Note: The following information only applies to plans at a service. We also have help articles dedicated to portfolio planning.

​In this guide, learn about:

1. Starting a plan from a template
2. Finding your service's templates
3. Managing your service's templates
4. Storypark templates
5. Adding a Storypark template to your service

6. Editing, renaming or deleting a template
7. Creating a template from scratch
8. Frequently asked questions
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A planning template is a plan type that is pre-populated with regularly used content, from which you can start a new plan. Templates are designed to save you time so don't have to start from a blank slate every time you want to create a plan.

To create a new plan from a template, from the Open plans area, tap Create a plan:

A pop-up window will appear with a list of planning templates available at your centre - from here you can select the template you would like to use to create your new plan:

The share setting of the plan will be pre-selected to share with all educators by default. The plan can still be started privately if a shared plan is not appropriate, simply click private plan, to be shared later to create a private plan.

If for example, you have a fortnightly staff meeting at the beginning of each planning cycle, you can simply tap Create a plan and select Meeting minutes from the list of templates shown.

Next, you will need to give your new plan a name, eg. 'Staff meeting 29 Feb 21' to differentiate it from your other meeting minutes plans, and when you finish your meeting, tap Save and exit. Your new plan will be listed in your Open plans area.

Once you tap Create and share plan this will begin a new plan based on the template you had selected which you can begin filling out.

If ever you want to see all your meeting minutes, go to your Open plans or Archived plans and simply filter by your 'Meeting' category. You will then only see those plans on the page. Learn more about ordering and filtering plans.

To find your service's master set of templates, go to the Planning tab on your service's profile page, and tap on Templates

On the left-hand side of the screen you'll see two lists, Our templates (templates you can start plans from), and Planning template library (a set of example templates to start you off).

On the right-hand side, you'll see a preview of the selected plan:

You can edit, delete and create plans from any templates that are listed under Our templates. This is a list that is shared by all teachers and rooms in your service. If any teacher from any room creates, edits or deletes a template, these changes will be reflected across all rooms and for all teachers - i.e. templates are not private to the educator who created them.

Note: Children cannot be added to templates, only plans. This is so that templates can be available to use in all rooms at your service.

When you first start using Planning, you'll see a list of Storypark's example templates.

In order to use any of the Storypark templates, you need to first add them to your templates. In most cases, when you first visit this page, these will already have been added – you can use, edit or delete these if you wish. Don't feel like you need to use any of these if they don't suit your needs – this list is to show you what's possible and to give you some inspiration for creating your own.

Some of the example templates are:

The Storypark templates section is split into two areas:

Tap on the name of a Storypark template and on the right side of the screen next to the template's name tap Copy to Our templates:

The template will now appear under Our templates and you'll be able to edit, delete and create plans from it.

Select one of the templates in the list, then tap Edit template:

This will open up the template in a new tab so you can edit or delete it.

Edit a template

You can change anything you like in a template, including the category and any headings, children and content within the plan. Once you tap 'Save and exit' those changes will be reflected in the updated template.

Note : You cannot save Share settings in a template, you will need to choose who you want to share each plan within the plan itself, not the template.

Rename a template

You'll see a blue panel above the plan that says Template Name: '___' , simply tap the template name in the blue panel, and enter a new name when prompted:

Delete a template
If you don't need a template anymore, simply open the template, and at the top of the screen tap Delete. Be careful when deleting custom 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.

Your planning area will become much more useful once you begin creating your own planning templates.

1. Begin by starting a new plan

2. Add any headers, children and content that you would like to appear in each new plan you create from this template. We'd recommend starting by keeping it simple and just adding a few headers.

3. Once your template is ready, tap Save template in the menu bar and give your new template a name.

This will take a kind of snapshot of your plan and then it will be listed on your service's Templates page under Our templates.

Q. Can I print or download a PDF copy of a template?
A. Yes. You will need to start a plan from the template first and then click Print/PDF on the top-right side.
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Q. Can templates be shared with parents?
A. Only plans with a child tagged in them can be shared with parents, templates cannot.
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Q. Can templates be shared across services?
A. Single services cannot share templates within Storypark.

However, admins that are part of a network on Storypark (multi-site organisations with more than one location) can share templates across all services from their network dashboard.

Please contact our team if you are a multi-site organisation that would like to explore the benefits of a network plan on Storypark further.

If you are a network admin, you can share templates via the network dashboard.