NEW: How To Create Your Own Charts In Notion (Finally!) Full Tutorial

Notion’s newly released Charts feature turns any database into interactive visuals—without leaving the workspace—by pairing a chart visualization with a data source. The practical payoff is speed: instead of rebuilding charts in spreadsheets, users can generate bar, line, and donut-style views directly from existing tables (like an expenses database), then filter, group, and style them to match the exact questions a dashboard needs.

Charts work as two linked components. First comes the database: a chart always has a data source, either an existing one or a blank chart that creates its own new database. In the tutorial’s financial example, the expenses database includes fields such as expense name, a numeric value, a category tag, a payment status, and a formula-derived “overdue/paid/upcoming” indicator. The second component is the visualization layer, where Notion maps database properties into chart axes and aggregation settings.

To build a chart, users create a chart view and choose a database source. Notion then prompts for the x-axis and y-axis logic. For a bar chart of expenses over time, the x-axis is set using the due date property. Notion offers granular breakdowns—day-by-day or month-by-month—so choosing “month” automatically buckets items into calendar months. On the y-axis, Notion defaults to counting items, but for numeric fields like “value,” it provides aggregation options such as sum, average, min, and max. Selecting “sum” produces a month-by-month total of expenses, yielding a clean bar chart that highlights spending patterns and outliers.

The same mechanics extend beyond time series. Using a category property on the x-axis enables category breakdowns of spending, and switching to a donut chart can make those proportions easier to read. Line charts are positioned as the better fit for time-based trends and cumulative totals—such as tracking expenses as they accumulate across the year.

A key upgrade is “group by,” which adds a third variable. With group by enabled, each bar can be split by category, producing a stacked-style breakdown with an on-hover legend that highlights which categories contribute to each month’s totals. Charts also inherit database filtering: users can apply simple filters (e.g., exclude “Living and Leisure” categories) or advanced filters (e.g., show only expenses where value exceeds $100), and the chart updates instantly.

Once a chart looks right, Notion supports exporting it as an image via “Save chart as,” making it easy to share visuals with a team or embed them into dashboards.

Beyond the core feature, the tutorial shares workflow hacks for faster dashboard building. One approach uses an automation that pre-creates a chart database with 12 months of dummy data and a link to a target, so adding new KPIs becomes mostly a matter of renaming and filling values. Another tactic duplicates an existing chart view to preserve its structure and filters, then adjusts only what’s needed. Finally, styling tweaks—like turning off crowded data labels, resizing chart height, and removing axis names—help keep dashboards readable when multiple charts sit side by side.