Ignore Relation If Empty While Updating A Notion Page

[alexs]

I’m updating a relation property in a Notion page, using the Update A Database Item step, with the contents of a map -

Where data is -

I had hoped that if the output of the map was null then that would be ignored but Notion throws an error -

[400] body failed validation: body.properties.With (Type of Person).relation[0].id should be a string, instead was null.

I’ve also tried using an if() to check whether the result of the map was null and not insert anything if it was -

But I get the same error.

I’ve also thought about constructing the body of the request separately but I’m not sure how to create an array of items with a key of id and the value set to the IDs from a map of IDs, for multiple properties, efficiently.

[samliew]

Welcome to the Make community!

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[alexs]

Hey Sam, there’s lots of screenshots in my post, just let me know if there’s anything else you need to see

[alexs]

Here’s a simple blueprint which you can use to replicate the issue blueprint (15).json (38.8 KB), using this Notion template.

[sachinkadam5]

Hello @alexs .
You have to put a filter between the JSON & Notion Module & put condition in filter i.e. Check for (Name Exists or not)

[alexs]

Thanks but I still need to update the page, to populate other properties, even if the Type is empty.

I’m updating quite a few relation properties here so using routers with filters would get very messy. There must be a way to either insert an empty value that Notion will accept or not include the property in the request when sending the request

[sachinkadam5]

@alexs Did you try with empty string?

[alexs]

Yes, I still get the same error.

[sachinkadam5]

@alexs
Try using this Formula,
If this formula doesn’t work, replace “ignore” with “N/A” because Notion doesn’t allow to update an empty string

[alexs]

Thanks but neither of those options work, if you mean just entering N/A as text as the fallback?

I’ve even just tried fetching the page and populating the property with the current contents of the property if the result of the map is null (which is just []) and that doesn’t work.

[alexs]

There seems to be an issue with the way that the output of the map is being evaluated because if I set a valid page ID as the fallback for isempty() or if() then I still get the error. But if I set the page ID as the value for the property, without any logic, it’s accepted

I’ve tried the if() = test with null, emptyarray, emptystring and no additional criteria.

length(map(1.data; "Type")) gives me an output of 1, even though the result is null so that’s good

This is the result of the map:

[
    {
        "Type": [
            null
        ]
    }
]

[alexs]

Ok so the issue was with the test, not with the output:

map(1.data; "Type")) = null is false

but first(map(1.data; "Type")) = null is true.

So I can use that as the test and then:

if(first(map(1.data; "Type")) = null; ; map(1.data; "Type")) works.

[Michaela]

Hi @alexs

I just want to quickly step in to say awesome work figuring this one out with the pointers from @samliew and @sachinkadam5

Thanks a lot for keeping us posted on your progress and for sharing what ended up doing the final trick.