Item & document templates

Templates capture a reusable starting point, so people don’t recreate the same structure each time. Two kinds live here: item templates for new records, and document templates for generated output.

Templates are a quiet but real quality control, not just a convenience. When every record of a given type starts from the same skeleton — the same default structure, the same expected fields — you get consistency that pays off at review and audit time, because reviewers know what a well-formed record of that type should contain. The same logic applies to document templates: a submission-ready document assembled from a governed template with live-data placeholders is far more reliable than one hand-built each time, where a missing section or stale figure can slip through unnoticed.

Item templates

An item template is a prefilled starting point for a particular item type. You give it a name and define default content — such as a description template — so that creating a new record of that type starts from a sensible, consistent skeleton rather than a blank form. Templates can be enabled or disabled, letting you retire one without losing records that used it. This is how you standardize, say, how every requirement of a certain kind is initially structured.

Document templates

A document template defines the structure of a generated document — its sections, headers and footers, and the placeholders that get filled with live data when the document is produced. The available placeholders are surfaced as you build the template, so you can drop in the right merge points. This is what gives exported documents a consistent, professional, submission-ready form.

Consistency at scale

Both kinds of template serve the same goal: consistency without manual effort. Define the structure once, and every record or document built from it follows suit. Document templates feed the output described in Reports; related report-specific templates are covered in Report templates & permissions.