Creating project templates

Project templates can save you a lot of time if you have similar projects that occur on a regular basis. With project templates you can map out work items for the project, milestones, and even attach files. After setting up a project template you can easily generate a project from the template.

Adding General Information To A Project Template

First, you will need to give your template a name. Next, you can select the project type associated with the template (this is optional). Finally, select the currency for the project, billable status, and details as shown below. (NOTE: It's important that you click the "Save" button after making updates to your project template.)

Adding Work Items

After you have entered the basic general information you can start mapping out the work items within the template. As a reminder, the hierarchy for work items is as follows: Epic -> User Story -> Task -> Sub-Task. The top-most work item can be either an Epic, User Story, or Task, but if you want 4 levels of nesting, then you will need to select "Epic" as the work item type for each of your top-most work items (see below).

For each work item you can assign a work role (optional). One reason you may choose to enter this information is because you can map assignees (people within your organization) to specific work roles when generating projects from the template. You can also associate each work item with a team (optional). Next, you can associate each work item with a milestone. This option is only available if you have already added milestones to your project template (via the "Milestone" tab). Time estimates can be entered as well. Since this project has a billable rate ($150/hour) you will notice that a "Labor" amount has been automatically calculated next to each work item. It is important to note that these amounts roll up from the bottom-most work item in a given work item group. These rollup amounts will be shown highlighted in gray. The totals for any rollup amounts will be displayed in the footer ($3900 in the above screenshot). Expenses can also be entered for each work item. Lastly, you can enter the relative start date for each work item and the number of days it should span. When generating a project from a template you will have the option to enter a start date. The number you enter in the "Start" column will be relative to the projects start date. If you want a work item to begin on the same day as the projects start date, then enter '0' in the "Start" field.