Save a design as a template

Turn a finished design into a template your organization starts new designs from, and keep it up to date.

In short

A template is a copy of a finished design. Everyone in your organization who may read designs finds it in the templates gallery and starts new designs from it. In a personal workspace a template is yours alone. Use it to keep your standard architecture or your standard flow in one place.

Before you start

Who: saving needs you to manage the design. Only whoever saved a template, or someone who manages the organization's settings, changes or removes it. Everyone who reads designs finds it.
Plan: Designer is part of every plan, Free included. The Free plan limits how many designs a workspace keeps; Plan & usage shows the limit and what you hold. Making a design from a template follows the same limits as "New design".
First: finish the design and wait a moment after your last edit: a template is a copy of the saved design.

Steps

Open the design. In the header menu, choose "Save as template". You need to manage the design.
Give it a "Name" and a "Description".
Under "Save as", choose "A new template", or an older template to save over it.
Press "Save template", or "Save over it".

Result: "Saved as a template".

On the Designer home, open the header menu and choose "More templates". Your template shows "Saved in this workspace".
Press "Use template". In the sheet "Use" and the template's name, change the "Name" and press "Create".
Press "Open" when it is made. The new design is a copy, and the template stays as it was.

Good to know

A template is a copy of the saved design, not of changes still being typed. Wait a moment after your last edit before you save.
Saving over a template raises its revision, such as "Revision 2". Designs already made from it stay as they are.
Save over a template of the same kind: an architecture over an architecture, a workflow over a workflow.
The same dialog lists "Templates of this workspace". Remove one with its remove button; Undo in the message brings it back.
A workspace keeps at most 100 design templates.
Only whoever saved a template, or someone who manages the organization's settings, can change or remove it.
Making a design from a template follows the same rules as "New design", including your plan's limits.

If something goes wrong

"Only people who manage this design can save it as a template, since everyone in the workspace will see it."
"A workspace keeps at most 100 design templates. Remove one first."
"Save over a template of the same kind: an architecture over an architecture, a workflow over a workflow."
"Name the template first."