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Create and customize Work Templates
Create and customize Work Templates

Find the template you need and tailor it to fit your firm's unique workflows or create your own template from scratch!

Erin Jamison avatar
Written by Erin Jamison
Updated over a week ago

Work Templates allow you to standardize processes across your team. You can create a Template from an existing piece of work that you reuse often, or you can also create a brand new template.

Index

Work Templates Video Overview

With work templates, you'll be putting in place the structure for your team to execute high-quality work efficiently and provide a scalable infrastructure for the future growth of your company.

Create a Work Template from scratch

To create a new Template, choose 'Settings' from the main menu, then 'Work templates'. You can then choose 'Create Work Template'.

Title and Description

You’ll then be given the option to choose a name and a description for your new Template. Try to be detailed here - the rest of your team will be searching for this when it is published.

In the description, it is a good idea to mention when the start and due date of the work should be and who the assignee of the work is.

Example: The start date is the day the work starts (typically Monday or Thursday) and the due date is the last day of the week. The assignee is the bookkeeper.

Tasks Tab

Now that your draft Template has been created, you'll be able to add Tasks with tasklist automators, descriptions, task types, assignees, and due dates, plus documents, as you would add to any piece of work.

If you don’t know which colleague is going to be doing the work yet, you can use a placeholder job role, such as Accountant or Bookkeeper instead. Then when you create work from this template simply swap out the placeholders with the team.

Choose how many days each task should be due after the Work start date, or before the Work due date.

Best Practice Tip: Try naming your sections after the statuses you want your automators to switch between. That makes it easy for someone working on the work item to enter it and find where in the template the next task will be depending on the status in the work item header.

Details Tab

Edit the Template’s description or upload any documents in the Details tab. You can also apply a work type, budget dollars, and estimated time.

When you’re done, hit publish at the bottom of your screen and your template is ready to create work from.

If you make any future changes to the template, these changes won't go live until you click 'Publish'. Until you choose to publish any changes, the older version of that Template will be the active version.

Create a template from an existing work item

If you have an existing piece of work that you reuse often, you can save that as a template to create work from in the future. From the piece of work, select 'Save as template' from the options menu.

Any Tasks and descriptions from the Work will be saved as a draft template. You’ll be able to make any adjustments you like, such as:

  • Editing the name of the template

  • Editing any Task name, description, task type, due dates, and assignee

  • Editing the description of the template and uploading any documents in the details tab

When you’re done, hit publish at the bottom of your screen and your template is ready to create work from.

Customize a Work Template

Tailor one of the pre-populated work templates in your account to suit your firm's clients and unique workflows.

Any templates saved within your Karbon account can be edited to suit your company's unique clients and workflows. This video explains how to do this.

Note: Before making any changes, we recommend duplicating any of the pre-populated work templates in your account and renaming them so that you have a copy saved. Do this by clicking on the template you wish to copy, then clicking the options menu '...' and then 'Duplicate'.

Below is a common set of actions you can take:

Using job roles on templates

Job roles are useful when creating Templates if you don't know which team member will eventually perform the task. When you create Work from the Template, you can choose to assign the task to a team member and/or a Job role.

Any new task in a Template can be assigned to a job role.

You can then search and assign the task to any of your company's job roles.

Keep in mind: When you create Work off a template that has specified Job roles, you'll be given the option to assign all tasks that have been allocated Job roles, to colleagues.

In the example here, any tasks in the Template assigned to the 'Bookkeeper' role will be assigned to Pax in the Work, and tasks assigned to the 'Accountant' role will be assigned to Anthony.

If you'd prefer, you can leave the tasks unassigned and allocate them to specific colleagues after the Work has been created.

Using task types on templates

Assigning task types to work template tasks provides you an understanding of how to create your estimates for work templates by highlighting which roles perform which task types.

To update your work template tasks with Task Types, select a work template, click the Tasks tab, and click on a task to see its full task details.

Similar to how you added Roles and Due Dates to a given task, click the Task Type field and choose the appropriate Task Type for this task.

Best Practice Tip: If using nested tasks, we recommend only assigning Task Types to the tasks you assign to Roles. This makes the process easier and it will be sufficient since assigned activities will be marked completed and time associated as your team completes the work. As you add Task Types to work template tasks, track the combination of the Role and Task Type to use in specifying your estimates in the next step.

Revert work back to template

If you make changes to a Work Template, you can update work that has been created from that Template so that it reflects those changes. You can do this by clicking on the options menu for the work and selecting reset tasks.

You will have the option to revert the tasks back to that template or choose for the tasks to revert back to the previous work item in that schedule.

A few things to consider before doing this:

  • Clicking this option will replace all Tasks on the piece of work with those from the Template

  • The reset button only shows up once the Tasks on a piece of work have been created. If you don't see the button, simply click on the Task tab and then back to Details tab

  • If the Tasks in the Template tasks are assigned to Job Role placeholders, you will be required to assign these to individual staff members

  • If the Work item is part of a schedule, the changes will be carried over to all future Work, unless the next piece of work tasks has already been created, or if you or someone else from your team have already opened the Tasks tab in any future pieces of Work. In this case, you'll need to reset the next scheduled piece of work to the Template as well

  • If Client Tasks have already been sent in the piece of work, they'll be removed and you'll need to send the new Client Tasks to your client once you revert to Template

Sorting the work templates

Any admin within Karbon can access the work templates through one of two places:

Off of the main menu navigate to 'Settings' and choose 'Work Templates'

or navigate to 'Work', in the drop-down choose 'Work Templates'

When you're in your template list, you will be able to sort through each column to easily identify the template you need. The columns available are as follows:

  • Name: name of the work template

  • Last published by: colleague that last published the work template

  • Date added: when the work template was originally added

  • Last edited: when the work template was last edited

  • Times used: how many times the template has been used

To change which column you're sorting by, just click on the column options. When sorting by the different columns they will each default sort in a specific manner:

  • Name - alphabetical

  • Created by - alphabetical

  • Dated added - newest or oldest first

  • Last edited - newest or oldest first

  • Times used - most or least amount first

Karbon's Template Library

If you aren't seeing the templates you want, you can also click Browse Template Library to navigate to Karbon's collection of hundreds of templates that have been shared by experts and the Karbon community.

Once you find a template you'd like, select 'Get' to have it added to your own account.

Bulk re-apply your work templates

Get assistance to re-apply any updated work template(s) to all work items that have been created from those templates in the past.

When refining your internal processes, you might have the need to re-apply any updated work template/s to work items that have been created from those templates in the past. To make updates in bulk, you may request direct assistance from the Karbon team.

Step 1: Request to bulk re-apply work templates ($499)

To bulk re-apply work templates, submit a request either in Help & Feedback or to support@karbonhq.com and say "I would like to have Karbon bulk re-apply work templates, please." A Support agent will have your account manager contact you for next steps. If you know your account manager, you can contact them directly.

Step 2: Identify the work templates you want to update

Edit your templates where necessary, and publish when finished. Please make note of any templates you have updated and let your account manager know.

Step 3: Your account manager will send you a client task list to gather information

In the client task list, we will ask you a series of simple questions to ensure we have the information we need to make the exact changes that you need. Questions will include:

  • Were all work items that need updating created off of a template?

  • Do you want to update all work items created from the template?

  • How many and which templates would you like to bulk apply?

  • If a work item has already started, would you like us to still update it?

If needed, a phone call will be scheduled to discuss further.

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