Get Started with Templates

This feature is available on all plans.
Users with the manage templates permission can access this feature.

A template is a structured blueprint that helps your team maintain consistency and quality, streamlining the writing process.

In this guide, you'll learn everything about EasyContent's templating system. By the end, you'll be able to create and customize templates for any content type. Let's begin!

P.S. If you want more flexible control and to be able to add or remove fields directly while editing a content item, you may want to consider using a custom structure instead of a template. Learn more about custom structures here.

Accessing Templates

To access templates, make sure that you are inside a project. In the left sidebar menu, select the project you want to work on via the project selection dropdown. Once the project menu opens up, under the Configuration group, click Templates.

On the templates page, you'll see all the templates available for the current project.

Creating a New Template

Let's start by creating a new template. There will be starter templates present in every new project you create. Depending on your plan, these starter templates may fill your project's template creation limit, so feel free to delete them if you want to follow along with this guide.

1. Click the Create template card.
2. Give the new template a name and an optional description.
3. Click the green Create button to create it.
4. Your new template is now ready!

Template Tabs

After creating a template, you'll be redirected to the template editor page. You'll see two tabs: Main Content and CMS fields.

In EasyContent, templates are made up of tabs, and tabs are made up of fields. Tabs are a way to group related fields to organize information. Fields are the actual building blocks you use to create your template.

You may have noticed that the CMS Fields tab is crossed out. This is because it is currently hidden.

Click on the CMS Fields tab, and you'll see a notice saying that "this tab is hidden". To unhide it, click the vertical three-dot icon next to its name and click Show. You should now see the fields under the CMS Fields tab.

System Tabs and General Tabs

Whenever you create a new template, it will always have the "Main content" and "CMS Fields" tabs. These two belong to the system tabs group. When you create a new tab, they are considered a general tab. The differences between a system tab and a general tab are the following:

Fields are also classified as either a system field or a general field. We'll talk more about them later.

Creating a New Tab

Click the New Tab button to create a new tab. Give it a name and click the green check button to finish creating it. Your new tab is now ready for you to add fields to it.

Renaming and Rearranging Tabs

To rename a tab, click it to make it the active tab, then click it again to rename it. You can also use the rename option in the three-dot menu icon. To rearrange tabs, click and drag the handles that appear before a tab name.

Deleting, Hiding, and Duplicating a Tab

System tabs cannot be deleted, but they can be hidden. On the other hand, general tabs cannot be hidden, but they can be deleted. Additionally, you can't duplicate a system tab.

• To hide a system tab, click it to make it the active tab, then click the three-dot menu and click "hide".
• To delete a general tab, click it to make it the active tab, then click the three-dot menu and click "delete".
• To duplicate a general tab, click it to make it the active tab, then click the three-dot menu and click "duplicate".

Template Fields

Template fields are what allow you to add content to your content items. Think of them as the building blocks of your template.

If you've been following along, click the main content tab again. Under it, you'll see three fields: Title, Main content, and Files.

For the title and main content fields, you'll notice that there are several options available.

• Set recommended length to - gives recommendations about the length of the field's text content.
• Visible - when checked, this field will appear in the content editor; if unchecked, this field will not appear in the content editor.
• Required - when checked, the content item using this template can't be submitted to the next status if this field is empty. Note that manually changing the workflow status can bypass this.
• Writer guidance - you can add guidance for the human writers that will fill this field. This will be visible in the content editor.
• EasyAI guidance - you can add guidance for EasyAI about how to fill out this field. This is not visible in the content editor.

You might've also noticed the system field tag in these fields.

System fields are tied to our API and CMS integrations and cannot be deleted. If you check the CMS fields tab, you will see that all default fields there are also system fields. System fields are added by default, and they cannot be created, duplicated, or deleted. The differences between a system field and a general field are the following:

You can learn more about our template fields here.

Adding New Fields

Go back to the main content tab and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You should see the "Add a new field" button.

Click it, and all of the available fields you can use will be displayed. Each of them comes with slightly different options. For more information, you can check out this help article. Let's try adding a new field.

For the sake of this guide, we're going to add a Paragraph text field. Click the add new field button and select the Paragraph text field to add it to the main content tab. The new tab will appear at the bottom of the page.

Give it a name in the input that says "Name this paragraph text field". The name you give to this field will appear in the content editor. Make sure it reflects what you want it to be used for. For example, you might want to name it "Summary" so it can be used as a field to write a summary for the content item. Check the "plain text" mode, and this will become a plain text field. Checking "required" will make it so that a user assigned to a content item using this template will not be able to submit that content item to the next status if this field is empty.

You may also want to add guidance for the human writer and EasyAI. This will allow you to give help, hints, or instructions to your team or EasyAI so they know exactly what they need to put in this field.

You can use the handle or the up/down arrow to rearrange fields. Try putting your new paragraph text field under the main content tab.

Congratulations! You've created your first template and customized it! Try adding additional fields to different tabs to see their options. Then, use your template on a content item to see it in action. Play around until you learn what's the best structure for your templates, or check out the starter templates included in every new project to see how they're built.

That's it! You're ready to build custom templates for your needs! If you need further help, have any questions, or if you want to see additional features like more fields or more options, don't hesitate to drop us a message at support@easycontent.io!

Happy collaborating!