Guides
Build an HR system in Notion, one piece at a time
Each guide covers one workflow end to end — the databases, the properties, the relations, and the mistakes that cost an afternoon. All free. If you would rather not build any of it, the finished template has the lot already wired.
- How to track employee attendance in NotionBuild a working attendance tracker in Notion with clock in and out buttons, an hours formula, a month calendar, and a per-employee rollup. Step by step.6 min read
- How to build a leave request system in NotionBuild leave requests in Notion with a submission form, a status workflow, a days-requested formula, an approval dashboard, and automated notifications.6 min read
The order to build them in
These are not independent. Each one assumes the databases from the one before it, and building them out of order means going back to add relations you skipped.
1. Attendance, then an Employees database
Attendance is the simplest workflow and the one that proves the approach to your team. It also forces you to create the Employees database that everything else relates to. Build it first even if leave is the thing actually annoying you.
2. Leave requests, with a form in front
Once Employees exists, leave requests relate to it. This is where the status workflow and the approval queue come from, and where most of the day-to-day time saving actually lands.
3. Balances, as a rollup
Balances are not a separate system. They are a rollup on Employees that sums approved leave days and subtracts them from an allowance. Ten minutes, once requests exist — and impossible before that.
4. Holidays and reimbursements, in either order
Both are standalone. Holidays is a list and two views. Reimbursements is structurally identical to leave requests — a form, a status, a notification — applied to money instead of days, so build it by copying what you already have.
Budget ten to twenty hours for all of it if you are comfortable in Notion, and noticeably more if relations and rollups are new to you. The two guides above cover the first half; the rest are being written and will land here.
Get the HR Management Productivity OS
One Notion workspace for attendance, leave and reimbursements. Duplicate it and you are running in about fifteen minutes.