Build case templates

Case templates let you set a workflow once — phases, and the tasks inside them — and have every new case start with it in place. They live under Settings → Workstream Templates, and only firm owners and admins can create them.

Create and publish

Press New template, name it ("Litigation"), and describe it. Templates start as a draft: add phases and tasks, then Publish to mint v1 and make the template selectable when opening a case. Until a version is published, the template doesn't appear in the case-creation picker.

What a template contains

The editor is a reorderable list of phases, each with a title and a description of what happens in that phase. Inside each phase, reorderable tasks carry a title, description, a default assignee, and a due date offset in days — so "Validate intake forms, due 3 days in" materializes on every new case with the right owner and deadline already set.

Versions, not live edits

Edits accumulate in a working draft while the current published version keeps serving new cases. Publishing the draft mints the next version; the Versions list keeps every prior one, and Restore clones an old version back into the draft if a change didn't work out.

The rule that makes this safe: each case takes its own snapshot of the template at creation. Publishing v3 never reaches into cases created from v2 — their phases belong to them now, managed one at a time on each case's Overview. You'll see the diff summarized before you publish, so a version change is a deliberate act rather than a live wire into open matters.

A practical starting shape

Two or three templates cover most small firms: one per practice area you take routinely. Keep phase names in the words a client would understand — the phases you define here become the tracker clients read in their portal.