Want to make sure that your Project Templates are optimized and ready for the most efficient use?
Refer to the below checklist to make sure that your Project Templates contain all of the following components:
1. Ensure your Project Template has a Project Start/Due Date
Check that your template has a project start and/or due date. This acts as a link between your project template and any new projects created from this template to ensure that action durations and dependencies transfer over to the new project properly.
Pro-tip: Ensure your new project also has a project start and/or due date at creation. If your template has a project start/due date, then when creating a new project from the template the project start/due date will automatically be populated for the new project.
2. Assign actions to Placeholders
Assign the actions in your template to Placeholders. Using Placeholders in your template will allow for efficient updates to the actual resources that will be working on those actions in your project.
Before you can assign actions to Placeholders, check the Template Project Settings page to make sure Placeholders have been added to the Template. Once added to the Template, then Placeholders can be assigned to actions.
3. Add durations and dependencies to your actions
While not required, ensuring that the action cards in the Project Template have relative due dates, durations, and dependencies is a best practice for optimizing Project Templates.
While you may not know the exact duration for every action in your project, it is still recommended to add approximate start and end dates for each action. That way when applying the template, each action has a starting point to work from when shaping the project plan for the new project.
4. Manage Labels and Apply them to Necessary Action Cards
Labels are a great way to manage key initiatives or categorize certain actions for designated teams.
Project Templates can be pre-set to not only limit which labels are available in the project, but also to have labels pre-applied on action cards. That way when the template is applied for a new project, the action cards in the project come pre-set with their applicable labels helping to maintain project consistency and completeness.
5. Grant access to the Project Template to Hive Teams
In addition to making sure members of a Hive Team have access to a template, members of the Project Template are listed by default in the Project Membership section when new projects are created using the template.
Additionally, inviting Teams rather than individuals to templates helps to ensure template membership is kept up to date as team membership changes. New members added to a Hive Team will automatically be granted access to templates and projects where the Hive Team is a member.
6. Review your Project Settings
When a project template is used to create a new project, the template's project setting will apply as the default settings for the new project. Therefore, it is important to check that the project and auto-scheduling settings on the project template are appropriate.
Checking that your Project Templates have the above items will set them up for success!