Turn the knowledge base you already keep in Notion into a branded help center with search, categories and your own domain. You keep writing in Notion, and HelpCenter.io keeps the published articles up to date.
Who can do this: Owners and Admins · Plans: All plans
Connect Notion and import
Your pages don't need to be published to the web. Private workspace pages import too, and most teams keep the source private in Notion.
In the left menu, click the gear icon, then Settings. Under Integrations, click Connect on the Notion card.
Authorize HelpCenter.io in Notion. When Notion asks which pages it may read, select the top page of your knowledge base.
If the page isn't listed back in HelpCenter.io, share it from Notion: open the top page of your docs, select ••• at the top right, then More. In the Connections group, select Add connections and pick HelpCenter.io. Sharing a page shares every page under it. Then click Check again.
Find the page or database that holds your knowledge base (Filter pages narrows a long list) and click Import next to it.
You can also start on the Articles page: click Import, then Notion under Or pick a source.
The import runs in the background, so you can close the tab. The card shows how many pages it found in Notion and how many articles now come from it. A large workspace takes a while, because Notion limits how fast anyone can read from it.
How your pages become articles
A database becomes a category, and each of its rows becomes an article.
A page with sub-pages becomes a category. Any text on the page itself becomes an article in that category. A page that only lists links to its sub-pages is skipped, since the category lists them already.
A page without sub-pages becomes an article, titled like the page.
The page you imported from is the top category.
You get up to three levels of categories: that top page, the pages under it and the pages under those. Pages nested deeper go into the nearest category above them, so nothing is dropped. A sub-page placed inside a column, toggle or callout isn't imported: the article links to it in Notion instead. Move it onto its parent page to import it.
Imported articles are published and public straight away, in your help center's default language. Running the import again never duplicates an article.
What comes across
Text formatting, links, headings (toggle headings too), lists and to-do lists, quotes, callouts, toggles, code blocks with their language, dividers, simple tables, images, video, audio and file attachments come across. Links between your Notion pages point to the imported articles. Bookmarks, embeds and link previews arrive as links, and synced blocks arrive once.
Simpler form: equations arrive as their LaTeX source, and columns are stacked one under the other.
Left behind: comments, database properties other than the title (tags, statuses, dates), table of contents blocks, breadcrumbs, template buttons, and anything not shared with HelpCenter.io or in the Notion trash.
Every image and file is copied to HelpCenter.io, because Notion's own image links stop working after about an hour. Notion doesn't share alt text with other apps, so images arrive without it: select an image in the editor to add Alt text. An image Notion links from a private address, such as an intranet, isn't fetched: re-upload it into Notion.
Keep it in sync
HelpCenter.io checks Notion for changes about once an hour. To publish an edit right away, click Sync now on the card. Your edits in HelpCenter.io always win: nothing you changed here is overwritten without you choosing it.
What changed | What happens |
|---|---|
A page edited in Notion | The article is updated. |
An article edited in HelpCenter.io | Your version is kept, and later edits to that page in Notion are held back for you to review. |
Both changed | Your version is kept and the article is flagged for review. |
A new page in Notion | It's imported into the right category. |
A page deleted or no longer shared in Notion | The article stays published and is flagged for review. It's never deleted for you. |
An article deleted in HelpCenter.io | It stays deleted. |
Review a flagged article
Open the article. The banner at the top says how far apart the two versions are, and Open in Notion lets you compare them. Then choose:
Use Notion's version replaces the article's title and text with the page as it is in Notion now. Your current version stays in the article's version history, and later edits in Notion sync to it again. It's also in the menu next to Publish.
Mark as reviewed keeps your version. The article stays yours, so the next edit in Notion is flagged again.
Old links and redirects
If a page was published to the web from Notion when it was first imported, HelpCenter.io records its old address. Point the custom domain your Notion site used to HelpCenter.io, and old page addresses redirect to the imported articles, so bookmarks and search rankings keep working. Addresses on notion.site can't be redirected, because Notion owns that domain, and private pages have no address to redirect. To add your own, see Redirect old links to the right page.
Disconnect Notion
On the Notion card, click Disconnect and confirm. Your articles, categories, images and redirects stay published; only the syncing stops. Connect the same workspace again later, and syncing picks up where it left off.
Troubleshooting
The list of pages is empty, or your page isn't in it. Notion shows HelpCenter.io only the pages you share with it. Share the top page as in step 3, wait a few seconds for Notion to catch up, then click Check again.
The card asks you to reconnect your Notion workspace. The authorization expired or was removed in Notion. Click Reconnect. Your articles are untouched, and the same workspace keeps its page and sync history.
A page didn't import. Check that it sits under the page you imported from, that it's shared with HelpCenter.io and not in the Notion trash, and that it isn't inside a column, toggle or callout.
An edit in Notion doesn't show up. The article was edited in HelpCenter.io, so Notion's edit is waiting for review. Open the article and click Use Notion's version.
The card shows Incomplete. The last run left some pages unprocessed, for example when it reached its time limit. Nothing already imported was removed, and the next sync picks up the pages it didn't reach.
Images are missing from an article. Some files couldn't be copied. HelpCenter.io tries again on every sync for 24 hours, and Sync now tries straight away. If the card then shows Action needed and names a page, fix or remove the file in Notion, then edit the page there.
Part of a very large workspace never arrives. Each run reads up to 5,000 Notion pages and databases, always starting from the page you imported from. Import a smaller section of your workspace, or write to support@helpcenter.io.
Good to know
Each help center connects to one Notion workspace.
If you change an imported article's visibility in HelpCenter.io, syncing keeps your choice.
Moving from another platform instead? See Can you move my existing help center to HelpCenter.io?
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