Notion put in a lot of work in 2023 and launched 90 product updates.
But let's be honest; sifting through that many updates can be overwhelming.
That's why we've done the heavy lifting for you. This article highlights the top 10 updates that we believe are the most valuable to teams in 2024.
1. AI Q&A (beta)
Notion was among the first to embrace AI in 2023, but they didn't just do it for show; they were invested in creating meaningful AI features, like Q&A. What makes this update one of our favorites and incredibly useful for teams is how it functions. Unlike other AI apps, Q&A only uses information from your Notion workspace to provide answers. It tailors responses based solely on this data, meaning the better the input, the better the output.
Here are five scenarios where you and your team can make the most of this feature:
Project overviews: Need a quick refresher on the current status of a specific project? Just ask, and Q&A will provide a concise summary, saving you time and effort.
Resource allocation: Quickly ask for the current allocation of resources on a project to optimize team workload and project planning.
Sprint retrospectives: Ask for summaries of past sprint retrospectives. By identifying patterns in team feedback, you can continuously enhance future sprints, making your development process more agile.
Strategic plan progress: Curious about the progress of your strategic plans or long-term goals? Q&A can provide updates, helping you align your current work with your company's overarching objectives.
Employee achievement highlights: Recognizing your team members' recent achievements or milestones is vital for motivation and team spirit. Q&A can swiftly fetch this information for you to highlight in team meetings or company newsletters.
This feature is currently in Beta, and we're eagerly anticipating its future updates.
2. Published Pages
Notion's new site dashboard not only simplifies external content management for your team but also provides you with peace of mind. With this dashboard, you can effortlessly keep track of what your team shares externally, ensuring that sensitive information remains secure.
3. Workspace Analytics
This feature is only available with the Enterprise Plan and summarizes your team's interaction with the content in your workspace. It offers insights into how your team adopts and engages with the content and their search habits.
The dashboard is divided into 3 categories.
Members tab: This section tracks team members' page views, edits, and recent activity, allowing you to identify both highly active users and those who might require additional support.
Content tab: Here, you can monitor engagement with content through metrics like page views and last edited dates, helping you spot trending or outdated content.
Search tab: This tab reveals what team members are searching for, with data on search frequency and click-through rates. It's an effective tool for uncovering content gaps and ensuring your content meets user needs and provides relevant knowledge.
You can use this information to make your workspace more suitable for your team's specific needs. For instance, if someone is in charge of managing the company's knowledge base and needs to know how effective it is, this analytics dashboard can be helpful for that.
4. AI Properties in Databases
Notion introduced AI properties in databases last year. One that stands out the most is the translation properties, especially when working with large, remote teams. This is helpful because it accommodates multiple languages, allowing team members to view information in their native language, which enhances understanding and collaboration on diverse teams. Here are a few more examples of how we thought this update could be helpful.
Remote teams: Foster seamless global collaboration by making information accessible to all, regardless of language.
Product development: Product teams often work with international partners. Notion AI can translate product specifications, design briefs, and quality control reports, ensuring a smooth development process and product consistency.
Agile product development: Startups employing agile methodologies can streamline processes by translating user stories, sprint plans, and bug reports, keeping cross-functional teams aligned on project goals.
Global clients: Make a great impression on international clients by giving them documents in their preferred language, like meeting notes or project summaries.
5. Database Automation
Notion automation, particularly in databases, is helpful when working with larger teams because it allows you to streamline repetitive tasks, ensuring effective communication.
Here are some simple ways teams can use Notion's internal automation:
Tasks: Set up automation to seamlessly assign tasks to individuals as soon as their status is updated. This ensures that tasks are promptly allocated without manual intervention.
Notifications: Implement a system to send automatic Slack notifications when a new page is added, such as initiating a new project or when a new lead is recorded in the appropriate database. This keeps the team instantly informed about important updates.
Meetings: Create an automation process to generate a new page within your meetings database for regularly scheduled events like team syncs, retrospectives, and office hours. This helps in maintaining an organized and up-to-date schedule for all team members.
6. Descriptions on Properties and Views
This feature is helpful because it makes it easier for new team members to navigate your Notion workspace for the first time. With descriptions for properties and database views, they can gain more context about why these properties exist and why particular database views are being used without asking anyone or looking for a guide.
7. Wikis and Verified Pages
Notion has introduced a new database type called "Wiki," designed to house your team's knowledge. The unique aspect of this database is that it has two fixed properties:
Owner: A "person" property that automatically adds the person who creates the wiki.
Verification: This property helps maintain the content in the database and keeps it up to date. Page owners can set a date through which the page remains verified. This can be a specific date, an indefinite period, or a predefined time frame (7, 30, or 90 days).
8. Search Window
Searching for correct information is non-negotiable; that's why Notion improved its search feature not only with one update but with five throughout the year.
One of these updates included making the search on mobile 60% faster and adding a two-command search to display the window. They also completely revamped the search window, adding page previews to the search feature.
9. @-Mention Groups
There are several ways to communicate with your team in Notion. Keeping teams in mind, Notion introduced the ability to mention not only individuals but groups as well — making it easier and faster to communicate with your team within Notion. This feature can be useful when addressing a specific department or project group. It's also worth noting that they have worked on improving the @mention suggestions.
10. Overall Notion Performance
Performance is a critical element that Notion continually aims to improve, understanding that faster access and efficient work on documents is essential. This focus on performance minimizes downtime and boosts productivity, especially when dealing with larger files or complex databases. To this end, Notion has enhanced page loading speeds by 15%-20% on desktop and 10% on mobile, streamlining workflows and improving overall efficiency.
So there you have it: our top 10 picks from Notion's 90 updates that you and your team should find helpful.
If you're interested in learning more about how these features can benefit your team, feel free to book a call with us. We'd happily guide you through them and explore how they can enhance your workflows and boost your team's efficiency.
