Edition: Business, Enterprise
User-level: Director and above
Previous steps: Changing project and stages statuses, Rates
Project templates allow for a base project to be created with as much or little detail as needed which can then be applied to new projects. This makes setting up new projects a breeze as you can add information including phases, stages, tasks, budgets, schedules, timelines and staff.
You can create Project templates by going to Organisation drop down > Settings > Templates > Projects
What are project templates?
Project templates are used to speed up building your work breakdown, budget and schedule.
New projects created in Synergy will default to having a project template applied to the project.
You can also add templates to an existing work breakdown if you need to revise the project details or create a template from the project structure itself.
When you add a template to an existing project, it does not overwrite the existing data but adds to it. If you are still in planning mode, your budget will also update.
Why use project templates?
When templates are set up, you can apply them to new projects and build the standard work breakdown structure for phases, stages and tasks. The structure includes everything from resourcing, to standard comments, through to billing. It’s all about giving you more time for design!
Actions available
Add a new project template
Go to Organisation drop down > Settings > Templates > Projects.
Click the 'Add' button in the top right of the page.
Add a template name which will be used to help identify which template to use when applying the template.
For example: you might have standard processes for projects over $1M AUD.
Select a project type
Edit the work breakdown structure
The changes you make here will appear when you apply this template to any of your projects.
Access the project templates from the template menu in the navigation bar. Template > Plan > Work breakdown or by clicking on Open on the template page.
You can add, edit and remove phases, stages and tasks as you would in a regular project.
You can change the colour of stages by clicking the circle icon at the start of the row to show the colour palette. Clicking on a colour will confirm the selection.
If you need to reorder your stages or tasks, click on the ellipsis in the top right and click on Sorting. In the sorting page, you can click and drag the row to its new location.
Assign staff members to stages in the Work breakdown. Assigning a staff member in a template will save you time when you are resource planning.
Select how this stage of the project should be invoiced to the client. Based on the fee type selected, other fields of information will become mandatory to be entered for each stage.
Edit the budget
When you apply a project template to a project, it will add everything, including your budget. So it is a good idea, to get this right from the onset, to save you time. This is useful when you want finer detail than just an overall lump sum. To get to the budget template, it is under Template > Plan > Budget or click on either of the amounts in the template details page. When you open the budget template, what you will see are all the stages you have in your corresponding work breakdown.
You can apply a rate to a task. The rate is the role that will be assigned to work on this task. This is why it is essential to have your rates setup first.
What you will then need to do is, under units/value is assign the number of hours this task will take. This is what is calculated in the budget whenever the template is applied. The budget will copy the units.
At this point, you can include any resources you want to work on it but remember, this will have an effect when you look at resourcing. Even if a project is still in proposal mode, the resource will appear to be booked.
Partial Project Templates
To accelerate setting up sub-projects and variations, you can set these up as ‘partial project templates’. Create variation templates for typical variations, and append them to your Work Breakdown Structure, rather than building them from scratch. The partial project templates can also be used for optional parts of a larger project. For example, you might have a project template for ‘primary school’, with optional partial templates for ‘school library’, ‘swimming pool’, ‘teachers’ carpark’, etc."
Where to next?
Creating a template from a project
Editing the workbreadown
What other features does this relate to?
Project workflow Overview