Project Templates

Save a project structure once and reuse it to start every new client project the same way.

A template is a reusable project blueprint. Instead of setting up the same stages, tasks, and portal pages for every new client, you build them once in a template and start each project from it.

How templates work

A template has the same building blocks as a project: Tasks (with stages), Pages, Files, Members, Workflows, and Settings.
Creating a project from a template copies its stages, tasks, pages, folders and files, workflows, and members into the new project. After that, the project is independent: editing it doesn’t change the template.
A template’s members are people from your team. The template’s owner becomes the owner of new projects unless you choose someone else. Clients are never part of a template; you add them to each project.
Changes you make to a template later only affect projects you create from it afterwards. Existing projects keep their own copy.
The Templates page lists Your templates, the ones your workspace owns and can edit. Ready-made templates from Upclient live in the Library, which you open with Browse library. See How to start from the library.

How to create a template

You can start a template in three ways:

From scratch: on the Templates page, click New template, enter a name, and create it. Then add stages, tasks, and pages.
From a project: click Copy from project on the Templates page and choose a project, or open the project’s Settings tab and click Save as template. See Project Settings.
From the library: click Browse library, pick a template and click Use this to get your own copy to edit.

To reuse a template as the starting point for another one, use Duplicate on its card or in its Settings tab.

The library holds ready-made onboarding templates for common kinds of client work: brand identity, website projects, marketing retainers, bookkeeping, consulting engagements, and a general client onboarding template for any other service. Each one comes with stages, client tasks, behind-the-scenes tasks for your team, workflows, and portal pages: a Welcome page that greets the client by name, plus an FAQ or a booking page. The starters you can pick when you set up your workspace each add one of these templates.

On the Templates page, click Browse library.
Pick a template from the list on the left. The preview shows its stages, every task your client is asked to do, what happens behind the scenes at each stage, and totals for stages, tasks, automations, and portal pages.
To see more room, click Open full preview. The full preview has the same Use this and Start a project buttons.
Click Use this. Upclient copies the template into Your templates and opens your copy so you can edit it.

If you’d rather try a library template as it is, click Start a project instead. The project is created from the library template and your templates stay unchanged.

Your copy is independent: editing it doesn’t change the library, and library updates don’t change your copy.

Workflows in library templates

Every library template ships with its workflows switched on, built from roles so they work in any project:

Open the next tasks when the agreement is signed: the client’s discovery or document tasks open as soon as the agreement is signed.
Review the questionnaire when it comes in: the Brief received recipe for the template’s questionnaire. The task goes straight to In review, the project lead gets an email, the client gets a thank-you in the task discussion, and the lead is nudged if the review is still open two working days later.
Start the next stage when a stage is complete: opens the next tasks and emails the primary contact what happens next.
Chase an overdue task: a day after a client task is overdue the client gets a reminder, and two working days later the lead hears about it if the task is still open.

The workflow that emails the primary contact starts off when you create a project without one; set the primary contact and turn it on from the project’s Workflows tab.

How to set up template members

Open the template and select Members.
Pick the people from your team who usually work on this kind of project in Add a team member.
Open a member’s menu and choose Make project owner to make them the default project owner, or Remove to take them off the template.

How to create a project from a template

Open Projects and click New project.
Choose the template under Template.
Enter a name, choose the project owner, and optionally a primary contact.
Click Add project.

The project gets the template’s content as it is at that moment. Tasks keep the status they have in the template, so tasks you left as drafts stay hidden from clients until you publish them. Set assignees and due dates on the project’s tasks after you create it. See Tasks.

Forms on the template’s tasks must have at least one question, contracts must have agreement text, and neither can be archived. If one has been emptied, archived, or deleted, the project isn’t created and you see a message naming the form or contract. Add a question or the agreement text, restore it, or open the template’s task and pick another one, then try again.

How to import stages and tasks into an existing project

You can bring stages and tasks from a template, or from another project, into a project you’ve already started.

Open the project’s Tasks tab and click Import.
Choose a template or project as the source.
Select the stages and tasks you want. Use Select all to take everything.
If a stage with the same name already exists in the project, choose Use existing to add the tasks to it, or Create new to add a separate stage.
Click Import selected.

Stages and tasks that already came from the same template are skipped, so importing twice doesn’t create duplicates.

Workflows in templates

Workflows you add to a template are copied into every project created from it. On the template’s Workflows tab, click New workflow and start from a recipe, such as Brief received or Chase an overdue task, or from scratch. The On in new projects switch in the builder header, or on the workflow’s row, chooses whether each copy starts on. Turning it off doesn’t change projects that already exist. Test run uses sample data, or a project made from the template.

Templates have no clients and only a default team, so build template workflows with roles: Project lead, The client’s primary contact, The client who did it, Everyone assigned to the task, The task that started this workflow and The next task in the same stage. Each copy keeps the roles and fills them in from its own project when a step runs. Steps and conditions that name a specific template task point at the project’s copy of that task. Project created is a template-only trigger: it runs once when a project is created from the template. See Workflows.

How to delete a template

Open the template and select Settings.
In the Danger zone, click Delete template and confirm.

Projects created from the template are not affected. Library templates can’t be deleted, but you can delete your own copy.