Templates (Administration)

Overview

Templates make streamlining and standardizing the management of configurations more effective. Templates themselves are configurations that are templates because they have a template type (see “Template Types” section below) and they are in a state that marks them as a valid template.

The goals of templates are:

Efficiency: Simplify the creation and maintenance of configurations by providing predefined templates that reduce manual effort and ensure consistency.
Scalability: Enable organizations to manage complex systems by using templates to replicate proven configurations across multiple units or projects.
Compliance: Ensure all configurations adhere to company policies and standards through the controlled use of templates and protocols.

Managing Templates

Template usage prerequisites

In order to use templates to create new configurations there are some setup steps needed so that in the end the following prerequisites are met:

The configuration area in which a template should be used has at least one template unit enabled
The template unit mentioned in the previous point has at least one configuration
This configuration has a type with the property isTemplate set to true
This configuration is also in a validTemplate state

When these prerequisites are fulfilled it’s possible to create a new configuration from a template (see “Template usage” section below)

Creating a template configuration

To fulfill the prerequisites mentioned in the previous sections the following steps are required:

Create a template configuration concept type

In the administration section under “Concept types” (1) select configuration (2) and click “Add Configuration type” (3). Make sure that the “Is Template” checkbox is selected (4), fill out the other fields and hit “save” (5)

After this template configuration type was created it can be configured like any other concept type.

Note: The “Associated Configuration Item Type From Template” is not relevant here on the template type but rather on the type of the configuration that gets created by using a template (or updated by applying a template). More info below in the “Template usage” section.

Create a template unit concept type

Create a template unit type the same way as the configuration type was created.

Adding a unit template type to a configuration area

Create a template unit and template configuration

In the configuration area that was configured in the previous step create a new unit but make sure to select the template unit type that was just created.

In that new unit create a new configuration or use automatically created “Initial Stream”. This configuration will later be the template that can be used to create other configurations. This configuration can be edited like any other configuration.

Put the template configuration in a “valid template” state

In order to actually use the configuration as a template it has to be put in a “valid template” state. A “valid template” state is a special type of state that can be managed in the state machine on the template configuration type. By default there is always a built in “valid template” state in every new template configuration type. The transitions to that state can be changed and new “valid template” states can be added (see here for more details).

Since the “valid template” state is also a “baseline closed” state we first have to create a closed baseline of the configuration that we want to have as a template (see here for more details on creation of baselines). After that it can be put into a “valid template state” and is then as the name of the state suggests a valid template.

Enable the template in a configuration area

In order to use the template configuration the parent template unit has to be added to a configuration area as a “Associated Template”

After saving the update to the configuration area the template can be used to create new configurations:

Or to apply to existing configurations:

More info on template use can be found in this section.