• What is the Shelf Content Integration Layer?
• What purposes does this feature serve?
• What is a Notion connector?
• How is it configured?
• How is it used in practice?

For proper operation of your Notion connector and successful synchronization of your content from the Notion platform into Shelf NextGen KMS, the following preconditions must be met:

• Admin Panel must be accessible on your Shelf NextGen KMS account
• Notion account must be created and configured
• Content items (articles, documents, etc.) must be available in your Notion space.

In-depth configurations and use cases of the Shelf Content Integration Layer are described in the dedicated Shelf Content Integration Layer Feature User Guide mentioned above, but the short example of the CIL workflow is as follows:

1. You access the Content Integration Layer feature in your Shelf NextGen KMS (Admin Panel).
2. You select one of Shelf-preconfigured connectors or create your custom one (based on the external content repository from which you need to sync content)
3. You create a connection profile that uses the selected or created connector, and configure it: indicate credentials (username/password/API key/token/etc.) to access your external repository. All these credentials and access details can be taken from that external platform, and in the respective section below we will show you how to get them on Notion.
4. You create a sync flow that uses the created connection profile and configure this sync flow to run either on some specific schedule or on demand. It is here where you can apply filters to tell CIL which exactly content needs to be synced.
5. You run the created sync flow manually (if set to run on demand) or wait for the scheduled run, and get your content from the needed external source right in Shelf NextGen KMS.

For the proper operation of the Notion connector to sync your content from Notion into Shelf NextGen KMS, you need to do certain actions both in Notion and in Shelf. Read the chapters below to learn what exactly you need to do.

The first stage of the configuration procedure is to create a dedicated integration for Shelf in Notion. To do so, follow the steps below.

1. Once logged in to your Notion account with valid credentials, go to the Integrations page at the following address: https://www.notion.so/my-integrations,
2. On the page that opens, find and click + New integration or select the Create new integration option.

Figure 2. Accessing the Integrations page and starting creating new integration in Notion

Figure 3. Creating new integration in Notion

Figure 4. Viewing and copying the integration secret (token) for your Shelf integration in Notion

Once done with creating the Shelf integration for your Notion space and copying the integration secret (token), you can proceed to the next stage of configurations on the Notion side.

By default no Notion content is shared with the integration you have created. You first need to share the content with the integration INSIDE Notion before enabling its sharing with Shelf’s Notion connector.

To do so, perform the below steps.

Figure 5. Adding your Shelf integrations to Notion space trusted connections

1. Go back to your Notion space page, refresh it, and open its More actions menu by clicking the respective icon (...).
2. In the dropdown menu that opens, find the Connections section and select + Add connections option.
3. In the popup window that appears, type in the name of the integration you have created, in our case - Shelf.
4. Select the found item by clicking on it.
5. In the popup window that is displayed, click Confirm to agree that your Shelf integration can access your Notion space pages.

Figure 6. Allowing your Shelf integration to access Notion space pages

Figure 7. Checking your Shelf integration permissions for Notion content

Once you have created your Shelf integration, allowed it to access Notion content, and copied its integration secret (token), you are done with the configurations on the Notion side and can do the same actions in Shelf. However, before proceeding to the configurations on the side of Shelf NextGen KMS, make sure you have content in your Notion storage.

From the standard workflow described above you see that to start configuring and using your Notion connector you need to access the Content Integration Layer feature. To do so, perform the following steps:

1. Log into your Shelf NextGen KMS account using valid credentials.
2. Once logged in, go to the Admin Panel by selecting the respective option in the dropdown menu.

Figure 8. Accessing Admin Panel in Shelf NextGen KMS

Figure 9. Accessing CIL modules in Admin Panel

In fact, no configurations are needed for your Notion connector. It is prebuilt and preconfigured by Shelf. You can see it in the connector list that appears once you select the Connectors option in the Content Integration Layer section.

Figure 10. Viewing the Notion connector in CIL

What you need to do next is to create and configure a connection profile dedicated to work with the external content source such as your Notion instance.

The Notion connection profile is a feature that uses the prebuilt Notion connector and allows Shelf NextGen KMS to access, authenticate on Notion, and communicate with it to find and sync content stored there. But to enable its proper operation, you need to create and configure it as described in the procedure below.

1. In the Admin Panel in Shelf NextGen KMS, go to the Content Integration Layer section, find and select the Connection Profiles option.
2. In the Connection Profiles window that appears, you see the list of available connection profiles. Neither the prebuilt nor other custom connection profiles can be used for communicating with Notion, so you need to create a new connection profile. Click the Create Connection Profile button to start.

Figure 11. Accessing CIL connection profiles and starting creating a new connection profile 

Figure 12. Configuring the Notion connection profile in Shelf

In the Credentials section, the Access token field, you need to enter the Integration secret (token) value you have previously found and copied when creating your Shelf integration in Notion.

❗Note:

Fields with the asterisk symbol (*) are mandatory. If they are left blank, you are not able to save the connection profile you are creating.

Now that you have configured the Notion connector and connection profile, you need to create and configure the Notion sync flow. Sync flows are basically sets of instructions telling Shelf NextGen KMS what content and when it needs to pull from external sources, in our case - Notion.

To create and configure the Notion sync flow, perform the following steps.

1. In the Admin Panel in Shelf NextGen KMS, go to the Content Integration Layer section, find and select the Sync Flows option.

Figure 13. Starting creating Notion sync flow

Figure 14. Configuring the Notion sync flow

Figure 15. Configuring the scheduled run of Notion sync flow

Once done, click the Create button to finish your Notion sync flow creation.

Once you have created the Notion sync flow, you can either wait until it performs the content sync per schedule (if you have selected the On-schedule option for the sync flow run type), or start the sync manually at any time (if you have selected the On-demand option for the run type).

To manually start syncing your content from Notion into Shelf, follow the below steps.

1. Open the newly created Notion sync flow, find and go to the Jobs tab in its window.
2. In the tab window, find and click the Trigger Now button to start syncing content.

Figure 16. Manually running content syncing from Notion into Shelf

Figure 17. Confirming the sync start

Figure 18. Viewing the running and finished Notion sync jobs

❗Note:

The sync job can be triggered manually both for the on-schedule and on-demand sync flows, unless there is a sync job running at that time. 

In the first case, the manually triggered job overrides the schedule set for the sync flow. At the same time, the sync flow execution will resume to occur per schedule after the manually triggered sync job is finished. If you manually trigger the sync flow job, it starts immediately.

If there is a running sync job in this sync flow when you attempt to start a new job, this new job will not be created and, respectively, the content sync will not be started. In this case you will see the error message informing that the job is already running. 

If there are no other sync jobs running in this sync flow, the Jobs tab window refreshes, and a new job with the IN PROGRESS status appears in the table grid.

Figure 19. Stopping the sync job

Once the sync job triggered manually or on schedule is finished, you will see it to change the status to SUCCESS (if the sync was successful) or FAILED (if some issues occurred during the sync). In the latter case, check your configurations in the Notion connection profile and sync flow and rerun the sync job.

If the sync was successful, you can see the recently sync content directly from this window. To do so, open the Recent Sync tab and check the content items synced from Notion into Shelf.

Figure 20. Viewing the recently synced content from Notion

Note that the tab shows not more than 50 content items, so if you have synced more items, you will see them only after going back to the Shelf NextGen KMS Homepage and selecting the respective source - Notion.

Even when you successfully configured the Notion connector, connection profile, sync flow, run the sync job and pulled the content from your Notion repository, you need to add Notion collections to the permitted sources via Shelf’s User Groups feature. Otherwise, you will not be able to search for the synced content and otherwise manage it in Shelf NextGen KMS.

To set the mentioned collection permissions, go back to the Admin Panel where find and select the User Groups option in the left sidebar menu. Select the needed user group from the list to open it.

Figure 21. Accessing User Groups in Shelf

In the selected user group window that opens, go and select the Collection Permissions tab. Once it opens, click the Add Collection button.

Figure 22. Starting to set Notion collection permissions in Shelf

In the form that opens, find and select the needed Notion collections you want to allow.

Figure 23. Selecting Notion collections

Confirm your choice by clicking the Add button. Once the collections are added, they appear in the list.

Figure 24. Viewing the added Notion collections

Once done, you are finished with all the configurations needed to sync content from Notion into Shelf NextGen KMS using the Notion connector.