How is a project template structured?

When you create a template that includes project content, each tool brings in its own kind of structure, depending on the type of content it manages.

Folders

Some tools, such as Documents, Tasks, and File Releases, can be thought of as folders that contain individual items, subfolders, or both.

For example, the Documents tool has a Root Folder, inside which you can create a tree of subfolders to organize your documents according to your project's needs. Every document lives inside one of these folders.

Note: This works the same way regardless of the name of the root folder. For example, in the Tasks tool the root folder is called the Tasks Summary, and in the Discussions tool the root folder is called the Forum Summary.

In a project that has been in use for any significant time, users have probably created some number of documents, which they have shared by adding them to a folder in the Documents tool. When you create a project template from that project, you can choose to include those documents in the project template or not.

If you choose to include the documents in the template, those documents will appear in any new project that is created using that template.
If you do not include the documents in the template, new projects based on that template will include the Documents tool, including the Root Folder and its sub-folders, but none of the documents that existed in the original project.

Not folders

The Reports and Wiki tools are not organized in folders. When you include the content from these tools in a template, new projects created from that template include a flat collection of all the Wiki pages or reports in the original project, with all their text and data.