About Folder Templates

Milan's folder templates allow administrators to standardize the folder structures of workspaces in WorkSite. When creating a workspace, either automatically through Billing To Milan or manually with Create Workspace, Milan uses a specified folder template to create and appropriately name folders, subfolders, search folders, and tabs within the workspace and assign them metadata values and default security. Moreover, if an end user would like to create additional folders in a workspace after it has been created, he or she can use On Demand Folders, which are also dependent on folder templates.

Using Folder Templates for Workspace Creation

When a template is used to create a workspace, all folders, search folders, and tabs defined in the template are created within the new workspace. Additionally, any metadata fields that have been added to folders in the template will be set with the appropriate values. If a folder has been specified as required, which should be the case for top level folders, users will not be allowed to delete it from the workspace after creation.

On Demand Folders

In order for end users to be able to create or edit folders within a workspace, one or more templates that define optional folders must be properly configured. The availability of a template within the on demand folder dialogs (Create Folder and Manage Folders) is determined by its Mode and the template filter to which is belongs. While a template's mode specifies the general usage of a template, i.e. whether it can be used for workspace creation or on demand folders, a template filter can limit the scope of a template to only those workspaces or folders that match specific metadata values for either one or two filter metadata. For example, using the default filter metadata of Practice Area and Class, one could create optional templates that would only be usable with real estate matters or only specific folders within real estate matters. After a user has selected a template and folder to create, she can also customize the name of the folder completely or add a prefix or suffix depending on the customization options selected in the template.

Organizing Templates

In general, folder templates fall into two categories: core and optional. Core templates, which contain only required folders such as Correspondence, are used exclusively for workspace creation, while optional templates define folders that may need to be created by users as a matter evolves. When organizing templates, core templates should be placed in the default template filter with the mode set to Workspace Creation only, thereby limiting their availability to the Create Workspace Wizard. Optional templates, on the other hand, can either be placed directly in the appropriate template filters, e.g. Practice Area: PATENT, or added to the default filter and then copied to each template filter as a template shortcut. With the second approach, which is strongly recommended, optional folders that apply to many different types of matters can be easily updated by editing just the original template.