[Status: Launched 🚀] Option for Request Forms to use Templates

Hi Darius, thank you for sharing this idea! I appreciate the screenshot, it's a great illustration to the feature request. I wanted to let you know that there's an existing post with this suggestion, and it would be great to have your vote and additional comments added to it (so that everything regarding this idea could be tracked in one place): Applying Template to Requests.

Thanks Anastasia, yep I saw that thread and have voted however I felt it was a sightly different request as the OP was looking for the ability to apply templates after the submission. ie, manually apply templates to existing tasks / projects, however both would be invaluable features

@Darius, thanks for clarifying! I appreciate the link you included in that post, and I can see how both of these options would be beneficial for the use cases described.

We need both, but if only choosing one, Darius's suggestion, imho would be the better one.  So Anastasia - should we add his to the other thread that already has many votes? However, there may be some "logistics" to the relational logic that dictates the limitations of purpose/functionality of the Request Form. 

@Dru, thank you for commenting here! Since the feature requests are a bit different, we'll keep these threads separate, but we'll work to keep upvotes from both threads in mind as we discuss features internally :)

I understand.  Sounds good. 

That is what I have been missing too, would be very helpful to have as in the project created with the template we can trigger whatever we like happening after a project request was submitted.

Hi Beat, thanks for your input here (and on other posts)!

I agree really need this in order to push the request through faster

I'm new to wrike and thought that this was a key feature that was available, disappointed now that I'm trying to find it that it's not and therefore backing the ability to initiate a project template via a request form.

Hi everyone, thanks for voting here! @Martin, this functionality is something we're already discussing internally, and while I don't have a timeframe to share just yet, it's an enhancement our Product Team has in mind. :)

Hi again, everyone! Thanks so much for commenting here and sharing your ideas. I have some great news to share now too - we just released the ability to create Projects from templates when submitting Requests, here's what it looks like:

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this new functionality as we continue working on Request Forms! Let me know if you have any questions, I'll be happy to continue this discussion. :)

I'm just beginning to use WRIKE for our department and we have templates built in so that would help to have a form create a project from our existing templates. I do want to ask - and sorry if this is duplicate - but is there a way to report on the forms? I've created specific fields for the user to fill out and submit but it doesn't look like I can report on any of the items that they are filling out? 

Hi Janet, thanks for reaching out here! We just launched the ability to start up template Projects from Request Forms a couple of days ago, so your timing is perfect here! :)

In regards to reporting on the Request fields: the information is, in most cases, mapped to the description field or title of a task. Since this is an attribute which isn't included in Reports, any info mapped to that location isn't pulled into Reports. I'd love to hear some more about your use case here, so I could understand it a bit better and try to think of some suggestions. What types of data would you like to include in the Report, is this something you include in regular tasks too?

Wrike, et al!

This is a huge improvement!  Thanks so much.  You guys (Wrike worker bees) moved quickly on this and I think the input from your user group probably propelled it.  Thanks for listening to the street team.  I am only starting to run some tests scenarios. I noticed on your demo, you had the user select the template and you had "Template - Launch Projects"  as the one selected in the drop down of your demo.  Was that  for demo purposes only?  my Question:

Do you recommend then that we have two types of templates folders  - one  housing templates for the internal user (within a team for example) who starts the project with a template from within Wrike and then one that is for "external" viewing who are true "Requesters" needing work fulfilled (thus the Templates-Launch Projects [unless your use of it was truly "demo example only"?

Thanks so much though and please let the dev team know "great step forward"!!!

for our department I created Templates and put them into a *zTemplates folder - so we have specific work we do and this way they can duplicate the project and tasks associated with each type of work they need. Since the dates can be changed and you can add additional tasks, subtasks it provides flexibility but also gives us continuity in our work so reporting is better. As we have determined what our reporting needs are, I've added Special Fields to each project that the person must fill out when they duplicate the template.

We began to create and use forms since we work with other areas and department so they could easily provide the request to us and it would automatically create the work in WRIKE for us. I was looking at the items to fill out and didn't see that I could report on them though, so now that I can create a project from a template, I think that means I have to go into the Project and add special fields that mirror some of the information that we have them put on the form.

