To create a new proposal or capital project estimate it is often beneficial to base it on something similar you did before, especially when the previous project was sanitized and added to your library of templates. To create a project or proposal with reference to a template simply click on the "Copy Template" option in response to "What is your starting point" in the proposal or project SET-UP tab:

1. After your select "Copy template" select a template from the list in the field below. You can copy from a template and then add more data copied from another template to the same project or proposal later on
2. Once you select a template to copy from you will see the number of data elements which can be copied below, as:
   • Number of phases in your template proposal (if there are none, then this checkbox is faded-out as shown below)
   • Number of priced line items
   • Number of customer requirements assigned to your template
   • Number of work packages or WBS elements (there are 11 WBS elements in the example below)
   • Number of estimates whether labor, travel or other direct costs (all contained within one single basis of estimate in the example below)
   • Project or proposal-specific product indentures or bills of material with their associated consolidated material estimates
   • Number of parameters which feed into formula in your template
   • Number of delivery schedule or billing plan lines in your template's priced line items or assets
   • Number of risks or opportunities in your template
3. Check the box to copy the selected items, or uncheck to not copy. There are some cross dependencies for example:
   • If you uncheck WBS hierarchy then any estimates, priced list items, risk/opportunities etc. will still be copied but with the WBS assignment changed from the actual WBS to the new basis of estimate or estimating WBS
   • You cannot copy a billing plan (payment milestones) unless you copy the priced line items or assets
   • Copying proposal costing parameters or formula parameter values which are project or proposal specific is meaningless if you do not copy the estimates or bills of material which contain these estimating formula
4. You will also see two radio-button options for copying template dates and/or rescheduling the proposal. Normally you should re-schedule the proposal to your new period of performance, since template or library project dates won't apply.
5. Click the COPY button once you have decided what to copy to actually copy the selected data elements from the template into your new proposal. You can add more items later on by selecting another template again so don't worry if you missed something out by mistake

Templates are not actual projects - they are proposals or project estimates which have been copied and cleaned up specifically for the purpose of being used in the future as the basis of new proposals or capital project estimates. Anytime you anticipate the same or similar work being costed or priced multiple times, it is worth creating a template.

The benefit of templates is that they are not real estimates. All the noise, changes and customer-specific mods done in the course of the sales cycles can be stripped away, leaving a clean and re-usable proposal structure as an ideal start-point for subsequent bids.

It is up to each company to decide how complex to make proposal templates and how extensive a library to maintain. Bear in mind that trying to build an extensive library with alot of people contributing, often leads to poor quality and therefore unusable templates. It is better to start simple and build up your template library slowly with a rigorous QA process.

Because you can copy data from multiple templates into one proposal think of your templates as "building blocks" or lego bricks which you can combine together into your new proposal.

One really cool feature of iPE is that you can include multiple templates, yes. Consider the template library like a bunch of lego bricks or building blocks, which can be assembled together. This way your templates don't have to even be complete projects which you copy and then delete the unwanted parts from each time. Instead the templates can be independently deliverable parts of a project, or service offerings you regularly provide to your clients, which can then be combined together in the new bid, project or proposal.

Just remember what you name your templates is critically important when it comes to finding them again.

To include another template into your proposal or project cost estimate do either of the following:

1. Go back to the proposal or project SETUP tab and select the option to include a template (or prior project/proposal) again. Search for the template, or prior proposal, and include it. Note that the project work-package structure or WBS is 'appended' onto the end of existing WBS in your proposal, and renumbered. So if the template WBS started with 1, 1.1 etc. and your current project WBS goes up to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 at level 1, then the template WBS will be included as 7, 7.1 etc. It is easy to drag and drop and renumber your project structure elements from the WBS tab
2. Include a reference work package or WBS directly from the proposal or project WBS tab by typing the name of a WBS which you created before and selecting the reference WBS from the list, before copying it. Here you can control exactly what you want to copy including even which specific structural elements and/or tasks below the reference WBS you selected.

The list of reference WBS elements to copy from in the project WBS tab comes from what is called a 'federated search' which in layman's terms means that it can include anything - templates, prior proposals or cost estimates or even actual performance history. Work with your implementation consultant to optimize the federated search.