A template is a saved form you can reuse on another study instead of rebuilding it. Templates are shared across your whole instance and managed from one page, which is what this article covers. Saving a template happens inside each form builder.
🔑 Prerequisite: Templates (Access) to view the library, and Templates (Edit) to import or delete.
What can be saved as a template
You save templates from inside the builder, at whichever level is useful: a whole form, a section, a sub-section, or a single question. The control is Save as Template, and it appears at each of those levels.
Applying a template is a copy, not a link. The new form is yours to change, and nothing you do to it affects the saved template.
⚠️ Warning: a template does not carry the role-based settings. Role-Based Edit, Role-Based Visibility and the roles excluded from a section or sub-section are all dropped when the template is saved, and are not recreated when it is applied.
This is deliberate, because templates are reused across entities where the roles are not the same. But nothing on screen tells you it happened. After applying a template, set your restrictions again before the study goes Live. See Save and reuse eCRF templates.
Find a template
🛠️ Step by step guide
Go to Settings and open Templates.
Choose the tab for the module you want: eCRF, ePRO, eConsent, Recruitment pre-screening survey or Project database.
Use the filters to narrow the list.
💡 Tip: a tab only appears if your instance is configured to use that module. If a colleague describes a tab you do not have, that is a module your company has not enabled, not a permission problem.
Editing a template takes four steps, not one
There is no edit button on the Templates page in the current version. Changing a template means going the long way round.
🛠️ Step by step guide
Import the template into the relevant module, for example the eCRF Builder.
Make your changes to the imported form.
Save it as a new template.
Delete the old template from the Templates page, if it is no longer wanted.
💡 Tip: because a correction produces a second template rather than updating the first, template libraries fill up with near-duplicates quickly. Put the version or the date in the template name, and delete the old one in the same sitting rather than later.
Import and export templates
Templates travel as JSON files. This is how you move one between two Datacapt environments used by your company, or send one to Datacapt Support so they can see exactly what you built.
🛠️ Step by step guide
Go to Settings and open Templates.
To bring one in, select Import and upload the JSON file.
To take one out, select the Export icon on that template's row.
To remove one, delete it from this page.