Templates: Why Every Case Should Start From a Shape, Not a Blank Page
A blank form is a decision deferred. A template is the decision made once — and applied every time, by everyone.
Ask three people in the same office to record the same tenancy and you will get three different records. One writes the deposit amount in the notes. One puts it in a custom field called "Dep". One forgets it. None of them is wrong — they were simply never told where it goes.
A template is the answer given once. It is the shape a case takes before anyone types a word.
What a template decides
- Tabs and sections — how the case is laid out on screen, so the same thing is always in the same place.
- Fields — typed, named, optionally required. A date field cannot hold "sometime in March".
- Tables — repeating groups with columns and totals: rent periods, evidence log, meeting minutes, line items.
- Contact roles — the slots people fill: Tenant, Guarantor, Witness, Line manager, Principal investigator.
- Tasks — the standard steps every case of this kind goes through.
- Documents — PDF designs that pull values from the case: the notice letter, the statement, the report cover.
- Automations — if-then rules: when the status changes, when a date approaches, when a field is filled.
Start from the library, not from nothing
Herarx ships a template library — tenancies, investigations, HR matters, research studies, client files and more. Every plan can browse it and copy from it. A copied template is yours: rename fields, drop what you do not need, add what you do. Most teams are running within an hour.
Templates are living things
The most useful property of a template is that it applies retroactively. Add a field to the tenancy template and every existing tenancy gains that field, empty and ready. Add a document design and every case can generate it. You never have to migrate old records to a new shape; the shape simply grows.
A few rules of thumb
- Make a field required only if the case genuinely cannot proceed without it. Otherwise people invent placeholder values to get past the form.
- Prefer choice fields to free text wherever the answers repeat. "In progress / On hold / Escalated" filters; "ongoing-ish" does not.
- Put things that repeat into a table. If you find yourself adding "Inspection 2", "Inspection 3" as fields, it is a table.
- Name contact roles after the role, not the person. "Tenant", not "Mrs Patel".
A blank page feels flexible. In practice it is where consistency goes to die. Give every case a shape, and the shape does the remembering for you.
