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Project templates

Create ready to go drafts to plan projects faster

Justyna Kawalec avatar
Written by Justyna Kawalec
Updated today

For a quick overview, check the Project templates and Using project templates video guides.

Project templates help you quickly plan and schedule repeatable work. Instead of building every project from scratch, you can create a reusable template with predefined phases, tasks, milestones, budgets, and team members.

You can create a template from scratch or turn an existing project into a template.

Creating a new project template

Project templates can be created by the Account Owner, Billing guests, Admins, and Managers with permission to Add and manage Projects, including budgets if viewable.

To create a new project template:
1) Head to the Projects page
2) Click Manage templates (top-right corner)

3) Click New template.

Creating a new project template at Float.

Enter any relevant project info, add your team, set duration, create your tasks, phases, and milestones, and hit Create template.

Creating a project template at Float.

Setting up a template works the same way as setting up a regular project. Any details you include will appear every time the template is used—so you can decide how detailed or flexible you want it to be.

Project's duration 

When creating a project template, you can define the total project duration. When you later create a project from this template and choose a start date:

  • The end date is automatically calculated

  • All phase and milestone dates are calculated based on their configured offsets and durations

Project's duration in the project template

Project phases

You can add phases and all of their details into a project template. In the Phases section, you can add a phase name, set a color, budget (if the project’s budget is set as fixed hours or fixed fee by phase), the Start after offset (when a phase will start after X number of days), and the Duration of each phase.

When you create a project based on this template, the phase start and end dates will be calculated automatically based on your set offset and duration.

Project phases offset setup in the project template.

📝Note: By default, a phase inherits the project color. You can change the phase color at any time.

Once you add a phase to a project template, you can click to open it in the side panel and add the information you wish to save in that template. This is where you can add the phase's team, tasks, milestones, and other details specific to this phase.​

📝Note: If your project template's status is set as Confirmed, you can still choose to set one or more phases as Tentative.


Tasks

You can predefine all recurring tasks in the template so they’re automatically included when creating new projects. ​By default, all projects and project templates have the task list locked with Managers with ‘manage projects’ permission can add to this list. You can change this setting in the Tasks section.

Task list locked.

Milestones

You can include milestones in your template. For each milestone, you can set the Start after (offset from project start) and the Duration.

When using the template, milestone start and end dates are calculated automatically based on the configured offset and duration.

Setting up a milestone in a project template.

Creating a template from an existing project

If you already have a project you want to reuse as a starting point, you can convert it into a template.

To create a new template from one of your existing projects:
1) Go to the Projects page.

2) Click the project name to open the side panel.

3) Click the project action menu (three vertical dots in the top-right corner).

4) Select Create template from project.

5) Edit any project or phase details as needed.

6) Click Create template.

Creating a project template from an existing project.

📝Note: Allocations are not saved in project templates. If you wish to create a new project with the same allocations, you can duplicate it instead.

Using a project template

If your team works on the same tasks repeatedly, or you want to use one of your existing projects as a jumping-off point for new work, using a project template will help automate the creation process and give you back more of your time.​ Once you’ve created a template, you can use it whenever you add a new project by clicking on the Templates button in the top right corner of the project settings. 

Using a project template

You can also choose to apply a template when creating a new project from the allocation menu.

Applying a template when scheduling a new project

After selecting a template, you can enter the project's start date to automatically calculate and populate all project dates, including phases and milestones, based on the durations and offsets configured in the template.

​📝Note: You can manually adjust any dates after applying the template.

Managing project templates

To view, edit, or delete existing project templates, open the Projects page and click Manage templates at the top right corner of the page.

Manage templates button on the Projects page.

This is where you can add new templates, modify existing ones, or remove them as needed. ​Project templates can be edited and removed by the Account Owner and the Admins. Managers can use templates created by others, but they can edit and delete only the templates they created.

Managing project templates

​📝Note: To see and use all the project templates, a Manager needs to have permission to Add and manage Projects, including budgets if viewable, and to View bill rates and budgets. Managers without View bill rates and budgets won’t see fee-based project templates.


Project templates are automatically sorted alphabetically, both on the Manage templates page and when applying a template to a new project.

​Editing templates works the same way as editing projects. Once you open the template in the side panel, you can edit its details as needed.​

Additional info

  • Project templates do not support allocation templating. If you need to copy allocations, duplicate an existing project instead of using a template.

  • Anyone who can create a project can also create or use project templates.

  • Managers without permission to edit budgets cannot use templates with a budget set.

  • Managing templates or creating projects from templates using the public API is not currently supported.

  • Creating and editing project templates has no impact on reporting.

  • If you delete the project template, the existing projects created from that template remain unchanged.

  • Each team can have up to 75 project templates.

  • Each project template can have a maximum of 200 phases, 200 milestones, 400 tasks, and 200 team members. If you ever reach those limits, please contact us.

  • The project code field is not supported for templates.

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