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Which property was edited in the Updated Database Item in Notion event


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Hello,

I am having issues with the Updated Database Item in Notion trigger for my Zap.

I have a Notion Database with several Person properties which, when edited, contain a specific person who will serve as an approver for that DB item. (Example: IT Approval, Cybersecurity, GDPR, etc.)

The Updated Database Item in Notion triggers of every update made, and a specific person (the update that actually triggered the Zap) assigned to a department approval property needs to be contacted as a result.

I thought this would be straightforward by adding a filter or similar step after the trigger which would determine which property was actually updated and find the contents (value) of this update.

In tldr form:

  1. Updated DB item in Notion triggers
  2. Which property was updated?
  3. The value that was edited for this property - person
  4. Find the person in Slack or email
  5. Send a message to this person

Do you think this is something you could help me with or is this not achievable via Zapier?

Best answer by AndroBest answer by Andro

Hi Troy,

Thank you for the clarification, it helped.

I managed to find a workaround, somewhat. I am using additional date properties for each of the relevant Person properties which get auto populated on edit by the native Notion automation.

Then I filter out the most recent one with a formula - nested IF function to return the name of the last edited property.

It works well except Notion API does not have a timestamp in seconds with the dates so the changes need to be done in at least 1 minute intervals from each other for this to function properly.

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3 replies

Troy Tessalone
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Hi ​@Andro 

Notion would need to return a data point that indicates which property was updated.

Otherwise, you would may need to add logic to track when a specific field was set/update in another field to use as a reference in a Zap Filter step: https://zapier.com/apps/filter/help

Perhaps native Notion Automations can be used to help: https://www.notion.com/help/database-automations


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  • Author
  • Beginner
  • 1 reply
  • Answer
  • January 21, 2025

Hi Troy,

Thank you for the clarification, it helped.

I managed to find a workaround, somewhat. I am using additional date properties for each of the relevant Person properties which get auto populated on edit by the native Notion automation.

Then I filter out the most recent one with a formula - nested IF function to return the name of the last edited property.

It works well except Notion API does not have a timestamp in seconds with the dates so the changes need to be done in at least 1 minute intervals from each other for this to function properly.


SamB
Community Manager
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  • Community Manager
  • 7396 replies
  • February 12, 2025

That’s awesome, ​@Andro! 🎉 I’m so glad Troy was able to help point you in the right direction—thanks ​@Troy Tessalone! 🤗

Great work on using a nested IF formula to help filter out the most recent one! 🙌 That’s a really smart approach.

Such a shame that the timestamp from Notion doesn’t contain the seconds! I saw that you reached out to our Support team, and they added you to a feature request that’s come up before in the Community:

We’ll be sure to let you know if that feature has been added. Hopefully, spacing out edits by at least a minute isn’t too much of a hassle in the meantime! 🤞