Notion Webhook Emulator

Purpose

This workflow enables you to trigger external actions from Notion databases almost instantly (5 seconds).

Problem

Notion does not offer webhooks. Even worse, the “Last edited time” property, we could use for polling only updates every minute. This gives us a polling interval only as low as every 2 minutes and we still need to implement a comparing mechanism to detect changes.

Solution

This workflow caches states in between while doing efficient polling & comparing. It brings down the update latency from 2 minutes to 5 seconds and also provides the output of the changes only. The results are pushed to the user specified Webhook URL.

Example output

[
  {
    "action": "changed",
    "changes": {
      "property_modified_at": "2024-06-04T17:59:00.000Z",
      "property_priority": "important"
    },
    "data": {
      "id": "ba761e03-7d6d-44c2-8e8d-c8a4fb930d0f",
      "name": "Try out n8n",
      "url": "https://www.notion.so/Try-out-n8n-ba761e037d6d44c28e8dc8a4fb930d0f",
      "property_todoist_id": "",
      "property_id": "ba761e037d6d44c28e8dc8a4fb930d0f",
      "property_modified_at": "2024-06-04T17:59:00.000Z",
      "property_status": "Backlog",
      "property_priority": "important",
      "property_due": {
        "start": "2024-06-05",
        "end": null,
        "time_zone": null
      },
      "property_focus": false,
      "property_name": "Try out n8n"
    },
    "updated_at": "2024-06-04T17:59:42.144+00:00"
  }
]

What is included?

• Workflow files (json) ready to import into n8n
• Detailed illustrated instructions

FAQ

How difficult is it to setup this workflow?

If you can follow rather technical instructions, it is fairly easy. Even to setup your own n8n instance. Everything happens in your web browser. No Terminal interactions required.

Which additional services are required?

• Supabase (free cloud version suitable)
• Optional: Redis (to prevent executions from overlapping)

How many executions does this workflow use?

Depends on the interval you choose. For every 5 seconds it is 720/h. If you are not on n8n’s enterprise plan, consider starting with the community edition - video for quick & easy installation included

Which Notion database actions are supported?

Currently the workflow triggers on: page created, page updated

License

Permission is hereby granted to any person purchasing a copy of a product from octionic (Notion Webhook Emulator), its source code, and associated documentation files (the “Software”). A single purchase allows the purchaser to install and use multiple instances of the Software. However, the use is limited to a single Notion account (multiple databases in multiple workspaces are allowed).

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

The user of the software represents and warrants that they will at all times comply with applicable law in their download and use of the Software.