Executing projects successfully and with ease requires a solid project plan. Project plans are typically built around defining and scheduling clear, well-defined project tasks well in advance. Reducing your efforts on project tasks helps you spend more time in other areas of the project or on other projects.
On Cloud, a "Task Template" provides a blueprint of the project tasks you can readily add to projects. With the task groups, tasks, and checklists inherited from the template, you only need to make minor modifications to the tasks, and they’re ready to be scheduled for your team members to complete.
Why should you use task templates?
Here are some of the benefits of using task templates.
Speed – Applying a task template in a project automatically populates the task groups, tasks, checklists, products, and files in the project’s task list. You can edit every detail of the inherited tasks. So, speed does not reduce the flexibility in defining tasks.
Consistency – Task templates provide a consistent approach to how all Project Managers execute their projects. With a standardized checklist, the tasks are always completed to the expected degree of customer satisfaction.
Analytics – Using well-defined task groups and tasks for all projects helps us present better Analytics data on the Dashboard. Also, using task templates early on can help you leverage other Analytics data we may add to the Dashboard in the future.
Add task templates from Settings
It is good practice to add task templates in the initial stages of using Cloud.
To add a task template:
Go to "Settings > Projects > Task Templates" and click "New task template." You will see the model for adding the task groups and tasks.
Create the task groups and tasks using these guidelines:
1/ Name the template.
2/ Create the task groups. For simplicity, you can name the task group with the name of the project phase.
If you need multiple task groups in a phase, name them accordingly. If a phase has no tasks, you do not need to add a task group to it.
3/ For visual ease, assign distinct colors to the task groups from the Color Palette.
4/ Click the “Plus icon” for a task group to add a task.
Do not worry about the task details now. You can add them when the task groups and tasks are final.
5/ Once you are done adding tasks in all groups, check the overall task list for any missing tasks and add them.
Drag and drop the tasks to reorder them within and across groups.
6/ Click the 3-dot menu next to a task and click "Edit."
Here, add a checklist and other details to make this a well-defined task. Do this for all the tasks.
You can pre-create Checklist templates with all the necessary items and use the templates in tasks. You can add more items or delete unneeded ones that come from the template in the task. This way, you don't have to create checklist items in every task.
Check out this article for more details.
7/ Click “Create” when you are ready to add the task template.
If you want help with defining tasks, check out this article.
Once you apply the template to a project, you can add project-specific details for every task inherited from the template.
Save a task list as a template
If creating task templates is too cumbersome for you, you can save a task list from a completed or ongoing project as a template. This approach is beneficial when you work on unique projects and cannot decide on an effective task list until you complete a few.
Go to the "Plan" tab in the project view. The tasks will be listed under the Tasks tab. Here, click “Save as task template” and type in a name for the template.
