PaT SD Templates Overview

Summary SD templates are easy to create and save a lot of time. Use them for repetitive work: workflows (for example, client and staff onboarding), commonly used SD frameworks (for example, Meeting Minutes, PARs and Reports), and forms and surveys to collect data. Any SD can be made into a template and released to the whole organisation. A template can carry tasks and members, which are added automatically when someone uses it. There are two ways to spin up an SD from a template: the plus icon at the bottom of the screen, or the Templates tab in Global Search, where you can also edit a template's details and view the template.

Steps

Step 1

Create an SD as you normally would, by dragging and dropping SD elements into the body of the SD. The SD elements are the purple buttons near the top left of the SD.

Step 2

Click Template, at the left of the grey bar along the bottom of the SD.

Step 3

Creating a template is a two-step confirmation process. A cross and a tick appear at the left end of the bar: click the tick to confirm. The SD is now a template, but for now only you can see it.

Step 4

To release the template to the entire organisation, click Global, just to the right of Template.

Step 5

Click the tick at the left end of the bar again to confirm your choice. The SD template is now visible to the whole organisation, and anyone in it can use it.

Step 6

To add tasks to the template, use the Task icon: the fourth of the purple buttons near the top left of the SD, a tick in a box. From then on, whenever someone uses the template, those tasks will be created automatically. The SD template owner will be set as the assignor, and the person who launches the template will be the assignee.

Step 7

Keep these points in mind when you add a completed task to a template: - Deadlines. Whatever deadline you set on the task determines the time difference for any duplicate tasks created when a user spins up an SD. For example, if you set the deadline to 10 days in the future, then each time an SD is spun up, the duplicated task automatically has a deadline 10 days ahead of the creation date. - When the assignee and assignor are the same. If the assignee and assignor are the same person in the template, then when a user spins up an SD, the duplicated task has both the assignor and the assignee set to that user. - When the assignee and assignor are different. If the assignee and assignor are different in the template, then when a user spins up an SD, the duplicated task has the assignor set to the person who spun up the SD, and the assignee set to whoever was listed as the assignee in the original template task.

Step 8

Members work the same way. Anyone listed as a member of the template is automatically added as a member of each new SD spun up from it. The template's members are shown near the top of the SD, below its name: the members icon (three people), then a photo for each member.

Spinning up an SD from a template

Step 9

The quick way to spawn (spin up) an SD from a template, if you know which template you want, is the plus icon: the round + button at the bottom centre of the screen. Click it. A fan of round icons opens above it: a shortcut menu of features commonly used in PaT.

Step 10

Click the strategy icon: the green circle on the left of the fan, just above the white tick-box icon. When you point at it, the label Create a new Strategy Document appears. The Create an SD box opens in the middle of the screen.

Step 11

The box helps you configure your new SD. In SD Name, type a name for the SD.

Step 12

In the Template drop-down list, which shows No Template until you choose, select the template you want. Then click Submit at the bottom of the box. The new SD spins up based on the template you selected.

Finding templates in Global Search

Step 13

The other way to find an SD template is Global Search. Click the Global Search button at the top right of the screen. The Global Search panel opens down the right-hand side.

Step 14

In the panel, below my Strategy Docs, click the Templates tab.

Step 15

The list below the tab refreshes to show all the SD templates available to the organisation, grouped by department owner. Templates that have not been assigned to a department owner are listed under DEPT: None. Each template has its own card, with its name and its owner.

Step 16

To spin up a new SD from one of the templates, click the round + on the right of its card. This works the same way as the plus icon at the bottom of the screen.

Step 17

To change a template's details, swipe left on its card. Two options appear on the right of the card, EDIT and VIEW. Click EDIT.

Step 18

The Edit SD Category window opens. This is where you maintain the template's department owner and description: choose the department in Select a Department, write the description in Template Description, then click Update.

Step 19

To open the template itself, swipe left on its card and click VIEW. This is commonly used to look at a template and see what's in it without triggering the creation of any of its embedded tasks or SDs: it gives you a full picture of the template. If you are the template owner, or a member of the template with authoring rights, you can also edit and customise the template.

Note. Be mindful when editing a template: all future SDs spun up from it will replicate your most recent changes, but the changes are not backwards compatible, so SDs already created from an earlier version of the template do not change. To update those SDs, update them manually or put a request through to the PaT helpdesk.