Project Templates

Do the same sorts of projects or to-dos over and over? Save yourself time by creating a project template.

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Creating a new project template

NOTE: Everyone on your account can make edits and create projects from templates, except client users. Learn more →

Click the "View templates" link found right on the Home screen:


Click the "+ New Template" box. Like regular projects in Basecamp 4, you’ll want to name your project template and give it an optional description. You can always change this later:

Screenshot of a project templates screen with an arrow pointing to the “+New Template” card

You can create a template based on an existing project on your account. Here's how:

You can rename all the tools and toggle them on/off. That way, if you run a lot of projects that are just to-dos and messages, you can disable tools you don’t use. Just click the More options button "•••" and select the "Change/rename tools" option:

Animated GIF of user changing tools in a template.

Email Forwards are a little different. You can turn them on, but we won‘t provide an email address until you create a project from the template:

Screenshot of the Email forwards tool in a Template

Adding Doors to a template

As you set up the tools in your template, you'll also see an option to open a Door to an external service:

Screenshot of an arrow pointing to the “Open a Door to an external service like GitHub, Slack, Trello, etc...” link

Doors are a fantastic way to bring everything you use into Basecamp — to make your Basecamp account a central resource. Set up links to services like Zendesk, Github, Notion, and Google Drive to name a few. If you don't see your external service listed, that's no problem! Choose the "External Service" option at the bottom of the list. Paste the link to what you want folks to have access to then click "Add this Door:"

Screenshot of two arrows — one pointing to the pointing to link field and the other pointing to the “add this door” button

Inviting People

Similar to regular projects, you can add people to events, and assign people to Card Table cards and To-dos in your template:

Screenshot of a To-do being assigned to a user in a project template

When people are assigned to tasks, cards or events in your template, they'll be invited to the project automatically when it’s created from your template:


Invited users will also be notified of their new assignments in their Hey! menu. These notifications will come from the project creator:

Screenshots a project created from a template showing a to-do assignee auto-added to the project and the Hey! notification they'll receive upon project creation

You can also wait until a new project is created from your template to invite people. This will give you a chance to tweak dates and modify the content before anyone has access to it.

Once you invite people to your new project, everyone will get a summary email. This email will contain all their assignments (if you've assigned any to them in the new project), events, and other project info.

🗒️ NOTE: People removed from the account will remain assigned to the items within the template, but those assignments will not be copied with the items when a new project is created.

Starting a project using a template


Once you create your first template, you can create projects from it. Click the "Make a new project" found right on the Home screen:

Screenshot of the Home screen with an arrow pointed at the 'Make a new project' button

On the next screen, you'll see a link to "Choose a project template":

Select a template from the dropdown menu, name your project, add an optional description, set a start date for the project (all dated items will be relative to this date!), and decide if the project will be All-access or Invite-only.

Click the "Create this project" button and that's it! You've got yourself a new project.

NOTE: If you don't set a Project start date, all dated events and due dates for to-dos and cards will be set relative to the day you created the project from the template.

Schedules

Any dates you add will be scheduled relative to the start date of your project — the day the active project is created.

When you add an event to your template, you'll choose the week, and the day of the week for that event. Click to choose the day of the week, and click the arrow to change the week number:

Screenshot of creating a scheduled event in a template

The project's start date is the day you create it from the template. Week 1 of your project begins on Sunday of that week:

Screenshot of the schedule tool in a template

Here’s how the Schedule will look once you add a few events and to-dos:

Screenshot of the Schedule page in a template, with several events.

You can tweak your dates manually in the project before or after inviting people to join the project!

🗒️ NOTE: Week 1 will always start on Sunday. If you start your project mid-week without adding a start date, all dated events, to-dos, and cards set to occur earlier in the week will appear in the past or as overdue.


For example, a to-do item with a 'Week 1 Monday' due date will show up as overdue if the Project is created on Wednesday.

To-dos

Like Schedule events, due dates on to-dos are relative to the project's start date. You can specify a due date or start/end dates, just like regular to-dos. To-dos inside project templates cannot be completed:

Screenshot of creating a dated to-do in a template.

🗒️ NOTE: Archived and deleted project templates will not appear in the templates menu when you’re starting a new project.

Copy a Template

Copy/Duplicate an entire Project Template from the ••• menu at the top right of the template. Here's more on this.


Working with Clients?

Create a new project template with the View Templates link on the home page, then click New Template. Toggle on the Work with clients switch to see the client visibility options throughout the template.

An image showing the work with clients pill toggled on

Everything in the template is private to your team by default. To make adjustments, click Change in the blue bar, select Allow the client to see this too, and then save.

a gif where you can choose which parts of the project will be visible to the clients

To add client settings to an existing template, use the ••• menu and select Edit template settings. Flip the Work with clients switch to set client permissions.

New projects created from the template will maintain your visibility settings. When you spin up a new project from your template, the hard work is already done! No more repetitive clicking to get things just right.

Have a project you used with clients that you want to turn into a template? We’ve got you covered! When you create a template from a project, you'll see the option to keep the settings, so what was shared with a client from the project is carried over to the template.

From the project page, use the ••• menu and select Save as a project template. Check the Remember client visibility option, then click Create template.

an image showing the option to remember client visibility

Your new template remembers which items were visible to the client and which were private to your team, so it's faster and easier to get started when you have similar projects with that client or others.


Next up: Forwards →

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