Overview
Templates have played a critical role in helping ensure the right task is assigned to the right person and that the baton gets passed at the right time to keep a project moving. For years we have relied on “Templates” which have been a collection of Milestones and Tasks. Our new Template Library gives you more flexibility to have more granular templates and leverage the work you have already done in building out great processes.
User Access
Admins and Managers have the ability to create or add units to the Library.
Admins, Managers and Guides can use previously created units within their live projects.
Task Owners, Contributors and Customers don’t have access to anything Library related.
Hierarchy Within GUIDEcx
The hierarchy of GUIDE 2.0 is slightly different from our Legacy experience.
Legacy Hierarchy:
Project
Template
Milestone
Task Group
Task
GUIDE 2.0 Hierarchy:
Project
Phase (Templates has simply been renamed)
Milestone
Task
Subtask
You will see this new hierarchy reflected in the Template Library.
Templates in Detail
Let’s talk about each one of these templates:
Project Template - Project Templates are a new, powerful type of template, serving as a collection of multiple phases. This is also where you'll now create and store all Project Invite language. Unlike our Legacy experience, you'll have dedicated, consistently used areas for both Internal and External invitations, no longer tied to a single template's order. All your existing Legacy Templates will be automatically converted to Project Templates, preserving your current invitation language.
Phase Template - What you've known as "Templates" are now Phase Templates – organized collections of Milestones, Tasks, and Subtasks. All your active Legacy Templates will be converted into Phase Templates in your library (without their old Overview language). This ensures you can continue to easily combine and add multiple Phase Templates to projects, keeping your workflows flexible and readily available.
Milestone Template - Milestone Templates are a fresh addition – collections of Tasks you can build directly in the Library. No migration from Legacy Templates for this new, flexible option.
Task Template - This is a brand-new template type, with no migration from your Legacy Templates. Task Templates can include Subtasks and are can be built directly in the library.
Adding Templates to Your Library
There are 3 ways a template makes it into your Library:
Migrate from your Legacy templates
Build the template from scratch
Use the “Save As Template” option within the kebab menu on Plan View. This can be done for Phases, Milestones and Tasks.
Project Template Experience
On the Project Template page click the button “Add Project Template”
Name the template and add the language you want to use for both Internal and Customer invitations
Manually build out a Phase or add a Phase template to the Project template
Phase, Milestone and Task Template Experience
On the appropriate template page click the button to “Add X Template”
Name the template - remember everything is autosave so if you navigate back to the list of templates you will see a new one named “New X Template”
Manually build out the appropriate template and leverage smaller unit templates if you want them as part of larger template
Building Templates with Templates
Once a template is in your Library, it's ready for use in live projects or for building other templates. We understand processes evolve, so we've built the Library to help you scale.
Dynamic Updates: If you build Project or Phase templates using smaller Milestone and Task templates, you can now update those "root" units (Milestone or Task) directly. These changes will automatically propagate to all other templates in your Library that reference them. There is no "push to live projects" component. Let's take a look at an example:
In this example we are looking at a Phase template called “120 Tasks - 2023”. There are two Milestones: “CAB Meeting” and “Milestone - 06”. The difference in the UI treatment indicates which one is referencing a template (CAB Meeting) and which one has been hard coded (Milestone - 06). The book icon and blue hyperlink indicate a unit is a template, and if clicked, will take you to that root object, allowing you to make updates to the unit directly.
Additionally, you'll notice that “CAB Meeting” also uses some Task templates (“Heather” and “Mike”), while other tasks are just hard coded (“Jeanette” and “Justin”). This means that “Heather” and “Mike” are reusable task templates. If a user were to update the task instructions or one of the fields of these tasks, any other template referencing one of the tasks will reflect the updates immediately. This means you can iterate on your processes faster and with more flexibility than ever. Again, there is no push of changes to live projects.
Library Template View
Experience a brand-new, intuitive template view within the Library. This view features a clear tree structure, leveraging indentation to easily illustrate the hierarchy of your units. (In future updates, we plan to incorporate the familiar Board/Plan view.)
Using Library Units in Your Projects: Power for PMs.
While Administrators benefit from Library Units for template building, a primary goal of the new Library is to empower Project Managers. You can now quickly add individual Milestones or Tasks to live projects on the fly, without needing to create a full Phase template or build items from scratch. Our philosophy is simple: leverage your pre-built components in more flexible and useful ways.
In any live project, look for the "+ Add..." options. Clicking this will present a curated dropdown menu, displaying only the relevant templates (e.g., only Phase templates when adding a Phase).
Pro Tip: Utilize the "Search" bar within the "Add" menu to quickly find specific templates and avoid scrolling.
Check this out ⤵️