SetUpYourWorkspaceStructureFirst
Before you start building a team wiki in Tana, you have to resist the urge to dive in and just start throwing in pages. That’s fun, but it’ll break your brain later. I learned that the hard way when I couldn’t even find our onboarding checklist for two weeks 😅. So: workspace structure first.
In Tana, the basic unit of content is the node. Think of nodes like pages in Notion or lines in Roam. They can hold tags, fields, links, and even entire databases if you go deep enough. But when you’re trying to design an SOP hub, you need a central taxonomy. What I did — after messing it up twice — was create a top-level “Wiki” node, and under it, I added nodes for Core Processes, Department SOPs, and Team Norms.
Here’s what helped keep things clean:
– **Use the Supertag feature early**: I created a Supertag called “SOP” with fields like Owner, Last Updated, and Related Tools. This made SOP pages feel consistent and helped us filter them later.
– **Limit nesting to 2 levels**: Tana lets you nest forever. Don’t. Too much nesting = lost docs 🙃
– **Color code if it helps**: I don’t usually care about visuals but assigning a red hue to overdue SOP reviews was strangely motivating.
I also created an “Archive” node right away. Trust me, when you inevitably want to dump an outdated policy without deleting it, that folder will save you some awkward Slack pinging.
CreateReusableSOPTemplatesWithSupertags
Here’s where Tana gets a little addictive (in a good way). Once you define a Supertag, you can turn it into a form-like template. I made a tag called “SOP” and added these fields to all entries:
– **Title**
– **Owner (a reference field)**
– **Last Reviewed (datetime field)**
– **Type (dropdown: checklist, policy, onboarding)**
– **Tools Used (multi-reference)**
– **Links to Loom, Notion embeds, etc.**
Now anytime we want to write a new SOP, we create a node, apply the “SOP” tag, and boom — all the fields appear. You just fill them in like a form. It feels more structured than Notion templates because you’re not copying and pasting blocks — you’re using a consistent schema.
I also created two custom views:
1. **A table view filtering all current SOPs, sorted by Last Reviewed**, to see what’s getting stale.
2. **A calendar view using the Last Reviewed field**, which occasionally reveals random gaps where nothing was touched for months 😬.
Small gotcha: if you forget to assign a Supertag but still build out a whole SOP, there’s no easy way to backfill fields later without some copy-paste pain. So always spin up from Supertag if you can.
LinkSOPsToProjectNodesTasksAndTags
Centralized SOPs are great, but if people never see them while working, what’s the point? One of Tana’s cooler powers is its ability to connect everything via references and tags. We started linking our SOPs directly into:
– Project nodes (particularly onboarding projects)
– Recurring task templates (so an SOP on how to onboard a client appears whenever someone kicks off the onboarding checklist)
– Person nodes (so each team member has a field showing SOPs they own)
It took maybe a week for this to click. At first people were like, “Wait, how do I know what actually matters to *me* in this 80-node behemoth?” Adding references to the place where the work happens made it usable.
One trick: use Tana’s live queries (aka search nodes) to embed dynamic lists of SOPs based on tags like Department = Marketing or Tool = HubSpot. That gave each department page a live-updating list of only what they cared about. Didn’t even have to touch it again 🙂
We had a small bug once where a search node showed duplicate SOPs that weren’t duplicates — turns out one entry had an extra trailing space in the field name. I cried a little. Then fixed the field definition.
BuildASOPApprovalReviewLoopInsideTana
This part isn’t flashy, but it keeps the whole system alive. We saw a ton of abandoned SOP pages in our first version. Tana doesn’t push notifications in the same way a proper task manager does, so I had to build a kind of manual loop.
