Event templates — Help

If you run the same kind of event over and over (Saturday weddings that all start with a 9am hair-and-makeup call and end with a midnight bump-out, or quarterly sales kickoffs that follow the same six-hour shape every time), typing the same run of show from scratch every event is a slog. Event templates fix that. You build the timeline once, save it as a template, and the next time you create that kind of event you stamp out the structure in a single click.

This article covers how to make a template, how to use one, what is and isn't copied across, and the small rules that prevent template chaos.

What a template actually is

In 1pm a template is an event with its work clothes off. It has a name, it has a list of timeline items in order, it has start times and durations and titles and details and venues. What it doesn't have is a date, a status, crew assignments, briefing fields tied to a real venue, or any of the live execution state (start/finish marks, real-time updates, share links).

Templates live in the same place as your events, with a small Template badge on the events list so you can tell them apart at a glance.

This shape was deliberate. A template's job is to seed the next event's structure, then get out of the way. By stripping out the date-specific bits at template-creation time, 1pm avoids the trap of a template that "remembers" last season's photographer in a slot they're not booked for this year. You bring the date, the crew, and the venue. The template brings the rhythm.

Creating a template

Two ways in.

From an event you've already built.

This is the most common path. You've just finished planning a wedding that flowed well, and you want to use the same shape for the next ten weddings. Open the event. In the planner header you'll see a Save as template button (next to the other action buttons). Click it.

A small modal opens asking for a name. Default suggestion: the original event's name with " template" appended. Most planners replace this with something descriptive of the shape rather than the original event: "Standard Saturday wedding", "Corporate one-day conference", "Two-day intensive workshop". You'll be picking templates by name later, so a name that describes the kind of event is more useful than the wedding it came from.

Click Save. 1pm duplicates the event's structure into a new template (copying every timeline item, in order, with their times, durations, titles, details, and Where fields) and lands you on the template's planner page. From here you can prune anything that doesn't belong in the template: a one-off "Pickup of cake from Lisa's parents at 2pm" probably isn't reusable, the standard ceremony block is.

What is copied: timeline item titles, start times relative to the event date, durations, locations (the Where field), and the per-item Details text.

What is not copied: assignments to specific crew members (the next event won't have those same people booked), the date, the briefing fields like PAX/space/client/organizer, attached files, links, requests, share links, and any execution state from the original event.

From scratch.

You can also build a template like you'd build an event. Open the events list, click the dropdown next to New event and choose New template (or use the equivalent option on the create form). Give it a name, then build the timeline from blank. This is rarely the better path because a template you've never run through a real event is usually missing the rough edges you only learn about by doing it; saving from a real event is the recommended way.

Using a template (inserting it into a new event)

Workflow:

Create a new event the normal way (New event button on the events list, set name and date, save). This is a fresh empty event with the date and status you typed.
In the new event's planner, click Insert template (in the same row of action buttons as Save as template, but now showing the insert side because the current event isn't itself a template).
A modal opens listing your saved templates by name. Pick one, click Insert.

1pm copies every item from the template into the current event, anchored to the new event's date. If the template has an item that starts at 9:00 on the event's day, the new event gets a 9:00 item on its date. If the template's item starts at 14:30, you get 14:30. The structure is preserved; the date moves to match the new event.

What you get afterward:

Every template item now lives in the new event's timeline.
The new event keeps the briefing fields, status, and date you already typed. The template doesn't overwrite those.
Crew assignments are blank. The template doesn't carry crew because next time's photographer is rarely last time's. Open each item and assign the right crew member for this event.
Existing items in the new event (if you added any before clicking Insert template) stay where they are. Inserting a template is additive, not destructive.

This is reversible only by hand: there's no "undo last template insert" button. If you insert the wrong template, you can delete the inserted items one by one or by selecting a range. For most planners the easier fix is to delete the whole event and create a fresh one.

Tidying up the template after the first few uses

A template often only reaches its useful form after two or three real events. The first save copies whatever was on that particular event; later edits trim the parts that were specific to the source.

A useful exercise after running an event from a template: open the template afterward and ask "did anything go in this event that should now be part of the template?" and "did anything in the template not fit this event?". Sliding both directions over time, the template settles into a shape that genuinely reflects how the event runs.

Treat templates as living documents. Edit them whenever a pattern shifts. Renaming a template, deleting items, adding new items, adjusting times: all of these are fine and don't affect events that were inserted from the template earlier. The insert was a one-time copy, not a live link.

What you cannot do

You can't save a template as a template. If you're already on a template's planner page, the Save as template button is hidden. (If you genuinely want to duplicate a template, do it by inserting the template into an empty event and then saving that event as a template: clunky but rare enough that we didn't build a special path.)

You can't insert a template into another template. Same reason: a template's job is to be the source, not the destination. The Insert template button is hidden on template pages.

You can't generate a share link from a template. Templates aren't events with crew watching. The Share section is hidden on the template's planner.

You can't share a template with another 1pm account. Templates are per-planner. If a colleague wants the same template, they need to build their own from one of their events.

Plan limits still apply. If you insert a template that would push the new event past the per-event item cap, 1pm refuses with a friendly message. Trim the template, trim the existing event, or pick a smaller template.

Sensible naming

A naming convention pays off when your template list grows past four or five.

By event shape, not by client: "Standard 1-day wedding" beats "Smith wedding standard".
By count or duration when that varies: "Half-day workshop", "Two-day conference".
By style when that meaningfully changes the shape: "Backyard wedding (compressed)", "Hotel ballroom wedding (elaborate)".

The Insert template modal sorts templates alphabetically, so a tiny prefix can keep related templates together: "Wedding / standard", "Wedding / small", "Wedding / destination".

When templates earn their keep

The pattern that benefits most from templates: similar event shape, different crew, different dates. Weddings are the obvious one. Corporate quarterly events. Repeat clients with the same brief every year. Touring shows. Anything where you find yourself typing similar timeline items week after week.

The pattern that doesn't benefit: bespoke one-off events where each event is its own structure. A festival, a multi-day conference with a different agenda each year, a corporate launch event for a new product line. For those, the template is wasted effort because nothing reuses.

Deleting a template

A template is an event under the hood, so deletion works the same way. Open the template, click Delete in the event header, confirm. The template is removed from your events list. Events that were previously created by inserting this template are not affected: the insert was a copy, the template's gone, the events keep their items.

There is no "are you sure" double-confirmation for templates beyond the standard delete prompt. They're cheap to recreate from a future event, so we don't make their deletion a ceremony.

If templates aren't showing up

Two common reasons:

You're on the Templates tab but you've never saved a template. The list will be empty with a "no templates yet" message. Build an event, click Save as template, the template appears here.
You're inserting on a template page rather than an event page. Look at the planner header: if it says Template above the name, the Insert template button is hidden because templates can't have other templates inserted into them. Go to a real event and try Insert template there.