Recurring Projects with templates
Answered
Hi folks,
I am new to Podio but already like it. I am a student advisor at a German university. In a student course I will get new student always going through the same steps during there BA or MSc program.
My question. Is there a way to build a project from template? Here is my usecase:
A student is entering. First I need to see all his documents (lets say 5 documents. always the same). During the year I have to see him 4 times in my office. So I need a preset of 4 meeting but the date not set yet.
The students have to hand in 3 papers. Different topics but they have to use a template. But the date not set yet. And so on and so on.
I know, that I can start a meeting but I want the meeting to be preset with topic and only add the date and attendees.
I know, that I can start a deliverable but I want the deliverables to be preset with topic (name of the paper), and word template and only add the due date and owner.
I hope I could make myself clear. Or can I use preset workspaces (one workspace for each student)?
Thanks for your help.
Karsten
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Official comment
Hey guys!
We have recently added more functionality to the advanced workflows to help you solve this problem:
https://help.podio.com/hc/en-us/articles/204366037-Advanced-workflowsLet me know what you think?
//Sara - Podio
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Hi there! I've been asking a lot of questions (sorry again, Sara!) but they've been replied every time in a very fast and professional way. Appreciate it.
We are using a different platform currently as CRM and project management and that one offer us the ability to create a set of templates for recurring processes, wich I haven't found yet on Podio other than the autotask feature in any given app.
This is very important to us since every project involves a lot of tasks and milestones that I wouldn't want to create manually...
Any feedback on that? An app to do such thing? Will clone an app with all the structure needed do the trick?
Thanks!
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The way I'd do it, is in the app you'd have the following fields:
Name of the student
Documents (question field with multiple choice so you can tick them off)
Meetings (either the above or a progress slider - or you can create a date field and fill it whenever you set the date)
Papers - same as for the meetings
Not sure if ti helps but I quickly created a draft app with your name, you can search for it in the market. I've attached the screenshots, they show better what I was talking about above.
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Hmn... i'm not convinced... I'm an event manager and having a cookie cutter template is absolutely essential for me. I need to be able to know that as soon as we decide to put on another event i can click a button and the project, deliverables, tasks and assignments are all autocreated. There are a LOT of deliverables and tasks associated with them for each event. Plus, I'm a details kinda guy... :)
Is there a work around for this that I'm not seeing yet?
Would really appreciate some help but this template feature is a deal breaker for me... automation is too important these days :)
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I agree that being able to insert templates is much needed. I am looking at our own legacy PM tool, and as much as I would like to transition to Podio, not having templates is a deal breaker. We love the task management module, but even old school, outdated software enables template creation and editing.
The moment you get me a workaround for templates, you will totally have my business
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Hey guys, do you know that it is now possible to clone items, like deliverables?
Maybe this can help you: https://help.podio.com/entries/23396467-Cloning-an-item
You can then create recurring events using the Event app function.
//Sara - Podio
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HI Sara,
Maybe I'm confused, but it seems like you can clone deliverables, but the related tasks don't copy over. Ideally, we should be able to clone a project [and all related deliverables (with their related tasks)] would copy over, as well. My current PM tool, TeamWorkPM, does this quite easily, so I'm having a hard time transitioning to Podio without this capability. Is this on your product dev road map?
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Hi Sara,
I think your missing the point. Imagine a project that has 5 deliverables, and each of those deliverables have 10 tasks. How are we able to efficiently setup the same type of recurring project? Thanks, looking forward to hearing what solution you have for this - its a major roadblock in transitioning our business
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We are looking into the option to build a real workflow using the apps - so to let you define a structure of the project with "if this happens, do this" (trigger based workflow). Hopefully this can help all if you :) I can't promise when we will have something ready but it is something we want to do.
//Sara - Podio
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I agree with all the above. Having a project template that can contain, tasks, assignments, due dates and so on. We are a finance company that gets 50-100 deals a day and each deal has a very large list of tasks associated with them. No collaboration system out there deals with these issues. The volume of conversation that goes on within the many departments makes most activity streams worse than email. I keep hearing you can clone this or copy tasks and insert them into your folders/workspace.
It ends up leaving you to have a full-time person just to create the projects. I want to clone an entire workspace and have it created by the API.
Getting to the point where I have to build my own :)
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Basecamp does this really well, as a competitive reference of what we're all apparently looking for. The overall suite of Podio apps is a lot more comprehensive and flexible than Basecamp, but the glaring lack here is the inability to template repetitive projects.
Our use case is a customer on-boarding process. It's the same for every customer, has numerous tasks and deliverables that need to be assigned out to team members, and it's a problem if steps get missed. We need to keep refining a master template that we invoke each time we partner with a new customer.
This would be super powerful!
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Exactly, Dan! That's exactly what we need. Both Basecamp and TeamWorkPM and WorkETC did a great job with that. Not sure why Podio can't do it.
One additional thing that would help is the ability to revise the template once you clone it (for instance, maybe one of the deliverables/task lists doesn't apply to that specific customer). Currently, I need to check each item off individually (vs. not having it on the project to begin with).
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Bummed. Found Podio last week and have started using it. Everything seems perfect for our needs EXCEPT for the lack of the ability to create templates. 99% of our projects are exactly the same and the inability to do this (like Apptivo, Basecamp, etc) makes this a deal breaker for us as this drastically increases the workload of our PMs. PLEASE add this feature! This is critical for your software to be truly competitive against your opposition in the market IMHO.
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As for all the above, the lack of Templates is a SHOWSTOPPER to move to Podio. What a pity, as there is much to like about this, but it is absolutely critical for our primary use - managing projects that essentially repeat the same tasks over and over - that we can clone templates including the project information, the deliverables and the tasks.
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Yup, same here. Got all excited especially with the ability to create a project in Podio from an opportunity in another app via Zapier; then went looking for help with creating project templates. Looks like we'll need to revert to Basecamp. Bummer. Would be Very Keen to know when Podio comes out with the ability to create project templates that brings across all tasks and encompasses the ability to customise some of those tasks as Ayleen points out.
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I've just come across Podio via someone else and it's almost perfect bar the lack of template function.
I've been working with Mavenlink which is a collaboration and project management webapp which allows for the template option- and that's the ONLY reason why I've stayed there. Templates are a MUST. There is not a single place which seems to do it all for me. If Podio stepped up to the plate and instigated this I'd be a fan for life.
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Sorry to be another one to harp on this point, Sara, but I think its important to let you know the reason we chose not to use Podio. We have about 120 projects per year... each of them has about 50 different steps that are the same for every project. JIRA uses "custom workflows"... please look at their "custom workflows" for some inspiration. We don't have time to re-construct 50 steps every time we want to start a new project... we need an automated way.
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Hey Sara! Any updates here? This comment thread with a request to create cloned app items/templates is now over 1 year old with requests coming in every single month. I hope whomever you're sharing the requests with understand that it's been the dealbreaker for many a client (and I'm betting the folks who took the time to write only rep a smaller portion of the wider audience!) Thanks!
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