Using the Last Reviewed field and a Supertag called “Needs Review,” I created a search node that filters:
– All SOPs where Last Reviewed is older than 3 months
– Sort ascending so the stalest ones bubble up
– Group by Owner so people can easily see their own
Then, every Friday, I tag two or three people (in their Person node) with a new inline task that says “Please review your SOPs under Needs Review.” It’s clunky — not automated — but it’s visible. There’s something about staring at your face next to outdated policies that makes people move faster 🙃
Someone in a forum thread once posted this gem: “Tana is incredibly flexible, so don’t wait for a notification system — build a ritual.” I copied it and stuck it at the top of our Wiki node.
EmbedAssetsSchemasAndMultistepInstructions
A lot of SOPs aren’t just text — they need visual or interactive aids. I started adding Loom embeds, Notion page links, and even Airtable views into our SOPs. Tana lets these live as fields within the Supertag, so you’re not pasting them into raw body text.
Useful embed hacks:
– If a Loom embed isn’t loading, try embedding it as a simple URL field instead
– Tables don’t render well directly in Tana, but you can drop a Google Sheet link into a field and make a note to open in a new tab
– You can attach your Zap templates by pasting the share link into a field called “Automation Link”
Also, don’t forget to include steps that go beyond “Open X, click Y.” I’ve started bulleting multi-part actions like this:
“`
– Go to the client record in CRM
– Filter by ‘Active Client’
– Look for the Last Invoice Date under Billing
– If older than 30 days, trigger invoice reminder email using the template below
“`
It’s basic, but people don’t assume steps anymore. They just copy-paste and move.
TrainYourTeamToQueryInsteadOfClicking
Once you have a few hundred SOPs, trying to scroll and click through them like a Notion doc will make everyone miserable. I had to teach the team to query instead.
Tana’s power lies in search nodes. For example:
– **Want all SOPs related to Canva and reviewed in the last month?**
– **Want only the onboarding guides for Sales?**
– **Want SOPs that contain the keyword ‘invoice’?**
You can build a live node for each of those, and it’s like running a saved report. So instead of digging, your team learns to ask better questions. That behavior change took some time — folks were used to folders, not filters. But once they saw how a search node instantly shows their team’s latest SOPs tagged with “in progress,” it clicked.
The trick was showing examples. I created a node called “Search Recipes” and listed out common queries. Like this:
“`
🔍 All SOPs owned by me and not reviewed in 90 days
🔍 All policies using Dropbox as the tool
🔍 SOPs with checklist steps for client offboarding
“`
Once people saw what was possible, they started requesting more views, not more folders.
RollBackChangesWhenSomeoneBreaksTheSchema
I knew things were working when someone broke the system 😬. What happened:
– Someone renamed a field from “Last Reviewed” to “LastReviewDate”
– That broke every search node filtering by Last Reviewed
– Now 30+ nodes showed empty views
The annoying part is there’s no version history for Supertags or fields in Tana (yet — fingers crossed). So the fix was manual:
1. Find the field definition in one of the affected SOPs
2. Rename it exactly to “Last Reviewed”
3. Re-connect it in the Supertag config
4. Update all nodes that had the broken one (I used a search node to find them by filtering field names, but it wasn’t fast)
That stole my Tuesday, but at least I now have a locked “Field Definitions” node where future editors can view but not change the tag structure 😐
So yeah, Tana’s flexible to a fault. Powerful, but with very little guardrails.
UseReferenceNodesForRoleSpecificDashboards
To make everything easier to use day to day, I built dashboard nodes tied to each team role. Each dashboard pulls in a list of SOPs using smart filters. So:
– The Virtual Assistant dashboard only shows SOPs where Tag = VA
– The Client Success Rep dashboard shows SOPs linked to Intercom and Gcal
– The Operations Lead page lists all SOPs they Own and any in the Needs Review state
Because these are reference nodes, they stay in sync with updates — no duplication.
Pro tip: Have each person make their own Favorites bar in Tana. That way they pin their dashboard, and they don’t even have to know how anything else is organized. They just land on their personal ops center every time they log in 🙂
I think I finally stopped rebuilding the whole thing every other week.