Creating and Using Task Templates

Learning Team

Overview

Task templates are pre-configured workflows that automatically populate information when creating a task. By standardizing common processes, task templates help your firm maintain consistency across operations while significantly reducing staff time spent on repetitive data entry. Whether your team is onboarding new clients, conducting annual reviews, or managing compliance requirements, task templates ensure every step is captured and executed consistently, every time.

This article outlines how to create custom task templates and launch tasks using them within your Practifi organization.

Understanding Task Templates
Creating Task Templates
Creating Task Templates From the Process Tasks Page
Task Templates and Active Forms
Additional Features
Using Task Templates

Understanding Task Templates

Task templates serve as reusable blueprints for frequently performed activities in wealth management firms. Instead of manually entering task details each time your team needs to execute a standard workflow, such as processing account transfers or conducting quarterly client reviews, templates pre-fill all necessary information, assignment rules, and due date calculations. This standardization helps new team members follow established procedures, ensures compliance requirements are consistently met, and frees experienced advisors to focus on client relationships rather than administrative details.

Key benefits of task templates include:

Consistency: Every instance of a recurring task follows the same structure, reducing errors and ensuring nothing is missed
Efficiency: Staff save time by not re-entering the same information repeatedly
Scalability: As your firm grows, standardized templates help new team members quickly adopt proven workflows
Compliance: Built-in checklists and required fields help ensure regulatory requirements are consistently met

Creating Task Templates

To create a new task template, do the following:

If not already in the Settings app, click the App Launcher in the upper left-hand corner of Practifi.
Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
In the Settings app, use the Navigation menu and select Task Templates.

Please note: If the Task Templates page appears at the bottom of the list in your organization, you can change the page order in the menu to move it higher. To do this, click Edit to rearrange, then click Save. If you are unable to access the Task Templates page, follow the steps outlined in the Creating Task Templates From the Process Tasks Page section below.
On the Task Templates page, click the New Task Template button on the right-hand side.

Clicking the New button will open a New Process Task subtab. The following fields are displayed in the Summary section:
1. Subject (Required): This is the task’s name and how it will be displayed in shorthand within your Practifi organization. Enter a short, descriptive subject in this field that clearly identifies the task’s purpose.
2. Status (Required): This field determines the task’s status when it is launched. This is typically set to Not Started.
3. Visible: If this box is checked, the task template will be available to users from the New task (from template) global action. Checking this box makes the template accessible throughout your organization, allowing any authorized user to launch the task from relevant record pages.
4. Priority (Required): Set the task’s priority to indicate its importance to the assignee. This helps team members organize their workload and ensures time-sensitive activities receive appropriate attention.
5. Description: Enter the information that you would like to auto-fill within the Description field during task creation. This might include specific instructions, required documentation, or helpful context that users need to complete the task successfully.
6. Task Type: Optionally, select a type for the templated task. This will pre-populate the Task Type field when tasks are created from this template, making it easier to filter and report on specific work categories.
Scroll down to the Task Settings section to access the following fields:
1. Assignment Type: This setting determines who will be assigned the task when it launches. Leaving this set to None will assign the task to the user who created it. Other assignment options let you route work to specific roles, such as the client’s assigned advisor or a compliance officer, so tasks reach the right person automatically.
2. Due Date Interval: Enter a whole number in this field to specify the number of business days after the task’s creation that the task should be due. This automated due date calculation helps your firm maintain consistent service timelines across all client interactions.
3. Configure this task’s Active Form with: This picklist defaults to Form Elements. Select Flow Builder if you’re going to build an Active Form for the task using the Flow Builder tool.
4. Include Active Form in Preview Screen?: This picklist defaults to Yes. This setting controls whether the task’s Active Form fields are displayed in the New Task (from template) preview screen. Select No to hide Active Form fields from the preview.
5. Task Template Group: Enter an identifier to group this templated task along with other similar tasks. This value will appear in the Task Group picklist when a user creates a task from a template, allowing you to organize related templates into logical categories such as Account Opening, Annual Review, or Compliance Activities.
6. Related To: Optionally, select the objects and record types where you want this task template to be available. This controls where users can launch the template from within Practifi, ensuring the right templates appear in the right contexts.
7. Enable Advanced Execution Management: Check this box to allow users other than the task’s owner to complete the task. Click to highlight the role(s) you want to add, then click the right arrow to add to the Chosen box.
Please note: If you choose Client Service, users must be part of an Entity’s Servicing Team to edit tasks related to them. To learn more about how the above functionality works, please see Understanding Advanced Execution Management for Tasks.
In the Portal Settings section, check the Enable for Portal Users box to make this task template available in a client-facing portal.

