Managing Projects › Project Templates › Populate Projects from a Template

Populate Projects from a Template

To populate a new project, copy the information from an existing template. For example, you can copy the following types of information:

• Tasks and task estimates (ETC)
• Staff assignments
• Cost and benefit plans

Follow these steps:

1. Open the project.

   The properties page appears.

2. Open the Actions menu on the top right side of the page, and click Copy Project from Template.

   The select project template page appears.

3. Select the button next to the project template, and click Next.

   The copy template options page appears.

4. Complete the following fields:

   Template Name

   Displays the name of the project template from which data is used to populate the new project. Use a template to create a project with the following types of information predefined:

   • Project roles
   • Work breakdown structure
   • Financial plans
   • Project documents

   A template enables you to implement projects with common elements throughout the organization.

   not sure if we need to describe all this in the field definition. this info is already provided in the conceptual text that precedes the procedure and the field descriptions

   Scale Work By

   Defines the percentage by which the work estimates on each task is required to be increased or decreased for the new project. The scaling is relative to the template.

   Values: 0-100 (where zero means no change)

   Default: Zero

   Required: No

   Scale Budget By

   Defines the percentage (positive or negative) as the scaling factor for the dollar amounts defined in project cost plans and benefit plans.

   Values: 0-100 (where zero means no change)

   Default: Zero

   Required: No

   Example: The template project from 1/1/2009 to 12/31/2009 allocates $10,000 for planned cost and $20,000 for planned benefit for the project duration. If a Scale Budget By value of 20 percent is defined, the plans copy over to the new project as follows. Assumed that the project duration is same as the template project:

   • The planned cost shows $12,000 (scaled up by an additional 20 percent of the original value).
   • The planned benefit shows $24,000 (scaled up by an additional 20 percent of the original value).

   Convert resources to roles

   Specifies to replace the resources in the new project with the primary roles, or team roles of the named resources on the project template. If a named resource has no primary role or team role, the named resource is retained on the new project. This setting overrides the default project management setting on the settings page.

   Suppose, a cost plan uses a resource as a grouping attribute. Selecting the check box, copies the cost plan from the template, but without converting the resource values to roles. The resource value can be the only value that differentiates one line item detail row from another. In the absence of the value, duplicate detail rows can result in the cost plan.

   Default: Cleared

   Required: No

5. Click Copy.

More information:

Rules for Copying Financial Plans from Project Templates

Designate Projects as Project Template