Workflows

Automate Notion page creation and updates for incident retrospectives using Rootly workflows with parent page, database, and Liquid template controls.

Overview

Workflows let you automate Notion page creation and updates for incident retrospectives. You can trigger page creation when an incident resolves or a retrospective begins, and populate the page with timeline data, action items, and custom template content using Liquid variables.

Available Actions

Action	Description
Create Notion Page	Creates a new retrospective page in a specified Notion parent page
Update Notion Page	Overwrites an existing Notion page with the latest incident data

Create a Workflow

1. Open Workflow Creation

   Navigate to Workflows in Rootly and click Create Workflow.

   

   
2. Choose Workflow Type

   Select the workflow type that matches your use case — Incident, Retrospective, or Pulse.

   
3. Configure Triggers

   Triggers define when the workflow runs. Choose the event that should kick off page creation.

   

   Trigger	When it fires
   Incident Created	A new incident opens
   Incident Updated	Severity, status, or other fields change
   Incident Status Changed	The incident moves to a specific status
   Incident Resolved	The incident is resolved
   Retrospective Started	The retrospective process begins
   Manual Trigger	Run on demand from the UI

4. Add Conditions (Optional)

   Use conditions to control when the workflow fires after the trigger. For example, only create a Notion page for SEV-1 or SEV-2 incidents, or only for specific teams or environments.

   
5. Add the Notion Action

   Click Add Action and search for Notion.

   

Create Notion Page

Use this action to create a new retrospective page in Notion for an incident. The page is created under a parent page you select and is populated using the template and fields you configure.

Field	Description
Page	The parent Notion page where the new page will be created. Must be a page Rootly was granted access to during installation.
Title	The page title. Supports Liquid syntax — use the incident title or any other variable.
Post Mortem Template	A pre-built retrospective template from Retrospective Templates.
Mark Post Mortem as Published	Set the retrospective status to published immediately rather than leaving it as draft.
Show Timeline as Table	Include the incident timeline. Uncheck if you want images to appear inline — Notion does not support images in tables.
Show Action Items as Table	Include follow-up action items. Only follow-up type items are included — tasks are excluded as they are completed during the incident, before the retrospective.
Skip on Failure	Prevent the workflow from stopping if this action fails.
Enabled	Toggle this action on or off for testing.

Update Notion Page

Use this action to overwrite an existing Notion page with the latest incident data. This is useful for keeping the retrospective page current as the incident progresses.

This is an overwrite operation. Any manual changes made to the Notion page will be replaced when this action runs.

Field	Description
File	The Notion page to update. Use incident.notion_page_id via Liquid to reference the incident’s existing page.
Title	Updated page title. Leave blank to keep the existing title.
Post Mortem Template	Template to apply when updating. Overwrites existing content.
Show Timeline as Table	Include the incident timeline.
Show Action Items as Table	Include follow-up action items.
Skip on Failure	Prevent the workflow from stopping if this action fails.
Enabled	Toggle this action on or off for testing.

Variable Reference

Use these variables in page titles and templates. Use the Liquid Variable Explorer to test variables with real incident data.

Incident Variables

Variable	Description
incident.title	Incident title
incident.summary	Incident summary
incident.severity	Severity level (e.g., SEV1)
incident.status	Current status
incident.started_at	When the incident started
incident.resolved_at	When the incident was resolved
incident.commander.name	Incident commander name
incident.url	Link to the incident in Rootly

Notion Variables

Variable	Description
incident.notion_page_id	ID of the incident’s Notion page — used in the Update action
incident.notion_page_url	URL to the Notion page

Frequently Asked Questions

The workflow ran but no Notion page was created

Check the workflow run log under Workflows → Your Workflow → View Runs for error details. Confirm the parent page selected in the action is one Rootly was granted access to during installation. Re-authorize the integration if the connection has expired.

Manual edits to my Notion page keep getting overwritten

The Update Notion Page action is a full overwrite. If you need to preserve manual edits, disable any workflows that trigger an update on that page, or add conditions to prevent them from running after a certain point in the incident lifecycle.

Can I use custom Liquid templates for the page content?

Yes — define a custom retrospective template in Retrospective Templates and select it in the Post Mortem Template field. Use the Liquid Variable Explorer to build and test your template.

Why are images not appearing in the timeline?

Notion does not support images inside tables. Uncheck Show Timeline as Table to render the timeline inline, which will allow images to display correctly.