You can create templates of your tasks in the Tasks module and reuse them across sites saving hours of set up time. Task templates are saved and managed at the system level and can be added for use in each site. You can template all the lists, sub-lists, tasks and sub-tasks in a site, therefore enabling you to standardise and capture the key phases of work and core tasks associated with a legal matter. Smaller groups of repetitive tasks can also be templated, forming building blocks for bigger matters.
If you have particular types of transactions that are highly repeatable and relatively standardised and you have already used lists to categorise those types of transactions along with their sub-lists, tasks and sub-tasks all containing a lot of information (priority, start date, duration) and dependencies on other tasks - then task templating would let you save all the tasks into the system and use them again when creating a new site for a similar transaction.
The image below shows the lists, sub-lists, tasks and sub-tasks in the Hierarchy View.
Save a task template
The following information will be saved as part of the task template:
- Task title
- Description
- List
- Start date and due date, including any dependencies - if a task start date or due date is dependent on a task outside of the template, then the dependency will break when the template is saved
- Sub-tasks
- Assignees (site groups only)
- Reminders
- Tags
- Status
Please note that task custom metadata cannot be saved as part of task templates.
There are three ways to save a task template.
1. A site or content admin is able to save the tasks created in the Tasks module as a template. To do this use the More Actions dropdown and choose Save as task template.
The Save template window displays.
Enter a Template Name and Description. You can choose to set the Status to Active or Draft e.g. if the template is in a ready to use state then you could set the status to Active. Click Add to save your details.
2. You can also template an individual list, together with its sub-lists, tasks and sub-tasks. To do this click Save as a task template in More actions against any list or sub-list. You can then create a template for the list in the same way you would as if you were creating a template in the Task module.
3. If you already have a set of tasks in an Excel spreadsheet, you can directly import and save it as a task template in System Admin. First, navigate to the Tasks module of a site and download a blank import template by clicking More Actions > Download task template. Transfer your tasks into this format, following the column headers.
Next, navigate to your profile picture dropdown > System Admin:
The System admin screen is displayed. Within the system admin screen, navigate to Task templates:
The Task templates screen is displayed:
In the Task templates screen, click Import task template:
The Import task template screen is displayed:
Enter the task template details and click Next. The following screen is displayed:
Select the task template you wish to import in the correct Excel format and also select whether you want to Import start and due dates and Import assignees. Click Next. Your task template will either be imported correctly, or will display a list of errors that must be corrected before the import can be completed.
Once you have fixed the errors, or if your template was imported correctly, click Close.
Templates are saved at the system level which gives System Admins control of the approved templates that can be used across all of the sites in an instance. To see the saved templates, navigate to your profile picture dropdown > System Admin > Task templates. The Task templates section is displayed with all the task templates created using the three methods above.
Any templates created will be saved here. You can see the template name, status, owner, the creation date and when the template was last modified.
To edit the template details, navigate to your profile picture dropdown > System admin:
The System admin screen is displayed. Within the System admin screen, navigate to Task templates:
The Task templates screen is displayed:
Select More actions > Edit template details on the template you want to make changes to:
The Edit template details window is displayed:
Make the required changes and then click Save.
Download, edit and re-import a task template
A System Admin can download a task template to view or make changes to it in Excel. A useful way to use this feature is if, for example, there is a change in law and you want to make changes to the template to reflect the new changes, you can change the status of the template to Draft which will immediately hide the template from the Tasks module of all the sites that had the template available for use.
From the Tasks templates page found within System admin (shown above) click More Actions against the template you wish to download and then click Download task template:
Once changes are made in the Excel template, you can re-import it by clicking More actions and Import task template to upload the latest version, before setting the status to Active to make the template available to all the sites again.
Do not delete the IDs in the ID column if you are editing a template using this method as the system will use the ID to match the items be updated on import. Any existing rows without an ID will be deleted and treated as a new record on import.
When re-importing a task template at the System Admin level, any lists, sub-lists, tasks or sub-tasks deleted from the Excel spreadsheet will be reflected in the task template on import. This applies only when importing an Excel template at the System Admin level, and not when importing directly into the Tasks module at the Site level.
Task templates are not linked to their original site so any changes made to the template at the system level will not filter down to a site that has already used the template or from which the template was created.
Add a template to a site
Task templates are saved at the System level. To make a task template available at the site level, a Site Admin will need to add it to the site under Tasks Admin.
Click on Admin > Tasks > Task templates and then choose Manage Templates.
The Task templates screen will display.
A Site Admin can access a list of all the task templates in the instance.
Click Add. The Add task templates screen will be displayed, which will list all the active and draft templates available in the instance.
You can click on a template title to preview the list, sub-list, task and sub-task titles in the task template.
You can multi-select all the templates you expect to use on the site and make them available for use by Site and Content Admins in the Tasks module itself.
You can associate task templates that have a DRAFT status to the Site, but they will not be available for use within the Tasks module itself, unless the template status is changed to ACTIVE in the Task templates page, found within System Admin
Tick to choose the templates you require and then click Add. The templates will be displayed in the Task Templates list. Once templates have been added to the site, a Site or Content admin can now use the templates in the Tasks module.
Previewing task templates
As of our April release, we have introduced the ability to quickly preview the outline of a Task Template within the System admin section. Enabling System admin users to quickly determine whether the template is suitable for their transaction.
Within your profile drop down menu, navigate to System admin:
The System admin screen is displayed. Within the System admin screen, navigate to Task templates:
The Task templates screen is displayed:
Please note that you can preview both Task Templates and Practical Law Matter Maps. Click the relevant tab, to view either one of these
Click the title of the task template to view a preview of it:
Here, you can view the Task Template title, owner, description and status.
If viewing a Matter Map Task Template, the title, owner and description will be retrieved from the Authoring Tool JSON.
Now, you can navigate back to the Task Templates screen, and select another template to view.
Remove a template
To remove a template so that it is no longer available in the site from the Task Templates screen click More actions and choose Remove.
Using the template in the site
Once task templates are added to a site, the Add Tasks from template option will be available to Site and Content administrators via the Add button, within the Tasks module.
The Add tasks from a template screen will be displayed, showing all the active templates that have been added to the site.
You can click on a template title to preview the list, sub-list, task and sub-task titles in the task template.
Choose the template for the transaction you are working on and click Add. If the template contains start dates (i.e. it was created from a site with Timeline view enabled), and the site does not have Timeline view enabled, you will have the option to either ignore the dates and add tasks from the template anyway (this will risk losing any task dependencies set in the template against those start dates) or you can go back to Task Admin, enable Timeline view and add the template including start dates.
Templates don't include individual assignees, attachments, comments, and any custom metadata.
Task templates and Site templates
When a site that has task templates added to it already is saved as a site template then those associations will be maintained when the site template is used within the same instance. However when a site template is exported you will lose any site template associations and they wont be imported into any other instance.