Please note: This setting applies only to organizations with the Practifi Portals add-on service. To learn more about adding this functionality, please contact your CSM.
Once the task template information is entered, click Save to finalize the task template creation. Save & New may be clicked when creating multiple task templates at once.

Creating Task Templates From the Process Tasks Page

If you are unable to access the Task Templates page in Settings, do the following:

From the Settings app, use the Navigation menu and select Process Tasks.
Click the caret next to Recently Viewed in the Process Tasks list view, then select All Task Templates from the list view options.
On the All Task Templates list view, click the New button located on the right-hand side. From here, you can follow steps 5-8 in the above instructions.

Task Templates and Active Forms

As of the Albariño release, task templates within Practifi support the addition of Active Forms. When completing a workflow step, you often encounter information that needs a home in your organization. With Active Forms in your Practifi instance, you can enter that information directly on the workflow step’s record page. Using Active Forms avoids additional navigation and ensures that team members capture what’s needed before marking an item as complete. Once captured, that information gets used as input by the workflow step’s actions, sending it to exactly where it needs to go in your organization.

For example, when processing a new account application, an Active Form can capture client investment preferences, risk tolerance scores, and account funding details all on a single screen. This information can then automatically populate the appropriate fields in your CRM, trigger follow-up tasks, or generate required documentation without any additional data entry.

Active Form configuration will occur after the task template’s structure is initially created using the steps above. For information about Active Form configuration and considerations, please consult our Configuring Active Forms article.

Additional Features

In addition to Active Forms, other options become available after the task template is created. From the Process Task record page, you can add Checklist items you want to appear on the task for the user to complete. Checklists are particularly valuable for ensuring critical steps aren’t missed during complex processes, such as verifying all required documentation is collected before submitting a new account application. To learn more, please see the Preset Checklist Items section of our article on Creating Processes.

You can also use the Rule-Based Actions section to specify criteria that trigger actions at the task level. For instance, you might configure rules that automatically send notification emails when specific task outcomes are selected, or that launch follow-up tasks based on the information captured in an Active Form. To learn more about how these rules work, please see our Understanding and Using the Rule Builder article.

In the Available To area of the Task Template record, you can click the New button to specify Team Members, Divisions, and Financial Products where you want this task template to be available. Each of these relationships has a different impact on workflow availability:

If a task template is related to a Team Member, that user will see the item appear in the New Task (from template) action wherever it’s been exposed (as per the item’s Related To options).
If a task template is related to a Division, any user who’s a member of that Division will see that item appear in the New Task (from template) action wherever it’s been exposed (as per the item’s Related To options).
If a task template is related to a Financial Product, any user will see that item appear in the New Task (from template) action for an Entity that has one or more related Asset/Liability records, which are themselves related to that Financial Product (via either the Financial Product or Parent Financial Product lookup fields).

Using Task Templates

Task templates are available through Global Actions, page actions, the Processes & Tasks section, and through table mass and row actions on specific records within your Practifi organization. The creation process will prompt you to select a task template, display the fields in an editable form for any final adjustments, and then create the task record with the specified values. Depending on the context in which the action is launched, the task will be automatically linked to the relevant records.

This flexibility means your team can launch standardized workflows from exactly where they’re needed. For example, an advisor can immediately launch an Annual Review task that’s already pre-populated with the client’s information, the appropriate due date, and assigned to the right team member with a single click.

For detailed instructions on using task templates, please see our Using Tasks article.