My study group logs progress in Notion. I wanted a lightweight dashboard so everyone could see weekly study hours—some for motivation, others for encouragement.

Architecture Overview

1. Teammates record sessions in Notion.
2. Export the Notion database as CSV.
3. Use Python + Matplotlib to visualize the data.
4. Upload the chart to Amazon S3 via Boto3.
5. Share the S3 object URL as our dashboard.

Exporting from Notion

Open the database, click the menu in the top-right corner, and choose Export. (I’m still hoping Notion exposes CSV exports via API so this can be fully automated with Airflow.)

Visualization with Matplotlib

I generated a simple line chart summarizing each person’s study hours over the past week:

Seeing everyone’s totals at a glance helps us celebrate wins—or nudge slackers.

Sample code lives on GitHub: make_plot.py

Uploading with Boto3

Once the chart is created, upload it to S3. See my earlier post, Getting Started with Boto3, for secure credential handling. Code reference: the same GitHub repo.

Prepare a simple index.html that embeds the chart—also in the repo.

Serve via S3

Every uploaded object has a public URL (assuming the ACL permits it). Share that link so teammates can access the dashboard:

Bonus: One-Click Refresh with Bash

I initially planned to automate the entire flow with Notion’s API + Airflow. Since the API doesn’t expose CSV exports yet, I settled on a quick Bash script to streamline manual updates:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
cd ..
source venv/bin/activate
cd boto3
python3 make_plot.py

Now the workflow is: export CSV from Notion, run the script, and the dashboard refreshes automatically. Simple, effective, and lightweight.