Notion Charts: Ultimate Guide & 12 Must-Know Use Cases

Notion Charts are the best way to visualise information in your Notion Workspace. Notion Charts are a specific layout type for your database (alongside Table, Board, Calendar, Timeline, List and Gallery). Currently, Notion Charts support three basic chart types – bar (vertical or horizontal), line and donut – each of which come with their own options for customisation. Although Notion Charts do currently have some limitations (which we’ll get to below), they already open up plenty of possibilities for generating useful snapshots of your data. And, most importantly, they help to provide insights that you just can’t get by staring at columns of numbers. Here’s everything you need to know about Notion Charts plus 12 amazing use cases that you should implement today.

How to create a chart in Notion

So, how do you create a chart in Notion?

The first thing you’ll need is a database with at least a few different properties.

Create a new view in the usual way, and you’ll notice a new option at the bottom of the list: Chart.

Select this to open up the View options panel, which is where you choose which type of chart you want: vertical bar, horizontal bar, line or donut (which is basically a pie chart with the middle removed).

Alternatively, just start typing /chart and the options will pop up.

From here you select the properties you want the chart to illustrate, i.e. the values you want to see on the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) axes, or, in the case of the donut chart, what you want each “slice” to represent.

The easiest way to understand how all this works is to try out different combinations using one of your existing databases. That way it will very quickly become obvious to you what is a useful way to visualise your data, and what isn’t.

But here’s how to start thinking about it.

Let’s say your company has a database of tasks, and they’re all allocated to different people. In order to create a bar chart to show how many tasks each persons has, you’ll map the “Person” property to the X axis, with the tasks (task “Count” is how Notion words it) on the Y axis.

So, “I want to see my [data] (Y axis) by [property] (X axis).”

This mental shortcut works for both vertical bar charts and line charts (but not for a horizontal bar chart! – it’s actually just a vertical chart flipped onto its side so the X and Y axes are reversed).

In the case of a donut chart, the Y axis becomes the ring, which represents all the tasks, with a “slice” for each person.

Keep in mind that Notion currently only supports one property per chart, i.e. it’s not possible to visualise several different properties of the same database entry on the y axis.

To further break down the data in your Notion Chart, you can use the “Group” Feature.

In this example, taken from the Track Your Reading example in my Ultimate Chart Pack, the books read (on the Y axis) are viewed by month, and they’re also visually grouped by category (biography, history, etc.).

In fact, it might be more helpful to think of the “group by” feature as a “split into”. To continue the rule of thumb above, in this case you could go something like: “I want to see my books (Y axis) by month (X axis) split into categories (group).”

The only chart type that doesn’t offer grouping is the donut chart, and that’s because the data is already visually “grouped” into a ring.

Grouping has a couple of limitations. Groups can only be sorted alphabetically or numerically (or manually), which means it’s not possible to stack the bars in order of the size of the group. It’s also not possible to adjust the height of the Y axis, so your charts can sometimes be unnecessarily tall.

How to create different chart types in Notion

Here’s how you can use Notion Charts to create the most commonly used chart types for data visualisation.

How to create a pie chart in Notion

To create a pie chart (which Notion calls a “Donut” – because it has a hole in the middle!) create a new database view by clicking the plus sign at the top of the database you want to use, and choose the Chart option at the bottom (or type /chart on a new line).

This opens up the View options pane, where you can select the Donut from the Chart type section.

Under Data you have three options: What to show (the property you want to visualise), Each slice represents (how you want to group the property) and Sort by (how the “slices” are arranged, starting from the 12 o’clock position).

The options available in each dropdown change depending on the data sources and properties you select, so it’s worth playing around to find the most useful combination.

How to create a bar chart in Notion

To create a bar chart, create a new database view by clicking the plus sign at the top of the database you want to use, and choose the Chart option at the bottom (or type /chart on a new line).

Once the View options pane is open, select either a Vertical bar or a Horizontal bar from the Chart type section.

These are essentially the exact same chart, with the X and Y axes switched (you can test this out by switching on the fly – you’ll see the X axis and Y axis sections swap places).

In the Vertical bar chart you have three options for the X axis: What to show (the property by which you want to categorise your data), Sort by (the order in which to display the properties on the X axis) and Omit zero values (switch on or off).

For the Y axis you can choose What to show (another property), Group by (this property is optional – click it to subdivide your Y axis values according to a different database property) and Cumulative (Y axis values are added together – this makes the most sense for values that change over time).

Options for the Horizontal bar chart are the same with the X and Y values switched.

How to create a stacked bar chart in Notion

A stacked bar chart is useful for visualising categories within categories – e.g. book genres within a database of books.

You do this by creating a Vertical bar or Horizontal bar chart as above, then choosing a different property in the Group by option.

Each bar is then subdivided according to this grouping property, and there are a few simple sorting options (depending on the property type).

How to create a line chart in Notion

To create a Line chart, create a new database view by clicking the plus sign at the top of the database you want to use, then choose the Chart option at the bottom of the list (or type /chart on a new line).

In the View options pane, select the Line chart type.

The X axis and Y axis options are the same as for the Vertical bar chart.

