I recently built a Google Tasks integration for my spouse using the Notion API. During testing, I noticed something odd about the timestamp precision.
At first, I thought the timestamps were accurate to the millisecond based on some documentation. But then I found conflicting info saying they’re only precise to the minute.
This inconsistency is pretty frustrating. The API docs should clearly state that create_time and last_edited_time are rounded down to the nearest minute. It’s not obvious at first glance.
I’m wondering if anyone else has run into this issue? Is Notion intentionally limiting the API’s usefulness by reducing timestamp precision?
It’d be great to hear from others who’ve dealt with this. How did you work around it in your projects? Any tricks or tips for handling minute-level precision in time-sensitive integrations?
yeah, ive run into that too. super annoying! i ended up using a workaround where i store my own timestamps in a separate property. not ideal, but it works. wish notion would just give us millisecond precision already… makes syncing stuff way harder than it needs to be
I’ve encountered similar issues with Notion’s API timestamps. It’s indeed frustrating that the documentation isn’t clearer about the precision. In my experience, the minute-level rounding has caused some headaches, especially when trying to sync real-time updates across platforms.
To work around this, I’ve implemented a buffer system in my integrations. Essentially, I treat any changes within a 2-minute window as potentially simultaneous. This helps avoid conflicts when multiple users are editing the same content.
Another approach I’ve found useful is to maintain a separate, high-precision timestamp in a custom field within Notion. This allows for more accurate tracking of changes, though it does require additional overhead in terms of data management.
Ultimately, while Notion’s API is powerful, these limitations do impact its usefulness for certain time-sensitive applications. It’s a trade-off we have to consider when choosing Notion as a backend for our projects.
I’ve been using Notion’s API for a while now, and I can confirm the timestamp precision issue. It’s definitely a pain point, especially for real-time collaborations or syncing with other systems.
In my projects, I’ve resorted to implementing a custom versioning system. Essentially, I maintain a separate counter for each item that increments on every update. This way, even if two changes happen within the same minute, I can still determine which one is more recent.
Another trick I’ve found useful is to batch updates. Instead of trying to sync every single change immediately, I aggregate changes over a short period (say, 5 minutes) and then push them all at once. This approach helps mitigate some of the issues caused by the minute-level precision.
While these workarounds aren’t perfect, they’ve helped me build more reliable integrations. It would be great if Notion improved this in the future, but for now, we’ve got to work with what we have.