What is an activity template?
An activity template is a prototype of an activity.
About this task
You can use an activity template to capture the required steps, contacts, resources, and tools used to complete a common process. After you create the template, you can create multiple activities from it for each project that you begin that uses the process.For example, if you are working on a patent, you can create a template for the patent application process. Add a to-do list to the template that captures the steps required to complete the process. Add files and web links to link to the tools and resources that you use to perform the steps. Assign tags to the template that define its purpose. If you are creating a standard activity template, you can add the key people who understand the process as members so that you can later include them in the project workflow. If you are creating a community activity, make sure the key people are members of the community. After you create the template, you can create an activity from that template for each idea or product that you want to patent.
Using a template limits the amount of work you have to do each time you begin a new project, because the activity you start with already includes most of the correct members, has links to the necessary information, outlines the required steps complete in the To Do Items view, and has appropriate tags associated with it. If you are a project manager, you can create a template and share it with your team to help organize the project.
You can create a template in one of the following ways:
- From scratch. An experienced team member can collect the approved resources and itemize the to-do items required to complete a process and make it available to the team or to a set of customers.
Note: You cannot create a community activity template from scratch.
- From an existing activity. A team can capture in an activity the resources that they had to use and the to-do items that they had to complete during the process of completing a task. After the information is organically collected in an activity, you can formalize the process by creating a template from that activity.
Create an activity template from scratch
Create an activity template to help yourself and other members of your team to organize the steps and resources involved in completing a common task.Create a template from an activity
If you and your team used an activity to complete a process and that activity proved useful, because it captured the steps that you needed to complete and gathered together all the resources that you needed, you can use that activity as the starting point for a template.
Parent topic
Work with activity templates
Related tasks
Create a template from an activity
Create an activity template from scratch
});