Sotion
Access

Scoped Access

Scoped Access shows each member only the database rows that belong to them: a client sees only their own projects, a role sees only its own articles. You choose a Notion database whose rows are your portals (clients, companies, roles), and every database related to it is filtered per member on our servers, so a member cannot reach another portal's rows through a database view, a direct link, or search. Scoped Access is included from the Starter plan.

How Scoped Access works

Each row of the portal database becomes a portal, and a member sees the rows that are related to their portal.

  • Portal database: the database you pick as the Scope Source. Each row is one portal, named after its identifier property (the title by default). The dashboard also calls a portal a scope.

  • Filtered databases: every other database with a relation property that points to the portal database. A row appears for a member only when its relation includes that member's portal. A row related to several portals appears for each of them.

  • Members and portals: a member gets a portal through their access groups. Each portal gets its own access group automatically, and you can grant a portal to groups you already use.

  • Everything else: pages, and databases with no relation to the portal database, follow your Access Control settings only.

Members without a portal, and visitors who are not signed in, see none of the rows of the filtered databases. Opening another portal's row by its link shows a page-not-found error.

A row with an empty relation is hidden from every member. Relate each row to at least one portal before you share the site, including rows meant for everyone.

Before you start

  • You need the Owner or Member role on the team to change Scoped Access.

  • The portal database must be inside your site's page tree. If you added it recently, run Sync on the Overview tab first.

  • Each database you want filtered needs a relation property that points to the portal database, and must be shown on one of your site's pages (a linked view counts).

Set up Scoped Access

  1. Open Scoped Access in your site's sidebar and turn on Enable Scoped Access.

  2. Under Scope Source, click Discover Databases and select your portal database.

  3. Under Identifier Property, keep the title or click Change Property to name portals by another property.

  4. In Generated Portals, click Generate Scopes and wait until it shows Complete. Each portal is listed with its scope ID and gets its own access group.

  5. Give members their portals (next section).

  6. Click Publish Changes.

After generation, the card shows how many relation mappings it found. Zero means no database has a relation property pointing to the portal database, so only the portal database's own rows are filtered.

Give members their portal

A member gets the portal of any group they belong to, and each member should belong to groups for one portal only (a member in groups for several portals gets just one of them).

  • Add members to the portal's own group. Each portal has an access group named after it. Add members on the Access Groups page with Manage Members.

  • Grant the portal to a group you already use. In Generated Portals, open Granted to for a portal and select your group, then click Publish Changes. Everyone in that group gets the portal. Use this when members are placed in groups automatically, for example by a sign-up automation through the API, Zapier or Make.

Members do not need to sign in again: a change to their groups reaches their open session within a couple of minutes.

Keep portals up to date

We read each row and its relation live from Notion, so a new row or a changed relation shows up for members within 5 minutes, without publishing. Adding or renaming a portal row, or relating a new database to the portal database, needs a regeneration.

  1. Open Scoped Access and click Regenerate Scopes.

  2. Wait until it shows Complete. New portals get their access group at this point.

  3. Set Granted to for any new portal, or add members to its group.

  4. Click Publish Changes.

Renaming a portal row gives it a new scope ID and a new access group, and members of the old group lose the portal until you add them to the new one. Granted to settings stay with the row, so members who get the portal through your own groups keep it.

When the Scopes may be out of date banner appears, new pages found by auto-discovery are not in your portals yet. Click Regenerate in the banner.

Assign portals through the API

The groups that Scoped Access creates for each portal cannot be changed through the API: adding or removing their members returns an error. To assign portals from an integration, grant each portal to one of your own groups under Granted to, then add members to that group through the API.

Turn off Scoped Access

Turning it off removes the portal rules and republishes your site straight away. Your settings, Granted to choices and access groups are kept, so you can turn it back on later.

  1. On Scoped Access, turn off Enable Scoped Access.

  2. Confirm with Disable & Republish.

Members then see database rows according to your page settings only.

Troubleshooting

A member sees no rows at all

The member has no portal. Check that they belong to the portal's own group or to a group selected under Granted to, and that you published after changing Granted to.

A row is missing for one member but not for another

The row's relation does not include that member's portal. Add their portal to the row's relation in Notion.

Discover Databases finds no databases

The database is not inside your site's page tree yet. Run Sync on the Overview tab, then click Discover Databases again.

A view offers Load more but shows only a few rows

Database views load the whole database a page at a time and show only the rows for the member's portal. Loading more fetches the next page of matching rows.

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