If that doesn't make sense let me know, I can demo it for you.

Hi Janet,

Welcome to the Wrike World. The community board has been a help to us. I think you and I might be talking about different things re: functionality of Request Forms. Your question is about custom fields and reporting...  My question is about storing the Templates. Am not sure it matters but thought I would see if what the Wrike crew set up in the demo with regard to Folder structure was simply a matter of "isolating the Template section for demo purposes" or if we need two folders of Template types. I have a zTemplates folder - my concern is that an external Requester (think a client type who might not sure the request forms v offend) might map to the wrong Project Template out of lack of know how. But over time we will know the best approach.  Thanks!

Sorry didn't mean to reply to you! meant to reply to Anatasia!

I am not worried about the mapping since I am creating the forms and determine the mapping. When the external person creates the form using the link, it automatically assigns, creates and places it where I've designated. They don't have to do anything but fill it out!

(and yes, I am talking about custom fields - now that they have the Project from Template option in forms I can use that to point the form to create a project. I've had to add in the custom fields at that template level to replicate what I need for reporting)

@Dru, thank you for your warm comment, I'm so happy to hear the positive feedback! It's very exciting to work on making Wrike better with the Community, and to learn about your ideas from the discussions here. :)

The "Template - Launch Projects" in my example is the template structure I laid out specifically for a certain type of Request (in the demo - "Project Request"). This template is stored in a special Folder for templates, like the zTemplates one you and Janet mentioned. When setting up the Request Form in Account Management, I selected this particular template to be used when the Request is submitted, and its new location in my account. This means that neither internal nor external users can change the actual template being used or the location where the new Project is created, but their answers are used to fill out attributes such as Project name and start date. Here's another screenshot of what this looks like for an account owner or admin the the Form builder:

And here is what internal and external users see when filling out the Request:

After they submit the Request, a new Project is created in the location I specified when setting up the Form, and this new Project is based on the template I selected there too. This ensures that whoever is filling out the Form doesn't make any mistakes during the mapping process, since the template and location are selected by you beforehand. Does this help? Please let me know if I misunderstood any part of the question, I'll be happy to clarify and provide some more examples! :)

@Janet, thank you for the clarification, this is a really interesting use case and I think I understand what you mean here now. It sound like since you use Custom Fields, the best way to automate this would be to populate through mapping Request Form responses to the fields. I'm afraid this isn't part of the current functionality, but as always, we continue to work on Request Forms (as well as other features), and there's an existing post on the Community asking for this. It would be great if you could add your vote there to weigh in on the request: Request Forms - Autopopulate/Map to Custom Fields on a Task Folder. Does this sound like something you were looking for? Also, thank you for sharing the tip about adding the required Custom Fields to the original template, I think this is some great info to keep in mind when setting up a template Project which will be used for Requests. :)

Thank you Anastasia.  Yes, it confirms what I thought you were doing. If I have any more questions, I will connect back with you.

I am creating a Template with tasks assigned to certain people, that would be useful for the future Requests. but the problem is - as soon as I assign a name (even with a status "deferred") they get the email notification immediately... But I don't want them to get email Notifications on the Tasks that are not final yet, it is meant to to be as Template only. Please help .

Hi Liz, thanks for posting this here! At the moment, it’s not possible to turn off email notifications for templates, but I do see how it would be helpful. I wanted to share an existing request about similar functionality - Allow "Planning"/"Template" Mode to Separate Active/On-Hold Projects from Projects Being Planned/Templates – it would be great if you add your vote there.

Anna G Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Conosci le straordinarie funzionalità di Wrike e le best practices

Anna G Wrike Team member Conosci le straordinarie funzionalità di Wrike e le best practices

Hello!

I'm very much looking forward to the possibility to connect a task template to a Request Form. And on top of that: It would be a very beautiful solution if you could add a placeholder in the template description field (for example #details) that is replaced with the correspondent value in the Request Form.

One possible solution could be that you have a couple of fields in the Request Form that ends up as Custom Field values in the task. These values are also printed on the placeholders in the description field from the template.

Comes very handy when creating nice task templates for Change Request purposes.

Regards

Håkan