Project Templates

Posted09/24/2025

Updated11/26/2025

This article describes how to create and use project templates.

Overview

Templates are specially identified projects that can be selected and applied when creating new projects.

The intent of the Project Templates feature is to standardize the use of best practices in planning and executing projects of different types and to make the initial planning process more efficient. For example, an infrastructure project might have a different life cycle and different skill requirements from a product development project.

The objects copied from a template to the new project are:

All project data fields
Project phases and milestones
All labor assignments
All financial assignments

The Apply Template operation is essentially a Copy Project operation where the source project is a selected Template.

Templates can be modified and deleted if they are included in the data load. See the section below “Modify or Delete Templates“.

Considerations in Creating a Template

NOTE: The values in ALL fields in the template overwrite values in those fields in the resulting project. Take care in creating templates to ensure you have only those values in it that you want in projects created from the template.

There are two starting points for creating templates:

Make a copy of an existing project that is a good model and clean it up to be the template model you want
Create a new project from scratch and build out the template model you want

In general, labor assignments should be skill, rather than resource, assignments.

The forecast demand can be empty or pre-populated as appropriate.

If demand is included, it can be for just an early phase or for the entire project.

Create a Template

Step 1: Go to the Project>Data grid mode page

Method 1 – Copy from an existing project

Step 2: Check the selection checkbox at the left of the row containing the existing project that is a model for the template.

Step 3: Click the Copy Project icon and select the Copy to New menu item.

Step 4: Copy to a new, temporary project from which to create the template.

Give the temporary, intermediate project a name, project OBS, and start date.

The start date is important. Any gap in the source project between project start and first assignment demand (both Labor and Financial) is maintained in the destination project.

Step 5: Modify the temporary project to have exactly the forecast plan you want in the template.

Project Data fields (e.g. clear Manager name field)
Phases and Milestones (clear or revise dates)
Remove all unnecessary qualifiers from assignments, e.g. Country or Location
Convert named resource assignments to skill assignments
(removing duplicate assignments and consolidating demand)

Skip to Step 6 below in the section Common Create Steps.

Method 2 – Create from a new project

Step 2: Click the “+” icon to add a temporary project from which the template will be created.

Step 3: Populate the temporary project with the desired template model attributes and objects, e.g. phases and milestones, project fields/attributes, forecast labor and financial demand.

Skip to Step 6 below in the section Common Create Steps.

Common Create Steps

Step 6: Check the selection checkbox at the left of the row containing the temporary project that is a model for the template.

Step 7: Click the Baseline, Status, Scenario & Template icon.

Step 8: Click the Create Template menu item to display the Create Template dialog.

Enter the Template Name and Template Description.

Note: When template projects are included in the data load, they cannot be distinguished from normal projects other than by the Project Name field or the Status Notes field which contains the Template Description from the template Create dialog. We recommend that you adopt a template naming and description convention that makes it easy to distinguish and maintain your templates.

Step 9: Click the Create button.

The template project is saved in its entirety to the database.

If in your current Data Load Parameters dialog the Load Project Templates checkbox is NOT checked, the new template does NOT appear on the Project>Data page. The template IS available for selection in the Apply Template operation.

If the Load Project Templates checkbox IS checked in your Data Load Parameters dialog, the new template does appear on the Project>Data page.

Step 9: If the temporary project is no longer needed, check the selection checkbox at the left of the row and click the Delete trash can icon at the upper left of the page.

Step 10: Click the Save icon to delete the temporary project.

Apply a Template

Step 1: Go to the Project>Data grid mode page.

Step 2: Click the “+” icon to add a project.

Give the project a name, select a project OBS, and click the Add & Close button.

Step 3: Check the selection checkbox at the left of the new project row.

Step 4: Click the Baseline, Status, Scenario & Template icon.

Step 5: Click the Apply Template menu.

Click the magnifying glass search icon to get the list of available templates.

Step 6: Fill out the Apply Template dialog.

Select the source template, set the Apply Values From date, and uncheck any attribute checkboxes you do not want.

The start date is important. Any gap in the source project between project start and first assignment demand (both Labor and Financial) is maintained in the destination project.

Step 7: Click the Apply button.

The Apply operation saves all records modified by the template to the database including Labor and Financial assignments.

Modify or Delete Templates

Step 1: Click the Data Load Parameters icon at the upper right of the ResourceFirst window.

Step 2: Check the Load Project Templates checkbox in the middle of the dialog and click the Reload Data button.

All templates located in the Data Load project OBSes are loaded on the Project>Data page.

NOTE: Template projects cannot be distinguished from normal project other than by the Project Name field or the Status Notes field which contains the Description from the template Create dialog.

Step 3: Delete or modify templates as needed.

All operations that can be performed with “normal” projects can be done with template projects.

Step 4: Click the Save icon on all modified pages.

Save on one page does not save changes on other pages – Save on Labor page does not save changes on the Financial page.
Changes on multiple project detail mode pages can all be saved at once on the associated global page.
For example, changes on multiple project detail Labor pages can all be saved in one operation on the Assignment>Labor page. Similarly for Financial pages.