Set up work plan templates

A work plan template consists of an ordered hierarchy of tasks. Work plan templates are used to create repeatable processes to be used as a model and basis for numerous projects. They speed up the process of drafting a work plan for project managers.

This section describes how to create and manage a work plan template.

In this topic:

Create a work plan template

You can create a work plan template from scratch or from an existing one.

To create a work plan template from scratch:

1. Click the Administration button in the masthead.

2. From the Administration menu, click Project Types & Templates > Manage Work Plan Templates

3. On the Manage Work Plan Templates page, click Create Work Plan Template.
4. Give the template a name, select its owners and whether or not to enable the template.
5. Click Create.

To create a work plan template from an existing one:

1. Prerequisite: you must have the Edit Work Plan Templates access grant and be able to edit the target work plan.
2. Open the project work plan in the Schedule view.

3. In the toolbar, click Actions > Convert Work Plan to Template.

   Note: In order to successfully convert a work plan to a template, you must be the only user editing the work plan. If other users are editing the work plan, a message will appear stating that the "Project is being edited by another user" and the conversion stops.

4. Give the template a name, select its owners and whether the work plan notifications are included in the template.

5. Click Convert.

   What information is dropped and copied in the work plan to template conversion?

   • Data that work plan templates do not carry is dropped. This includes:

     • External predecessors

     • Schedule dates

     • Constraints

     • Effort and cost actuals

     • Task status

     • Resource assignments and summary task owners

     • References

     • Notes

     • User data

   • Scheduled effort is copied as follows:

     • For automatically-calculated tasks, scheduled effort is recalculated.

     • For manually-input tasks, total task effort is retained in the Unassigned Effort field.

   • Everything else is copied into the work plan template.

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Configure access to a work plan template

You can control who has the ability to use or edit a work plan template.

To configure access to a work plan template:

1. Open the work plan template from Manage Work Plan Templates page.
2. Click Configure Access.
3. Select who can edit the template or use the template to create work plans.

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Edit work plan template

You can do the following to edit a work plan template:

• Add tasks.

  Same as adding tasks for a work plan. For details, see Add tasks

• Edit task information.

  Same as editing task information for a work plan. For details, see Edit task details

• Mark a task in a work plan template as required.

  A required task cannot be renamed or removed from a work plan created using the template.

  To mark a task as required, select the Require this task on work plans created from this template checkbox on the Task Details page.

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