A project template is a sample project that can be used as a model for new projects. The newly created projects are almost-exact copies of the project template. They contain data from documents, cover pages, project teams, task trees, schedules, issues and risks, events, user assignments, and permissions. Using project templates to create new projects allows continuous improvement and helps make your business process repeatable.
Creating a new project template
Start by creating a new project. See “How do I add a new project” to learn how. Once the project is created, fill in any cover page fields, tasks, documents, or other parts of the project that you know will be reused in new projects created from this template. When you are happy with your project as a template, it is time to convert it to a template. You can do so from the Project Overview page by clicking the dropdown menu next to the project’s name and selecting “Convert to Template.”
When you select this option, the project will be converted to a template. It will disappear from the pipeline, and you will see the word “(Template)” in front of its name on the cover page:
You can make modifications directly to the template by heading to the Data view in Midaxo and selecting the Templates tab.
Creating a project from a project template
In the Pipeline or Projects views, click the green “+Project” button to add a new project. Fill in all the required information in the popup dialog and then click the “Create project using template” button:
A new dialog will open:
On the left-hand side, choose the template or project on which you want to base the new project. On the right-hand side, select the tasks you want to copy to the new project. Note that the default setting is to copy all tasks.
Notice the two checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog.
If you select to “Include all data”, all the data from the template will be imported, including:
- Documents
- Cover page information
- Project team
- Task tree with the schedule
- Issues and risks
- Events
- User assignments
- Permissions
If you uncheck “include all data”, only the task tree and documents will be imported from the template to the new project. If you do not want to include the documents, uncheck the “Include documents” checkbox.
Once you click the “Create button,” the project creator will start. Once the template has been created, you will see it in the Pipeline view. Since the project creator runs in the background, it may take some time before all the data is copied. If the process is still running, you will see this dialog when you open the project:
This means that the project has been created and that you can begin working on the cover page, but the tasks, documents, and other objects are still being copied. A notification is displayed when the project is fully copied:
Notes
The estimated time to create a project is based on how much data is being copied. Most projects will be copied completely in less than two minutes.
The user activity and project access histories are not copied..
Helpful tip
Some of our customers add the issues they experience the most to the project templates. This way, the project leader has a list of negative things to watch for before they happen when a new project starts.