Migration guide
Export each Notion database as Markdown & CSV, map its properties to Pike templates, and connect your ledger for clients and invoices. Budget about five weeks.
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Notion stores projects, tasks and time only where your team built them as databases. Each full page database exports as one CSV file, so you export one file per database and map its properties to a Pike template.
Notion’s help centre does not describe how Person and Relation properties appear in CSV. Open each file and check whether a Person column shows names or emails and a Relation column shows page titles before you map them.
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Notion’s help centre describes no accounting integration, so your customer list comes from the ledger. Connect the accounting system your team invoices from, and use its customer numbers in every project file.
Entity map
Column one names the Notion database or property your team built. The rows below assume clients, projects, tasks and time databases linked by Relation properties. Rename them to match your workspace.
Pike: Customers
Carries over: Name and any properties your team added.
You set in Pike: Customer numbers from the ledger. Skip this file if the ledger import already covers every client.
Template columns: customerName, customerNumber
Pike: Projects
Carries over: Name, Status, Date, Person (owner), and a Relation to the client.
You set in Pike: Project number, billing type, budget and rate, unless your database has Number properties for them.
Template columns: projectNumber, title, customerNumber, status, billingType, budgetAmount, budgetHours, hourlyRate, startDate, endDate, leadEmail
Pike: Tasks
Carries over: Name, Status, Person (assignee), Date, and a Relation to the project.
You set in Pike: The project number on each row, in place of the Relation, and one assignee email per row.
Template columns: title, projectNumber, description, status, assigneeEmail, startDate, dueDate
Pike: Time entries
Carries over: Date, a Number property for hours, Person, and a Relation to the project or task.
You set in Pike: Billable status and approval status, which a Notion time database records only if your team added properties for them.
Template columns: date, hours, email, projectNumber, taskTitle, note, billableStatus, approvalStatus
Pike: Members
Carries over: Email, first and last name, role, permission groups.
You set in Pike: Team, position and cost profile.
Template columns: email, displayName, team, position
Pike: Not imported
Carries over: Markdown files for each page, and attached files in the workspace export.
You set in Pike: Keep them in the archive folder or link them from the Pike project.
Notion stores rates and budgets only as Number properties your team added. Copy them to `hourlyRate`, `budgetAmount` or `budgetHours`, and fill the rest from your quotes.
If a Rollup sums hours from a time database onto each project, compare that total with the hours you upload before cutover.
Notion stores no cost rates. An admin sets a cost profile for every member before the pilot, so project margin shows from the first week.
The plan
The same steps as the main migration guide, with this tool's screens and settings.
Week 1
Migration owner
Week 1 · Migration owner
Each Notion export is a snapshot of one database. Note the date: rows changed after it need updating by hand.
Done when: One CSV per database and the workspace export in one dated folder.
Week 1 to 2
Operations lead
Week 1 to 2 · Operations lead
Replace relations with keys. Pike links rows on customer number, project number and email.
Done when: Every task and time row has a project number. Every person column shows an email.
Week 2
Workspace admin
Week 2 · Workspace admin
Connect the ledger first, so the customer numbers in your Notion files match the customers Pike imports.
Done when: Finance sees the ledger’s customers in Pike. Every billable person has a cost profile.
Week 2
Workspace admin
Week 2 · Workspace admin
Customers, projects, members, tasks, then time entries. Pike reports a row it cannot match with its line number.
Done when: Project and open task counts match the Notion databases.
Week 3 to 4
Delivery lead, finance
Week 3 to 4 · Delivery lead, finance
CSV has no ongoing sync. The pilot team works and logs time in Pike only, and other teams update Notion until cutover.
Done when: One invoice sent from Pike. No pilot team edits in the Notion project databases after the start date.
Week 4 to 5
Migration owner
Week 4 to 5 · Migration owner
Freeze the Notion databases on Friday evening and upload the rows changed since your first export.
Done when: Every team works in Pike on Monday. No Notion database edits after Friday.
Week 5 to 8
Finance
Week 5 to 8 · Finance
Done when finance closes a month from time logged in Pike.
Done when: Month closed in Pike. Final Notion export saved with two owners.
Rebuild
Questions
Only databases export as CSV. Pages export as Markdown, which has no Pike template, so list those projects in a spreadsheet with a project number and customer number and upload that instead.
Notion exports the current view or the default view. A filtered current view exports only its filtered rows, so switch to an unfiltered view and export again.
Pike links tasks and time to projects on project number. Give each project a number and put it on every task and time row in place of the Relation value.
Notion’s Export members as CSV is on Business and Enterprise. On other plans, list members with their sign-in email in a spreadsheet for the Pike members template.
Notion emails the link when the export finishes, which can take up to 30 hours, and the link expires after 7 days. Download it the same day.
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