On line charts, it’s usually best to map a time value on the x-axis. If you have a date property in your database, Notion will automatically show you different options to visualise the time by day, week, month or year range.

Line charts also have an option called “Cumulative”. If you toggle this, Notion will automatically sum entries which is great if you want to show how much something has been growing (or shrinking) over time.

How to create a burn-down chart in Notion

A burn-down chart is used in project management to track the progress of a project over time. It shows the amount of work remaining versus the time left to complete it. It would typically have time on the X axis and work remaining on the Y axis. As tasks are completed, the line on the chart descends, ideally reaching zero work remaining by the end of the project timeline.

Although Notion Charts don’t provide this functionality out of the box, it’s possible to achieve with a workaround and a helper formula.

First, you need a second database besides your task database to group all tasks together. Since you’re doing project management here, it’s most likely going to be a project or sprint database.

Second, you need to add a new date property to your task database called “Done Date”.

Then, set up a database automation to automatically fill out this task completion date whenever you change the status of a task to “Done”.

Last but not least, it’s time to add a formula to calculate the relative progress on each task.

Here’s how the formula looks like:

1- (prop(“Sprint”).map(current.prop(“Task for Sprints”)).flat().filter(current.prop(“Done Date”)<=prop(“Done Date”)).length() / prop(“Sprint”).map(current.prop(“Task for Sprints”)).flat().length()) .multiply(1000) .round() .divide(1000)

This formula assumes the following naming conventions in your database:

• The relation to the second database is called “Sprint”
• The property on the second database for the relation back to tasks is called “Tasks for Sprints”
• The property recording the completion date is called “Done Date”

If you use different names, you’ll need to modify the formula accordingly.

Here’s how the formula works:

For each individual task, we need to determine how many tasks have been completed up its Done Date.

Here’s the part of the formula calculating this:

prop(“Sprint”).map(current.prop(“Task for Sprints”)).flat().filter(current.prop(“Done Date”)<=prop(“Done Date”)).length()

Next, we need to get the relative progress of these tasks (completed on or before the Done Date of the task that we’re looking at), so we divide it by the total number of tasks:

prop(“Sprint”).map(current.prop(“Task for Sprints”)).flat().length())

Then, we quickly round this percent value using this Notion Formula sequence:

.multiply(1000) .round() .divide(1000)

And last but not least, we need to subtract the progress made from 1 to get an inverted chart that runs from 100% (if no tasks have been completed) to 0% (if all tasks have been completed)

This is definitely a more advanced use case, so don’t worry if all of this is confusing!

You can always download this Notion Burn-Down Chart Setup for free at the bottom of this article.

How to create a burn-up chart in Notion

A burn-up chart is another project management tool. Unlike a burn-down chart, which shows the amount of work remaining, a burn-up chart shows the amount of work completed.

It’s easy to achieve this using a Notion Line chart. You’ll need to add a formula to your database that calculates the percentage of the total each single task represents.

This process is much easier than calculating the relative progress for a burn-down chart

Simply count up the number of tasks, then divide 1 by this number. Once you have this percentage value you can activate the Cumulative toggle for the Y axis to show the sprint progress.

The formula for the Sprint Progress property in the Task for Sprints chart is:

1/prop(“Sprint”).map(current.prop(“Task for Sprints”)).flat().length().

How to create a Gantt chart in Notion

Gantt charts or waterfall charts are a great way to improve your project management in Notion.

To create a Gantt chart to visualise your tasks or items over time, you need to use the Timeline view, which is separate from the Charts feature.

Create a new database view by clicking the “+” button at the top of the database, then choose Timeline from the view options. Configure the timeline by selecting the date properties you want to use for the start and end dates.

You can adjust the timeline view by changing the timeframe (e.g., weeks, months) and other display settings to suit your needs.

How to create a combo chart in Notion

Notion Charts currently don’t support native combo charts.

However, it’s still possible to show a combo chart in Notion by using a third-party tool to embed charts in Notion.

My favourite tool for these situations is Rows, a modern spreadsheet app. Rows allows you to sync your Notion Database to a spreadsheet, create advanced charts and then re-embed these charts in Notion.

Since these charts update whenever your data in Notion changes, you get a nearly perfect solution once set up.

For full details, check out my tutorials on how to integrate Notion with Rows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Notion Charts Free?

Notion Charts are mostly a premium feature. On the free plan, you can create one chart. All paid Notion plans come with unlimited charts.

How to create Notion Charts from Database

To create a Notion Chart from your database, simply click on the + icon next to your main database view and select the Chart view type.

Alternatively, type /chart anywhere in your workspace and select the database that contains the data you want to visualise.

Can I customise the colors of my Notion Chart?

Yes, you can change the colors of your Notion Chart by clicking into the options of your view (the three dots next to the big blue New Button) and then selecting Color.

Notion Charts come with a range of pre-built color schemes.

If you visualise data that comes from a select, multi-select or status property, your Notion chart will automatically pick the same color as the one used for the property to visualise it in the chart if you set the chart color to auto.

This is currently the only way to have full granular control over the colors in your Notion Chart.

Get The Ultimate Chart Pack For Notion

You can download 12+ pre-made Notion Charts for free to kickstart data visualisation in your Notion Workspace: