Guides
Migrating from Notion to Production Board: a clean walk-through
Notion's kanban view holds up well for the first 200 cards. Past that, the database lag eats the workflow. Here's how to move out without losing the structure.
Export the Notion database as CSV (and Markdown)
In Notion: open the database → ••• menu → "Export" → format "Markdown & CSV". This produces one CSV with the row data and a folder of Markdown files for the long-form page bodies. The CSV is what we'll import; the Markdown is preserved as a side-archive in case you want to keep historical notes.
Inspect the CSV and decide phase shape
Open the CSV in any spreadsheet tool. The Notion Status property (or whatever you renamed it to) becomes the column you map to {PRODUCT} phases. Don't 1:1 map - a Notion DB usually accumulates statuses over time ("Maybe", "Parked", "Q3 Push") that aren't real production phases. Pick 3-7 phases that match your actual production cycle; map the historical statuses onto them.
Trim the columns you actually need
Notion DBs usually carry 8-15 columns by year two: title, status, priority, owner, plus rollups, formulas, relations, and dead columns nobody updates. Strip to 4-6 before import: title, phase, owner, due date, priority, tags. Rollups + formulas don't migrate - {PRODUCT} computes phase aggregates server-side, so the rollup columns become server-computed metrics instead.
Import via the CSV dialog
Open {PRODUCT}, create a new board with the phases from step 2, then Account settings → Import. The dialog parses the CSV, shows a 50-row preview for the column mapping, and commits when you confirm. Big DBs (1000+ rows): import a 30-row subset first to validate the mapping before the full run.
Keep the Notion DB read-only for two weeks
Don't archive Notion on day one. Set the database to read-only via Notion's permissions, leave it for two weeks while the team works in {PRODUCT}. The window catches missed cards, validates the phase mapping, and gives anyone in the team a fallback if something feels off. After two weeks, archive the Notion DB - the export folder you saved in step 1 is your offline backup.
Why teams leave Notion's kanban view
Notion is excellent as a generalist - docs, wikis, light databases, light kanbans. The kanban view starts feeling slow somewhere between 200 and 500 cards in a single database; filter operations stall, status changes lag a beat, and the live-collaboration feedback loop loses its snap. The shape of the data is fine; it's that the kanban is rendered on top of a generalist DB that handles every other Notion feature too.
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