Turn the way you run your most common type of project into a template, so every new project starts with the same structure, people and budget.

What

Create one project template for the type of work you do most often.

Why

Templates save setup time, keep projects consistent and make sure budgets and billable defaults are never missed.

Who

Site owners, site administrators, and anyone with permission to manage templates.

This is step 6 of 8 in the Owner and Administrator onboarding path. About 30 minutes.

Plan note: The number of custom templates you can create depends on your plan. See Create and Manage Project Templates.

Build your template

1. Pick the right project to template

Choose the type of project you run most often, such as a website build, a monthly retainer or a campaign. Think about the phases, the roles involved and how you bill it.

2. Create the template

  1. Select Projects in the main navigation, then the Templates tab.
  2. Select Create a template, choose Start from scratch, then Next step.
  3. Enter a name and description, and choose the company it is for.
  4. Add the template members: people, teams or companies who usually work on this type of project.
  5. Optionally set a project category, tags, billable time defaults and custom fields.
  6. Select Create Template.

3. Add the structure

  1. Task lists: one for each phase or workstream, such as Discovery, Design and Build.
  2. Tasks: the work that happens on every project of this type, with estimates.
  3. Milestones: key deliverables or sign-off points.
  4. Budget: a fixed fee, time and materials, or retainer budget to match how you bill.
  5. Notebooks, files and automations: any briefs, checklists or automations you reuse.

Time logs, the Gantt chart and Chat channels are not available on templates, but they work in projects created from them.

4. Test it

Create a project from your template and check that the task lists, dates, people and budget look right. See Create a Project from a Template. Delete the test project when you are done.

Done when

  • You have one template for your most common type of project.
  • You have created a test project from it and checked the result.

Next step: Step 7: Invite your team.