online, access to Notion involves creating an account by filling in a simple e-mail address. The solution can then be used immediately at no cost. Called Teams, a feature currently being deployed will allow to organize documents according to distinct teams (development, support, marketing, finance…) or projects (product launch, conference organization…).
Is Notion free?
Notion.so offers a free plan, called Notion Personal. It targets small teams of up to 6 people. Allowing to create an unlimited number of pages and blocks, Notion Personal opens access to the platform’s API. Besides its web version, it allows to use Notion via its different applications (for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS).
Depending on your needs, several paid subscriptions allow you to unlock these limitations while giving access to more advanced features (see below)
What is the price of Notion.so?
Notion has three paid offers. Notion Personnal Pro shows a price of 4 dollars per month, Notion Team 8 dollars per month per user. As for Notion Enterprise, its price is not public.
Notion Personnal Pro is limited to the management of a single team, but gives the possibility to invite an unlimited number of participants. Unlike the free offer, it manages a version history (over 30 days) and an unlimited volume of files. Unlike Notion Personnal Pro, Notion Team is designed for multi-team management. It introduces administration tools, as well as collaboration workspace to control access rights individually or by group. Finally, Notion Enterprise extends the functional palette to include support for single sign-on (via SAML), user management via the API and more advanced access policy management.
In addition to its website, Notion is also available as applications for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS:
Notion templates
Notion offers a gallery with several hundreds of templates, most of them developed by external contributors. This Notion Template Gallery federates very diverse application templates: weekly agenda, daily planning, to-do list, kanban board, budget management, roadmap, company journal, mini-CRM, recruitment pipeline… It includes templates for both personal and collective organization.
Notion API
Accessible from the free mode, the Notion API allows to automatically import data from third party tools or conversely to manage exports. And this with about twenty applications: Asana, Confluence, Trello, Office 365, Google Workspace, Slack… Another possibility offered by the programming interface is to trigger an update in a third-party software in response to an action performed in Notion (change in the status of a task, a document, etc.), or to send an email, or an alert by SMS, etc.
For the future, Notion is working on the Synced Databases feature which will allow to synchronize its database with structured data from third party tools like Google Calendar, GitHub or Jira.
Does Notion.so integrate with Zapier or IFTTT?
Notion.so benefits from the task automation tools Zapier and IFTTT. The first one allows to connect the platform to hundreds of applications, and the second one to about twenty. The advantage of these two tools? To offer a no-code integration environment that is much easier to use than Notion’s API, which by definition involves getting your hands into the code.
Is Notion.so usable offline?
Notion.so offers an offline use of its services on any type of device, including in web mode. This is a particularly practical feature, especially when traveling.
Is Notion.so available on Android?
In order to offer a smooth and pleasant experience, Notion.so can be used on Android and iOS from a smartphone. The editor offers applications for both mobile systems, which provide access to the same features.
Notion : tutorial and other links
Since mastering Notion can be a bit tricky as the possibilities are so extensive, using tutorials and forums can be a good idea.
What are the alternatives to Notion?
Comparable solutions to Notion.so include clickup and monday.com. To date, these are without a doubt its main competitors. The first one is comparable in terms of features, templates and price. As for Monday, it has a plethora of templates, but its prices are much higher. Its entry price is 8 dollars per user per month.