Project templates

A template is a reusable project blueprint. Instead of rebuilding the same milestone plan, label set, and starter tickets every time you kick off a similar engagement, you build the structure once and apply it whenever you need it.

What a template contains

• Milestones - each with a name and relative day offsets (start +N days, end +M days) instead of fixed calendar dates.
• Starter tickets - a title and type, optionally pointed at one of the template's milestones.
• Labels - name and color.
• Doc pages - starter documentation pages.

A template never contains operational data - no time entries, comments, or file attachments. Because milestone dates are relative offsets, applying the same template in March or in November produces sensible dates either way.

Creating a template

Open Templates in the sidebar, then either:

• New - select New template, give it a name, optional description, and category, and it opens in the template editor to fill in.
• From an existing project - snapshot a project you like into a template. Only its structure is copied.

In the editor, add milestones (name + start/end offset in days), tickets (title, optionally linked to a milestone), labels (name + color), and doc pages one row at a time - each add/remove happens immediately, so there is no separate save step.

Personal vs. global. A new template is personal to you by default. Tick Make global (at creation, or from the template's card) to share it with the whole workspace.

Export / import. Use the export icon on a template card to download it as a JSON file, and Import at the top of the Templates page to bring one in - handy for moving a template between workspaces or keeping one under version control.

Applying a template

1. Select Apply on a template card.
2. Pick the target project and a start date.
3. Review the preview table - it shows each milestone's computed start and end date for the start date you chose.
4. Confirm. orboto creates the milestones with absolute dates, the starter tickets (linked into the right milestone), the doc pages, and matches labels by name against the target project - existing labels are reused, missing ones are created.

The confirmation reports exactly how many milestones, tickets, labels, and doc pages were created, so you can sanity-check the result immediately.

Tips

• Keep one template per engagement type (client project, game jam, release train) and refine it after each project retrospective - templates are cheap to iterate on since applying never touches the original.
• Offsets can overlap - parallel milestones (for example "Design" and "Prototyping" running at the same time) are fine.
• Use Export on a template you are happy with as a lightweight backup before making experimental changes to it.

Troubleshooting

Applying the template didn't create the labels I expected. Labels are matched by exact name. If a target project already has a label with a slightly different name (different casing, trailing space), you'll end up with two similar labels instead of one being reused - clean up names before applying, or clean up duplicates in project settings afterwards.

A milestone date looks wrong after applying. Check the offset value in the template editor, not the applied project - offsets are always counted in calendar days from the start date you entered when applying, including weekends.

I can't find a template a colleague made. Personal templates are only visible to their creator; ask them to toggle Make global, or export and send you the file to import.