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 pack-down, 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 a saved copy of an event's shape. It has a name, a full timeline (every item in order, with start times, durations, titles, details, and the Where field), and the event-level defaults worth reusing: the typical headcount, the space, the status, the client or organizer if it's a repeat booking, the BEO/briefing fields, and your branding. A venue template can even pre-wire your regular crew, because the per-item crew assignments come along too. What it deliberately leaves behind is the live execution state (start/finish marks, real-time progress) and the public share links, plus the source event's attachments, files, and requests.

Templates live alongside your events, under a separate Templates tab on the events list (with a count badge) so they don't clutter your real bookings.

This shape is deliberate. A template's job is to seed the next event so you're not retyping the same rhythm every week. The date is the one thing you always set fresh: when you start an event from a template, the timeline re-anchors to your new event's date.

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. It starts pre-filled with the event's current name; most venues 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. (Leave the name blank and 1pm falls back to the event's name with " template" appended.)

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: the whole timeline (item titles, start times, durations, the Where field, the per-item Details, and the crew assigned to each item) plus the event-level defaults (headcount, space, status, client/organizer, the BEO/briefing fields, notes, and branding).

What is not copied: attached files, links, and requests from the source event; the public share links; and any live execution state (start/finish marks). The date is carried but conventionally ignored, because the insert step re-anchors everything to the new event's date.

No blank-template builder.

There's no "new blank template" button: every template is born from Save as template on an existing event. If you really want to start clean, build a throwaway event, shape its timeline, then save that as a template (and delete the throwaway). In practice this is rarely worth it. A template you've never run through a real event is usually missing the rough edges you only learn by doing it, so 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 (sorted alphabetically). Pick one, click Insert items.

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 carry across. If the template's items had crew assigned (your regular venue team, say), those assignments come with them. Where next time's crew differs (a different photographer), open the item and reassign 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 venues 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 working share link from a template. Templates aren't events with crew watching, so even though the Share section still appears on a template's planner, the buttons there won't mint a live link (1pm refuses on the server).

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, open its settings (the edit modal), and click Delete event in the Options panel, then 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.