Creating and Using Task Templates

A task template is a saved, reusable set of tasks you can drop onto a card in one action instead of rebuilding the same checklist by hand every time.

This article covers what templates are for, how to build one, the fields that control how it behaves, and the two ways to put it to use. For the mechanics of creating an individual task (task types, fields, the slash command, archive behavior), see How to Manually Create a Task, this article assumes you're already familiar with that and focuses only on what's specific to templates.

There are two real reasons to reach for a template instead of adding tasks one at a time:

Speed on recurring workflows. Move-in checklists, lead follow-up sequences, delinquency/eviction steps, maintenance handling, anything you'd otherwise rebuild by hand on every card.

Automations that key off task completion. This is the one that's easy to miss: a task-completion automation (for example, "when this task is completed, do X") can only be triggered by a task that came from a template. An ad hoc task added manually or by an unrelated automation won't trigger it. If you want that kind of dependency anywhere in your workflow, the task has to originate from a template, even if you never intend to reuse the template elsewhere.

Task templates aren't managed from a central list. They're scoped to each board (so your Accounts Receivable templates are separate from your Move-Ins templates), and you build and save them from a card's Tasks section rather than a dedicated Templates page.

To find your existing templates:

This opens a list of every task template saved for that board. From here you can also delete a template you no longer need.

💡 The book icon in the top navigation still opens a Template Library, but that library is for Email, SMS, and Form templates only. Task templates don't appear there.

Templates are built from a real set of tasks rather than a blank template screen:

The template is now available to load onto any card on that board, or to use in an automation.

The Include Assignees toggle decides where each task's assignee comes from when the template gets loaded elsewhere:

On: each task keeps the specific assignee it had when you built the template. Use this when a task should always go to the same person or role regardless of which card the template lands on, for example, a specific team member who always handles the "Evaluate Lease for Eviction" step. Off: assignees aren't carried over. Instead, every task in the template defaults to whoever is assigned to the card it's loaded onto. Use this for templates that should follow the card's owner rather than a fixed person.

This toggle controls whether the template's tasks run in parallel or in order:

On: tasks appear one at a time, in the order you built them. The next task in the list only becomes visible/actionable once the task before it is marked complete. Use this for a workflow where step 2 genuinely shouldn't start before step 1 is done, like an eviction process or a multi-stage onboarding checklist. Off: all tasks in the template load onto the card at once, with no dependency between them. Use this for a checklist where the items can be worked in any order.

Template task descriptions support the same merge fields available elsewhere in Aptly. A merge field looks like {{Board Name["Field Name"] || fallback: }} and resolves to the real value from whatever card the template gets loaded onto, for example a building address, a rent amount, or a lease end date. This is how a template like "Evaluate Lease for Eviction" can show a real lease name and past-due balance on every card it's used on, instead of generic placeholder text.

Due dates in a template work a little differently than on a one-off task, since the template doesn't know in advance which card it will land on:

By default, a task is due as soon as the template is loaded. You can instead base a task's due date on a specific date field from the card it's loaded onto (for example, Move-In Date), set to occur a number of days before or after that field.

💡 We didn't get a clean live screenshot of this specific control this pass, since the redesigned dialog surfaces it a little differently than before. If you rely on relative due dates in your templates, worth a quick check that this still behaves as expected before you lean on this section.

You can put a saved template to work in two ways.

This is the direct way to apply a template to one card:

Open the card. Scroll to the Tasks section. Click the three-dot menu in the Tasks section. Select Load Template. Choose the template you want from the list. It's scoped to this board, so you'll only see templates saved for cards on this board. The template's tasks are added to the card immediately, respecting whatever Assignment Rule and Sequential setting were saved with it.

If a template should apply to every new card on a board (not just the ones you remember to load it onto by hand), you can set it as the board's default instead of building an automation to add it:

Open a card on the board and go to the Tasks section's three-dot menu → Load Template. Choose the template. Check "Make this checklist the default for all newly created [board] cards."

Once checked, that template's tasks load automatically onto every new card created on that board going forward, no automation setup required. This is the faster path when what you actually want is "every card on this board should start with this checklist," reach for an automation instead only when the trigger is something other than card creation (a stage change, a field update, etc.) or when you need conditional logic around when the template applies.

Use this when the template should load based on something other than a card simply being created, or when you're layering it into a larger automation:

Go to Automations and create a new one. Set your trigger (e.g., On stage change, When a field updates, etc.). For the action, select Create Task. Choose From Template and select your task template. Review the automation details and click Save.

💡 Remember: this is also the only way to get task-completion automations to fire, since those require the task to have come from a template in the first place (see Why Use a Task Template, above).

Use task templates for recurring workflows like move-in checklists, lead follow-up sequences, delinquency and eviction workflows, or maintenance request handling. If you ever need to adjust the workflow, edit the task template rather than each individual task, and if you need it to apply to every new card automatically, set it as the board default before building a redundant automation to do the same thing.