This article is for administrators of a group of services on a 'network' account.
In this guide, learn about:
A planning template is a Storypark plan that is pre-populated with regularly used content, from which educators can start a new plan. Templates are designed to save your teams time so they don't have to start from a blank page every time they want to create a plan.
You may wish to create network-specific templates so that all your services are planning in a consistent way or to embed best practice across your network.
The planning templates you create in your head office and select in your network setup will be available for teachers across all your services to start new plans from.
Create network planning templates in your head office
To create and edit your network planning templates go to your network's head office center, and navigate to the Planning page:
1. Create a new plan or open a plan you wish to adapt. Learn how to a start a plan here.
2. Add any headers and content to your plan. Learn how to build your plan here and move things around in your plan here.
3. Once your plan is ready it's time to turn it into a template. Click Save template in the top right menu bar and give your new template a name. Learn more about creating planning templates.
4. View any templates you've created on your Templates page under Our templates. You can click on any of your template names in the left-hand list to view a snapshot of it on the right.
Understanding your network setup planning templates page
Your network setup Planning templates page lets you select the network planning templates you wish to make active across all your services.
There are three main areas on this page:
The bottom left list, Planning template library displays a list of Storypark's example templates. In order to use any of the Storypark templates, you need to first add them to your networks template library.
The top left list, Our templates displays all templates you have added to your networks template library. From here you can activate/deactivate a template - when activated the template can be seen and used by all your services.
The area on the right displays the template name, the status (Active or Inactive) a snapshot of what the template looks like, and a button to activate/deactivate (add or remove the template to/from all services).
Activating/deactivating your network templates
You can activate and deactivate templates quickly and easily at any time.
Activating a template
To make a network planning template active across all your services - select the template name in the top left list under Our templates and use the toggle button to switch the template status to Active :
When a template is active, it can now be seen and used by all your services.
Deactivating a template
To deactivate or remove a template from all your services - select the template name in the top left list under Our templates and use the toggle button to switch the template status to Inactive :
If a template is Inactive - It now can't be seen or used by any of your services. Your template will still be available in your head office and be listed under Our templates so you can choose to activate it again at any time.
Updating a template
At times you may wish to change or update one of your templates to bring it into line with latest thinking, curriculum changes or best practice.
You can edit a template from your network setup Planning templates page by clicking the Edit button in the top right corner of the template preview area:
Any edits you make to planning templates will be live and visible to teachers in your services. This means if you want to update your template, it’s best to do it at a time people are unlikely to be starting plans, or you could create and activate a new template and deactivate the old one.
Delete a template
If you don't need a network planning template anymore, simply open the template, and at the top of the screen tap Delete.
Be careful when deleting custom network templates as once they're deleted they are gone. If you delete a Storypark template however, you can simply recopy it back to your templates.
What your services see
Once a network template has been activated it is available to all your services. Now, whenever a teacher creates a new plan, they will see any network templates you've activated in the displayed list.
The difference between normal service templates and network templates:
Normal service templates can be created, edited or deleted by any teacher in a service:
Network templates are view only – unable to be edited or deleted:
Note: If a service wants to create their own version of your network template, ie. if they wish to personalise it by adding their children or links to it, they can start a plan from the network template, make any personalised changes to the plan and then save this as a new template with a different name.
This new template will be their own personal template, not a network template any longer and any subsequent changes you make to the network templates will not affect it.