Templates

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

Jump ahead to:

• Creating a New Project Template
• Adding Doors to Templates
• Inviting People
• Starting a Project Using a Template
• Project Template Schedules
• Project Template To-dos
• Creating a New To-do List Template
• Using a to-do list template
• Managing Your Templates

Creating a new project template

Click the "Make a new project" button found right on the Home screen:

Then click the "Choose a project template" link:

Click the "Edit templates" link on this next page:

Click the "+ New Template" card. 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:

Once saved, you can start adding content and organizing your new project template. This works just like other projects in Basecamp 4! 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. Just click the More options button "•••" and select the "Change/rename tools" option:

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 "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:"

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:

When people are assigned to items in your template, they'll be invited to the project automatically when it’s created from your template. They’ll also be notified of their new assignments in their Hey! menu. These notifications will come from the project creator:

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.

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:

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

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

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 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:

Creating a new to-do list template

Similar to creating a new project template, click the "Make a new project" button found right on the Home screen:

Click the "Choose a project template" link:

Click the "Edit templates" link on this next page:

Click the “To-do List Templates” option at the top and click the "+ New Template" card. Like regular to-do lists in Basecamp 4, you’ll want to name your to-do list template, add extra details, attach any relevant files, and add your to-dos! 

Using a to-do list template

Once you’ve created your to-do list template, you can add it to a project in two ways — from the templates page or straight from the project’s to-do tool.

To add it from the templates page, click the more options menu "•••" located on the to-do list you’d like to add:

Select the project from the dropdown menu and click the “Create a to-do list” button:

Already working in the project’s to-do tool? Click the “+ New list” button and select "Use a to-do list template..." link:

Click the “Select template” button on the to-do list you’d like to add to the project:

Managing your templates

Click the "Make a new project" button from the Home page, then click the "Choose a template" link shown on the next page:

Click the "Edit templates" link on the next page:

You'll see all of your templates on this page and option to create another:

Next up: Forwards →

Jump to:

• Intro to the Project Tools
• Chat
• Message Board
• To-Dos
• Card Tables
• Hill Charts
• Schedule
• Automatic Check-Ins
• Docs and Files
• Doors
• Templates (you're here!)
• Forwards
• Drafts
• Boosts
• Searching
• Trash, Archive, and Restore
• Moving and Copying
• Printing
• Embedding Outside Content
• Lineup