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Best answer

'Find Database Item in Notion' Action Missing a Lot of Fields

  • 19 June 2023
  • 17 replies
  • 1088 views
sinanhiasat
Userlevel 1

Hello,

I’m trying to use the Notion Find Database Item to get an updated version of a Notion Item that triggered the Zap.

However, when adding the Find Notion Database Item action and connecting it to the same database used in the trigger (and same result if I custom choose the db and use the parent db id property of the trigger’s result), I only get 3 fields to search in, which include the database item name and some other two arbitrary fields (one custom text field and one custom date field), but not the item id (which is critical to my use case), and not any other field that seem important and doesn’t differ from the ones I was given (e.g. created date, updated date, ...).

Is this an issue with the integration, or is this supposed to be this way for some reason I don’t get?

Edit: I just want to clarify that I cannot use the Item Name because the reason for me wanting to update the item in the first place is that Zapier sometimes pulls Notion for new items and triggers the Zap while the user is the in middle of creating the item, and sometimes the item name is not yet completed and so needs to be updated. I added a check mark that the user would tick to mark the creation process as complete in order for the Zap to proceed with processing the data. If this check mark is not true on the trigger, the Zap executes a delay and then updates the item and proceeds.

Thanks in advance,

Sinan.

icon

Best answer by Ryan.Detzel 5 April 2024, 15:32

View original

17 replies

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @sinanhiasat,

Great to have you in the Community! 🎉

I did some digging into this, and it seems like we currently only allow searching by the following field types because they are more likely to be unique type and therefore more searchable:

  • title
  • number
  • email
  • url
  • rich_text
  • text
  • phone_number

You can learn more about Notion's Database Field Types here: https://www.notion.so/help/database-properties

Could you please confirm if the fields that you’re referring to is any of the above field types?

Please keep us posted! 😊

sinanhiasat
Userlevel 1

Many thanks Ken for the prompt reply!

Well, it seems to me that the most direct and persistent way of searching for a database item is by using its ID, right?

I only get 3 fields to search in, while I have more than 35 properties for the items in this database, with many texts, numbers & date fields.

Even the URL property/field which is also unique per record can solve my purpose, but it is also not included in the only 3 fields made available for me to search in…

Is there a way to expose those fields in the Find Database Item action? Am I doing something wrong?

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @sinanhiasat,

Thanks for the additional information!

Before we dig deeper into this, would you mind sharing a detailed screenshot of how your Zap is configured? I’m particularly interested in the "Action" section of the Notion step. If you could also highlight the fields you're referring to, that would be incredibly helpful. Here's an example screenshot for your reference:

46dd6c0979e3d815d621b8da43084ef1.png
(view larger)

Please don't include personal information in the screenshot, or be sure blur out any personal information.

Thanks! 😊

sinanhiasat
Userlevel 1

OK, so since my database property names are in Arabic, I created a new simple database and made a similar action that shows how the Action doesn’t give me the fields I need.

My new test database name in Notion is “Patients”, and it has the following properties (as it appears when Zapier pulls the trigger in the test):

And doing the Find Database Item action, I found that it included all the properties of the types you mentioned above, but only from inside the “Properties” group in the retrieved object, and not the general properties retrieved for the object (e.g. the last url property that has the value “https:// ...etc.“ is not part of this properties group, and so is not exposed to be searched for, but the URL property with the value “www.va.jo” is part of this group, and so got exposed. 

So, now I understand what is happening, I would like to mention that what I actually need is to search using an automatic identifier that Notion creates to reference this item (and is not changeable by Notion’s user), and which in this case can be the id at the top (value 9f09...etc.) or the url at the bottom (which actually includes this id). This is needed so I can actually track the item, since all the property types you mentioned above can be changed by the user and so Zapier would lose track of the item.

What do you think?

 

BTW, there is a new “ID” property added by Notion lately which is added inside the Notion table similar to the properties that are gathered under the “Properties” group above, but which is currently not being sent by Notion with the properties in response to Zapiers call. Maybe it is still under testing and will be sent in the future, but the type of this property is not included in the list you mentioned above as well, so maybe this one also would not help even if Notion sends it with the other properties.

 

Thanks for the help again...

sinanhiasat
Userlevel 1

Hi,

My reply above is too long, so I want to summarize:

I can confirm that the Notion Action in the Zap is behaving exactly as you mentioned above, but to make it useful to my case (and I suspect to many others), I need the action to also allow finding the Notion Item by its Object ID, and not just the properties currently supported by the Action.

Is there a way to request that? 

 

Thanks,

Sinan.

christina.d
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Hey there, @sinanhiasat! I went ahead and added you to the existing feature request to search Notion items by ID. 🙂

 While I don’t have an ETA on when or if this will be implemented, this is the best way to stay informed if anything changes as we'll email you if this does go live.

You could potentially use the the Notion API and Webhooks by Zapier if you’re comfortable! Here’s a few resources to get you started if you’d like to give that a shot:

It’s worth mentioning this is considered a slightly more advanced approach so any support will be limited. That said,  if you’d rather not fuss you can always look into hiring a Zapier Expert to build this for ya! 🙂

Sorry to not have better news here but definitely appreciate you flagging this in community!

sinanhiasat
Userlevel 1

Thank you Christina for the excellent reply; I’ll look into doing it with the API...

christina.d
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Amazing! Keep us posted - we’d love to know if you’re able to get this up and running. 🙂

digidockaurora
Userlevel 1

Hey @christina.d pleaseo also add me to the feature request to search Notion items by ID!
Thanks :)

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @digidockaurora,

It looks like you got already added by our Support team to the feature request. We will keep you in the loop via email once the feature request gets implemented.

Thanks! 😊

J

Just wanted to +1 this — not being able to look up a database item by unique ID feels like a big miss.

My use case is:

When a pull request is created, I want to automatically link to the PR on the related task in Notion. This single feature would kill most agile tools.

ken.a
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Hi @JustImagine,

Thanks for your feedback.

I have added you as another interested member to the open feature request to support this functionality. While we don’t have an exact timeframe for this feature’s implementation. We will let you know via email once there is.

Thank you for your understanding.

T

Hi there, just hoping I get get a +1 on this feature also. 

Use case is that looking to link to monday.com board and want to be able to update database items after a delay, very similar to OP’s question. Would also be interested in building out more connections with Notion DB if I had reliable way to join back to database items.

 

Thanks, 

Tom

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi @tgalvin, thanks for reaching out here! 👋

Happy to confirm that I’ve added your vote to the feature request. It doesn’t guarantee it’ll be added but adding your vote does help to increase it’s priority and allow us to notify you by email the minute it’s added! 

C

+1 for being able to look up a database item by unique ID. I have a zap that is updating a database title everytime a new entry is added and I want to add the name of a property linked in a related database. However, the zap is just pulling in that database item ID and not the name of it. I’d like to add a step to find the name of that database item using the ID but this doesn’t appear to be possible currently.

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Thanks for letting us know, @chuckjoe. I’ve added your vote to the feature request as well so you can expect an email from us if it’s been implemented. 🙂  

Ryan.Detzel
Userlevel 1

Ryan here from Zapier. I’ve got good news – a new update has added this feature! Please note, this was accomplished through a beta feature known as Custom Actions, which you'll see  in the name of the action.

I hope you can give this a test soon. You'll find it by selecting Notion in the Zapier Editor and then selecting the Retrieve a Page Custom Action.

Please let us know if it doesn’t work for you, or if we can help with anything else!

Reply


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