1. Projects
  2. Project Management
  3. Using Project Management
  4. Project Templates
  5. Creating Project Templates

Creating Project Templates

Project templates enable you to create standardized NetSuite project records for your most frequently used projects.

To create a project template:

  1. Go to Lists > Relationships > Project Templates > New.

  2. In the Custom Project Form field, select a form for projects created from this template.

  3. Enter a name for this template.

  4. In the Project Manager field, select a project resource to serve as the project manager for projects created with this template. Only employees with both the Project Resource and Project Manager fields checked on the Human Resources subtab of their employee records appear in the Project Manager field.

  5. If you use NetSuite OneWorld, select a subsidiary for the template.

  6. In the Scheduling Method field, select Forward or Backward.

    • If you know when your project needs to start, select Forward and enter the estimated start date. You can change this date anytime during the project. NetSuite schedules all tasks without predecessors to start on this date. You can change any dates selected when creating projects from this template.

    • If you know when you project needs to finish, select Backward and enter the estimated date work must be completed.and enter the estimated end date. You can change this date anytime during the project. NetSuite schedules all tasks without successors to end on this date. You can change any dates selected when creating projects from this template.

    For more information about scheduling methods, see Project Scheduling Methods.

  7. On the Resources subtab, you can add generic resources for your project.

    If you use Resource Allocations, you can create new resource allocations for generic resources from the Resources subtab. You can't create allocations for specific resources in project templates.

    Note:

    You can't add specific project resources or task assignments to project templates. Use generic resources as placeholders. For more information, see Generic Resources.

  8. On the Financial subtab, in the Billing Type field, select a billing type for this template and fill in any additional information.

  9. If you use Job Costing and Project Budgeting, you must select a project expense type for this template on the Financial subtab. Check the Apply to all time entries box to apply the selected project expense type to all time tracked against projects created from this template.

    You can also enter budget information for both cost and billing budgets on the Budget subtab. For more information about entering budgets, see Creating Project Budgets.

    Note:

    Project templates with a duration longer than 10 years don't show project budgets. To enter a budget for your template, ensure that the duration is less than 10 years.

    Note:

    Projects with more than 20 budget categories may run slower. It’s best to add only the most common categories when setting up project budgets. For more information about selecting categories for project budgets, see Setting Up Project Budgeting.

  10. On the Preferences subtab, select which preferences you want to apply to projects created from this template. For more information about how to use project-specific preferences, see Creating a Project Record.

  11. Click Save.

  12. On the Schedule subtab, click New Project Task to open the project task/milestone form in a new window.

  13. Enter information for your project task and click Save.

    For more information about creating project tasks, see Creating a Project Task Record.

  14. Continue adding project tasks, milestones, and summary tasks to build your project plan.

Creating a Project from a Template

After you have saved your project template, you can use it to create a new project record. You can either apply a template to a new project record or you can initiate the creation of a new record from the template record.

To create a new project record from a project template record:

  1. Go to Lists > Relationships > Project Templates.

  2. Click View next to the template you want to use.

  3. Click Create Project at the top of the template record.

  4. Enter a name for your new project record.

  5. Optionally, select a customer for your new project.

    Note:

    After you've selected the customer for a project record, you can only change the selected customer if there are no transactions associated with the project.

  6. Click Create Project.

When you create a project from a template, you can't edit the project or the template until the conversion finishes. The conversion runs in the background, so you can keep working in NetSuite. You'll see a message letting you know that some actions aren't available. When your project is ready, you can click Edit to add more information to your new project.

There's also a Project Template field on the new project form, which lets you select a project template to populate fields when creating a new project. Selecting a template will automatically populate some fields in the Project Overview section. After you save, the rest of the template information will start copying to your new project.

Similar to creating a project record from a template record, not all information will be available immediately. If your template has a lot of details, it could take several minutes for all of your information to be copied. Before you save the new project, you can change the selected template in the Project Template field. If you change the selected template, any fields you've edited will be replaced with information from the new template. After you save, you can't change the template anymore.

If the template conversion fails and NetSuite can't create the new project, you'll see an error message with details and a solution so you can fix the issue and try again. For example, a task on the template might have a Finish No Later Than date set in the past.

Saving a Project as a Template

You can also create a project template from an existing project. Go to Lists > Relationships > Projects and click View next to the project you want to use as a template. Click Create Template at the top of the project record. Enter a name for your template and click OK.

When you create a template from a project, you can't edit the project or the template until the conversion finishes. The conversion runs in the background, so you can keep working in NetSuite. You'll see a message letting you know that some actions aren't available. A project template can't have any transactions, charges, actual time, resource allocations, project resources, or project task assignments.

Note:

Projects with more than 20 budget categories may run slower. It’s best to add only the most common categories when setting up project budgets. For more information about selecting categories for project budgets, see Setting Up Project Budgeting.

Related Topics:

General Notices