Create a Template

 
Account Permissions Needed: Project Creator (or higher)

Overview

Creating templates allows you to quickly and more easily create projects and ensures that you have the time and resources necessary to be successful. You can also choose to create a template from an existing project. Once you have created a template, you can apply it during project creation or apply it to an existing project.

Whichever account member creates a template is automatically assigned as the template owner. While there isn't a way to transfer template ownership, an account member with a Project Lead account permission or higher can clone the template and become the owner of the new template copy.

How to Create a Template

In the left navigation, hover over Templates and click the Add (“   ”) icon.

Details

Fill out information at the top of the template:

• Template Name (required)—Give your template a name that will make it easy to distinguish it from other templates.
• Duration—This is the number of days it should take to complete a project.
• Budgeted—This determines if the template is for a financial project. If selected, you can enter the project budget, currency, and other budgeted information.
  Note: If the Budgeted checkbox is deselected, some fields in the template disappear or are no longer editable. Only users with Project Lead (or higher) account permissions can create budgeted templates.
• Currency—This determines the type of currency for the project. This field is only available if Budgeted is checked.
• Sharing—The Sharing options affect who is able to see and edit your template. Account Administrators can edit templates that have the Shared (View Only) option selected, even if they aren't the template owner.
• Description—This is a description that explains the purpose of the template. You can include common markdown syntax to add formatting to the text in this field.

Resources

To create a resource estimate in your template using unnamed resources to indicate your demand, go to the Resources tab and start adding unnamed resources in the Resource Role column, clicking Add Resource for each new resource you'd like to add.

To add skills to your resources, click the Side Panel (“   ”) icon. The Resource side panel opens, where only the Skills section appears. Adding skills makes it easier to find the right fit when you are ready to assign work to specific people.

Tasks

Next, select the Tasks tab to create tasks for your newly defined resources, clicking Add Task for each task you'd like to add.

Fill out information for each task:

• Type—This is the task type: Task, Deliverable, Milestone, or Issue.
• Priority—This is the level of priority you want to assign to the task: Critical, High, Normal, or Low.
• Task—This is the task’s name.
• Description—This is a description of the task. You can include common markdown syntax to add formatting to the description.
• In the Resources field:
  • You can assign a task to any unnamed resource you’ve added to the Resources tab by clicking in a task’s Resources field and selecting a label from the drop-down menu.
  • You can enter estimated hours for each resource. Supported formats for the estimated hours field include #.## and #h ##m.
    
    Note: Adding estimated hours makes it easier to schedule hours from the Resourcing tab of a project. After an unnamed resource has been assigned to a task in the template, the total number of Assignments and Estimated Hours will update in the Resources tab.
  • Select the Add (“   ”) icon to assign more resources to the same task.
• Task Budget—This is the amount of money it will cost to complete the task. This field is only available if Budgeted is checked.
• Task Est. Hours—Known as task estimated hours, this is the total number of hours it will take to complete the task. This field is only available if Budgeted is checked.
• Start—The number of days into the project that the task will begin. If you want to create a Start day that predates the day you apply the template, just enter it as a negative value.
• Duration—The number of work days that the task should take to finish. If a task has subtasks associated with it, you’ll only be able to set a Duration on the subtask because dates always roll up to the parent.
  Tip: Use the Gantt tab to see and manage a visual representation of the Start and Duration of the tasks.
• Weight—Available only for the Milestone task type, this is the weight of the task. For all other task types, this field is grayed out.
  
• Click the More (“   ”) button to add a Checklist to the task, mark the task as Non-billable (only available if Budgeted is checked), or add tags. To the right of the More table header is a checkbox that expands the additional fields for all tasks in the template.
  
  Note: You have the option to convert all checklist items to To Dos when applying a template.
• In the Actions column are options to Add a Task (“   ”) directly below the current task, Add a Subtask (“   ”), or Delete (“   ”) the task.
  
• To create a subtask, click the Drag (“   ”) icon on the left side of a task and drag it to the right.
  

Gantt

After you create tasks in the project template, you can click the Gantt tab to see and manage a visual representation of the Start and Duration of the tasks.

When you set dependencies and edit task dates in the Gantt chart, the changes will be reflected in the template. For more information about how dependencies work, please see the Gantt Chart Dependencies article.

For information on navigating Gantt charts, please see the Tasks Gantt Chart Basics article. Note that some actions may not be available in the Gantt chart within a template.

Additional Tabs

Add any custom Forms or Insights Dynamic Dashboards you want to the project, which will appear as additional tabs in the project workspace.

Expense Budgets

In the Expense Budgets tab, you can add expense budgets to the template to track non-labor expenses and costs, independent from the labor planned in hours. The Expense Budgets tab is only available when expense budgets are activated and Budgeted is checked.

1. Click Add Expense Budget to the upper-right of the table.
2. In the modal that opens, fill out the following information:
   • Name—A descriptive name of what this budget is for.
   • Relative Expected By—The number of days into the project that the expenses are expected to be incurred. To enter a date before the project start, enter a negative value. This date is helpful for revenue recognition and is used when calculating Project Completion Estimates.
   • Description—A description of the expenses.
   • Billing Settings
     • Impacts Margin—Whether this expense should be included in Project Completion Estimates and affects revenue (i.e. burns the project budget).
     • Billable—Whether this expense will be billed to the client.
     • Fixed Fee—If checked, this indicates that the client will be billed a fixed fee regardless of the actual amount of the logged expenses. Additionally, if the actual expenses logged to this expense budget exceed the estimated fees, only the estimated fees will be used in Project Completion Estimates.
       
       
   • Depending on your selections in Billing Settings, the following fields may be available as well to help you calculate the estimated cost and fees:
   • Quantity—The number of expected units.
   • Estimated Cost
     • Cost (per unit)—The expected cost per unit.
     • Total Cost—How much is expected to be spent for this expense. This value is automatically calculated based on the quantity and cost per unit: Quantity × Cost (per unit).
   • Markup
     • Markup Type—How the markup is applied: as a Flat Charge (per unit) or as a Percentage of the total cost.
     • Markup Percentage—The markup percentage to apply to the total cost in order to calculate the total fees.
     • Markup (per unit)—The markup amount to add for each unit.
     • Total Markup—This value is automatically calculated. For percentage markup, this is calculated as Total Cost × Markup Percentage. For flat charge markup, this is calculated as Quantity × Markup (per unit).
   • Estimated Fees
     • Fees (per unit)—This value is automatically calculated. For percentage markup, this is calculated as Cost (per unit) + (Cost (per unit) × Markup Percentage). For flat charge markup, this is calculated as Cost (per unit) + Markup (per unit).
     • Total Fees—How much is expected to be billed to the client for this expense. This value is automatically calculated. For percentage markup, this is calculated as Quantity × Fees (per unit). For flat charge markup, this is calculated as Quantity * Markup (per unit).
       
3. Select Save to add the expense budget to the template.

To edit or delete an expense budget in a template, select the More (“   ”) icon, then select Edit or Delete.

You can select the Configure Columns icon to determine which columns to display in the table and in what order.

You can also use Saved Views to create your own custom views of the table based on frequently-used filters.

Save Changes

Save your template or select Save and Close to save and return to the templates list.

You can also Delete (“   ”) or Clone (“   ”) the template using the options to the upper-right.

Next Steps

To begin creating a project from this template, click the Project from Template button on the top-right.

After you create a project from the template, you'll be able to assign an actual user to each unnamed resource, and they’ll be invited to your project and assigned to the task.