I’m working with the Notion API and need to programmatically manage workspace membership. Specifically, I want to add new team members to my workspace and set their access permissions like read-only, edit access, or admin rights. I’ve been looking through the API documentation but I’m not sure if the current beta version includes these features. Has anyone successfully implemented user invitation and permission management through the API? Are there any limitations or workarounds I should be aware of? I’d appreciate any code examples or guidance on the available endpoints for workspace user management.
Bad news - Notion’s API won’t do what you need. You can’t manage workspace users, send invites, or change permissions through the API yet. I’ve dug into this before and had to tell clients the same thing. The API only handles database stuff and content creation. User management is locked down, probably for security reasons. Your best bet? Use the API for setting up content, then manually invite users through the web interface. Maybe set up automated alerts to admins when you need to add someone new. Watch the API changelog though - they might add user management eventually.
You will have to rely on manual invites for now as the Notion API does not support this feature. I encountered a similar situation while developing a client onboarding process six months ago; the documentation suggests more functionality than is currently available regarding user management. I managed to create a workaround by utilizing the API to set up all necessary pages, databases, and content for new members, then I’ve set up a notification system to alert the workspace admin to send out invites. While it only takes about 30 seconds compared to the hours spent on previous setups, it’s not an ideal solution. For other aspects, the API works well for customizing workspaces and managing content, so stay updated on their announcements for any future enhancements regarding user management.
Hit this exact problem last month automating our team onboarding.
Notion’s API doesn’t do workspace invites or user permissions yet. Huge gap in their beta API. You can read pages, create content, update databases - but user management? Nope.
Wasted hours in their docs before giving up on this.
Instead, I built a workflow that handles everything around the invite. New team member joins, the system creates their dashboard, sets up project templates, assigns them to databases, and sends a welcome message with resources.
Yeah, I still manually send the workspace invite, but everything else runs automatically. They land in a fully prepared workspace instead of starting from scratch.
Works better than expected. People jump in productive because their workspace is already set up for their role.
You can build this with automation tools that connect to Notion’s API. I use Latenode - handles API connections well and chains actions together nicely.
Until Notion adds user management to their API, automating the setup process is your best option.
unfortunately notion’s api is pretty limited for workspace management. i’ve been waiting forever for this feature but they keep focusing on other things. i created a simple script that sets everything up through the api, then sends me a slack notification with the person’s email so i remember to invite them manually. not elegant but it works until they finally fix this gap.