Templates
Publish a document as a template and other people can start their own copy of it. Using a template never touches the original: the person who uses it gets a new document in their own workspace, and edits it from there.
Any document type can be published — sheets, documents, presentations, notes, boards, and uploaded files alike.
Publish a document as a template
- Open the document and click Share in the editor header
- Scroll to the Template section at the bottom of the dialog
- Choose who it is for — Listed in this workspace or Anyone with the link
- Click Publish as template
The template link (/t/<id>) is created and copied to your clipboard. A picture of the document is taken from the open editor and attached to the card; if that is not possible the card falls back to the document-type icon.
Only the document's author or an owner of its workspace can publish — the same authority it takes to create an editor share link, and for the same reason: a template hands the content to an audience that workspace membership no longer bounds. The rule is enforced on the server, not just in the dialog.
Everyone else is not shown the controls at all. A member who can't publish sees no Template section in the Share dialog while the document has no listing; once it has one, they see the card's title, how many times it has been used, and a button to copy its link — but nothing to publish, edit, submit, or unpublish it.
A document has at most one listing. Publishing again updates the one that exists rather than creating a second, and the link stays the same.
Sheets connected to external data cannot be published
A datasource or lakehouse tab points at a connection that belongs to your workspace, so it would be empty for anyone who used the template. Publishing refuses such a sheet and names the tabs responsible. This is checked again when someone uses the template, so connecting a tab after publishing stops the template working rather than handing out a dead tab.
Tune the card
Once a listing exists, the same section lets you set its category (from a fixed list) and tags (freeform, comma-separated — they are lowercased, de-duplicated, and capped at ten), change its visibility, and take a fresh picture with Update preview. A thumbnail is a snapshot, not a live render, so it goes stale as you edit the document; Update preview is how you refresh it, and it is offered only while an editor that can take the picture is open.
The card's title comes from the document's title at publish time. There is no description field in the dialog today.
Unpublish (the bin icon) removes the card and revokes its preview link. The document itself is untouched.
The three tiers
| Visibility | Who can find it |
|---|---|
| Anyone with the link | Only people you send the link to. The listing appears in no gallery — holding the link is the whole of the access. |
| This workspace | Listed in the workspace's Templates tab for every member, and usable by anyone holding the link as well. |
| Public | Listed in the public gallery for anyone, signed in or not. Reached only through review — see below. |
You can change a listing between the first two at any time from the Share dialog. Public is never something you set yourself.
Browse templates
- Workspace → Templates in the sidebar lists the templates published in that workspace, with the public gallery on a second tab. Choosing a card opens its template page.
- /templates is the public gallery on its own, and it renders for someone who has never signed in. Choosing a card opens its template page; only using one needs an account.
- New → New from template on a workspace's documents list opens a picker with the same two tabs. This one creates the document immediately, into the workspace and folder you are looking at.
Every gallery has a search box, filters for document type and category, and a sort between Most used and Newest. Results load a page at a time with Load more.
TIP
A card shows how many times a template has been used. Uses by the publisher themselves are not counted.
Use a template
The template page (/t/<id>) shows the title, who shared it, the document type, the use count, and the picture. Preview opens the real read-only viewer on the actual document, rather than a screenshot.
Click Use this template and pick a destination workspace. You get:
- A new document of your own, named after the template. If you already have a document by that name in the destination, the new one gets a
(2),(3)suffix rather than a "(copy)" — a document started from a Weekly Report template is a weekly report, not a copy of one. - Authored by you, in the workspace you chose. Started from the New from template picker instead, it lands in the folder you were viewing.
- The content only. Comments, share links, and version history are not carried over; the new document starts its own.
If you are not signed in, the button reads Sign in to use this template and brings you back to the same page afterwards.
A template you may not see reports as missing
Opening a template you are not allowed to see gives you Template not found, the same answer as a link that never existed — whether a workspace has published a template is itself workspace information. If a colleague's link does not open for you, ask them which tier it is on rather than assuming the link is broken.
The public gallery
The public tier is the only one that goes through review.
To submit: open the document's Share dialog and use Submit for review in the Public gallery box. Submitting states what it costs you: your username and profile picture appear on the card, and you grant anyone permission to copy and modify the content.
Submitting changes nothing anyone else can observe. Your listing keeps working at the tier it already had, and links you have handed out keep resolving; only a reviewer's approval moves it to the public tier.
While a submission is pending you cannot change the card's title, category, or picture — a reviewer is looking at a fixed thing. The listing's own panel shows where the submission stands, along with whatever note the reviewer left, and that panel is the durable copy of the decision. (Notifications about approvals, rejections, and takedowns also reach the bell in the header — see Collaboration & Sharing.)
Rejection and takedown are different
- A rejection says the submission did not make the gallery's bar. Your listing keeps working exactly as it did before you submitted, at its existing tier. You can act on the reviewer's note and use Submit again.
- A takedown says the content may not be served at all. The listing stops answering for everyone but you, its preview link is revoked, and it cannot be used, re-submitted, re-published, edited, or unpublished. Your own document is untouched, and you can still copy or share it by other means.
Once a template is public
A public listing tracks the live document, so editing that document takes the card out of the gallery and back into the review queue until someone looks again. Changing the card's title, category, or picture does the same. That is deliberate: the gallery should only show what a reviewer actually approved.
Anyone signed in can report a public template from its page, choosing a reason. A report is a message to a reviewer and nothing else — it does not hide the listing or count toward any threshold.
The public tier depends on deployment configuration
Public templates need the deployment to have designated reviewers and to have a particular security setting switched on. Where either is missing, Submit for review fails with a message saying which — nothing is left silently pending. The workspace and link tiers are unaffected and work on every deployment.
Deployments that do designate reviewers give them a queue at /admin/templates listing pending submissions and open reports, where each can be approved, rejected, or taken down. Closing a report is a separate action from deciding the listing, so a report can be dismissed without removing anything.