Templates
Do the same sorts of projects over and over? Save yourself time by adding frequently-used messages, to-dos, files, and more to a project template.
Jump ahead to:
- Creating a New Project Template
- Adding Doors to Templates
- Starting a Project Using a Template
- Managing Your Templates
- Template Schedules
- Template To-dos
- Inviting People
Templates are made from scratch — you cannot create templates from an existing project. You also cannot move things from an existing *project* to an existing or new *template.*
Creating a new project template
Click on the "Make a new project" button found right on the Home page.
Then click on the "Use a template" link:
Click on the "Edit templates" link on this next page.
Click on the "+ New Template" card. Like regular projects in Basecamp 3, you’ll want to name your project template and give it an optional description. You can always change this later.
Once saved, you can start adding content and organizing your new project template. This works just like other projects in Basecamp 3! Click the section you’d like to edit and add content. When you create a new project from this template, we’ll copy everything over so you don’t have to.
You can even rename 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.
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.
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:
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 "Other" option at the bottom of the list. Paste the link to what you want folks to have access to then click on "Add this Door."
Starting a project using a template
Once you create your first template, you can create projects and teams from those templates. Click on the "Make a project" found right on the Home page.
On the next screen, you'll see a link to "Use a project template..." that you should click on:
Choose which template you want to use from the dropdown menu, name your project, add an optional description to this project. Finally, click the "Create this project" button.
Managing your templates
Click on the "Make a new project" button from the Home page, then on the next page click on the "Use a template" link:
Click on the "Edit templates" link on this next page.
You'll see all of your templates on this page and option to create another:
Schedules
Any dates you add will be scheduled relative to the start date of your project.
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.
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.
Here’s how the Schedule will look once you add a few events and to-dos:
You can tweak your dates manually in the project before or after inviting people to join the project!
To-dos
Like Schedule events, due dates on to-dos are relative to when you start the project. You can specify a due date or start/end dates, just like regular to-dos. To-dos inside project templates cannot be completed.
Inviting People
When you start a project from a template, you’ll be the only person invited. This gives you a chance to tweak dates and modify the content.
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), messages, and other project info.
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