How to Create Project Templates in Wrike

First, ask yourself: do you actually need to use templates?

Common Use Cases for Creating Templates:

• Purchase Orders
• Implementations
• Marketing Campaigns
• Product Development Workflows
• Application processes (applying for patents, etc.)
• Any repeating projects with multiple steps

How to Build Your Project Templates

If you're convinced you do need them, here's how to build them out:

Step 1: Create a folder and call it "Templates". You can create this folder under your root folder, or create this folder in your specific department folder (e.g. create the Marketing Templates folder inside your main Marketing folder).

Step 2: Inside this Templates folder, create a subfolder for a project you are constantly repeating. Start building out the tasks within this folder from your project's inception all the way through completion. Be sure to put a lot of detail into each task description so that anyone receiving this task for the first time will know exactly what to do. Once you're done with this step, you should have tasks for each necessary step in your project, including all relevant subtasks.

Step 3: Go though all of the tasks you've just created and set the proper duration for each task. (e.g. Task X will take 2 days to complete.) You don't need to set a specific date yet — that comes later.

Step 4: Determine if you have any dependencies within your project. If your tasks all happen at the same time, you won't need dependencies, and can move on to the next step. But most likely, your tasks will need to be accomplished in a specific order, which means you will need to set up dependencies.

Step 5 (optional): If you choose, you can make the last task in your template a milestone, as it will serve as a firm deadline for your project. You can also add assignees to your tasks if it will always be the same person repeating those tasks. But we don't recommend this, as you could easily overload someone's workload by forgetting to reassign those tasks after duplicating the template.

Step 6: Now that you've set up all the dependencies for your template's workflow, the last step is to change each of the tasks statuses to "Deferred." This ensures that a task residing in the template folder won't be confused with any duplicate tasks holding the same title. You can do this by jumping back to the List View, selecting all tasks, and changing the task status to "Deferred" on the right-hand panel of the page.

And voilá, you've now created a project template in Wrike!

How to Start a Project from a Template

Now that we've created your template, let's talk about how to use it when a project lands on your desk.

Step 1: Duplicate the template. Go to your templates folder and right-click on the template you want to use. Click "Duplicate Folder." When prompted, you'll want to copy the folder with the task descriptions, assignees (if applicable), custom field values, and then reschedule the new project. If you used a milestone as your last task in the template, schedule the end date as the final completion date for the project. If you did not use a milestone, schedule the start date for whenever you want your project to begin. You should also rename the folder to accurately depict the name of the client, project, or process that you will be repeating.

Step 2: Drag and drop the template into its appropriate folder. You should then move this folder to where you have previously stored projects of this same nature (e.g. a duplicated marketing campaign should live in the active campaigns folder).

Step 3: Assign the tasks. Go through each task in the template and assign it to team members with available bandwidth to complete the tasks. The Workload View is great for this function, as you can see who is available to take on another project, and who is already booked.

You're done! Go through this process for all other repeatable projects. No banging head on walls required!

Have questions about creating project templates in Wrike? Ask us in the comments, or email us at https://help.wrike.com/hc/requests/new — we're here to help!