Templates

How to Create a New Template

Understanding the Template Interface

Rename a Template

Best Practices When Using Templates

Brief Video Overview

Only licensed account users are able to see templates

When and Why to use Templates

Templates are as very powerful tool in the CoordinateHQ app. By using templates, you can quickly generate Projects over and over again without having to re-create them from scratch each time. You can create 1 Template that you will use for every Project. For a much more customizable Project creation, you can use multiple Templates depending on how each Project is structured. You will learn more about using both of these methods later on in this article.

Templates are very powerful when fully automating generating your projects using the Create Project Link feature - by filling out a simple form, your customers the app will automatically create new Projects for you using the Template you selected. 

How to Create a New Template

Starting from a blank Template

1. Navigate to Templates from the top Nav bar

2. Click on the Add Template button
    

   

3. Give your Template a name in the modal that appears
4. Once you finish your Template or while you are working on it, it is highly recommended that you generate some test projects from your Template. It is important to see how users as well as collaborators will see your Projects before you begin inviting real customers. Invite some personal email accounts to test the Project as a collaborator.
5. You can also modify any Project you generate from your Templates and save the progress by overriding any Template. Read the next section "Starting from a Project" to learn more about this method.

Starting from a Project

1. Navigate to any Project you would like to use as a starting point for your Template
2. Build and test your Project with the intention that it will become a Template
3. It is highly recommended that you invite some test collaborators (use your personal email that is not your account user email) to the project and assign them some tasks to see what emails your collaborators will receive
4. View the Project as your collaborator account to see if all the pages you want hidden or visible to your collaborators show up.

5. Once you are happy with your Project, you can create a Template from it. Click on Save as Template at the top of your Plan
    

   

6. Select "Save as new template" and give your template a name to create a new Template from the Project that you are currently on
    

   

7. Even if you have invited a lot of collaborators, the Template is created with no collaborators, so you do not have to worry about uninviting anyone from the test Project
    

   

8. You can edit the Template you created or you can edit any project and override any template by selecting "Save over an existing template" when you are saving a Project as a template. You will be prompted to select an existing template you will override from the dropdown below. Remember: this action is permanent, and you will not be able to reset the template to its previous state
    

   

9. It is still recommended that you do another couple of test Projects by creating new Project from the Template you created to confirm that everything is really perfect before sharing with your customers

Understanding the Template Interface

The Template interface is almost identical to the Project interface with a few minor differences. There are some things that you are able to do in Projects that you are not able to do in Templates. There are also some navigation items only available in Projects that you will not see in your Templates Left Nav Bar. 

You will notice that if you are looking at a template, your title will always start with TEMPLATE: and there will be a green area in the Collaborators Panel that lets you know that you are editing a template. 

When creating a brand new template, these are the things you will see available to you:

Create a New Project button

Click this button to create a new project directly from the Template you are on

Left Nav Bar

This is not a 100% representation of what will show up in a Project generated from the template. For example, as it is a template and not a project, you will not see My Tasks page or email log. Use this area primarily to add and edit content pages and make sure the order is correct. 

Left Actions Bar

You are able to do the following:

• Add new content pages or global content pages
• Reorder Project pages - rearrange the order your links in the Left Nav Bar appear
  • Even though you will not see some of the pages available in the list, be assured that when you create a project from the template, your order will be correct
• View activity feed
  • If your template appears to be incorrect, this is a very useful tool to see who made changes to your template on which date
• Invite Collaborators 
  • Be very careful when using this feature in templates. Anyone invited to the template will automatically be invited to any project generated from it. 
  • Best practices is to wait until you generate your project and only then to invite your collaborators
  • example use case: if you have one or more licensed users on your account that must be on every Project created from this Template

Plan Actions Bar

Use these actions to craft your plan. 

From left to right, you can:

• Add a task
• Add a Group
• Schedule recurring tasks
• Shift all Due Dates - shift all due dates on this project (example: shift by 10 days)
• Save as Template - save the project in its current state as a template.
  • once you save the template, any changes you do to either the Project or Template WILL NOT affect the other. You can make as many changes as you like to the Template and it will not affect the Project you created it from and vice versa
• Load Template - load any Template into this project

Plan Content

(directly under the Plan Actions Bar) - this starts out blank with just an image which lets you know this is a brand new Project

This is where you'll input tasks and task groups to craft your Project Plan

Right Actions Bar

1. This is where you will be able to add Project Goals, Summary, Action Links 
    
   1. The Project Goals area is reserved for specifying the goals of the project. You can use these as milestones to let your clients know of the status of the plan.
       
   2. Use the Summary to add quick links, important or general info about your Project, add a video, and many other things.
       
   3. Use Action Links to create questionnaires for your clients.

Collaborators Panel

Here, you can invite collaborators like clients, other team members, or third parties.

• Be very careful when using this feature in templates. Anyone invited to the template will automatically be invited to any project generated from it. 
• Best practices is to wait until you generate your project and only then to invite your collaborators
• example use case: if you have one or more licensed users on your account that must be on every Project created from this Template

Rename a Template

Note: you cannot rename a Template while editing a Template, you can only rename it from the list view

1. Navigate to Templates from the top Nav bar
2. Click on the edit icon to the right of the Template name you want to rename

3. Use the input field to give it a new name and Rename Template
    

   

Best Practices When Using Templates

It is highly recommended that as you get close to finalizing your Templates, to create/generate some Projects from them before automating your workflow and using it with customers. You want to make sure that your Templates are set up perfectly, so please take some time to generate a few projects and invite your personal email (not a licensed user email) as a test customer and walk through the workflow you created. 

Once you are certain that everything is working as intended, you can then start sharing your new Projects and workflows with your customers. A little bit of testing ahead of time will ensure an extremely smooth transition and ease of use for your customers.

Brief Video Overview