Templates are typically used by companies to make document production easier and smoother. They can also be used to store valuable lessons and information enabling the document to contain important instructions and steps from the beginning, as opposed to starting at ground zero each time.

In Innovator, templates begin as far back as the part itself. Parts can be actual parts that contain all types of information, including a list of characteristics. A template of a part can still contain all the same information. We recommend that in creating templates, each company should develop a naming convention. For example, all templates will include the word "template" in the name of the part; or all templates will start will "00-" for their part number. Currently, Innovator does not differentiate between an Item and its template. So, the only difference will come from the visual clues, such as the name and the part number, that the company will choose to set up.

Once you create a part template, you can create the necessary documents for it, such as the DFMEA and a Process Planner. Create these documents as you would for any regular part. These documents should then appear in the Quality Planning Documents tab of the Part, and can contain all the valuable instructions and lessons that are necessary for these types of parts. Let's take a look at a part template which we will also use as an example in cloning.

To examine a part template:

  1. From TOC, Design, select Parts. Enter the chosen search criteria in the search line. In our example, all templates contain a "template" in the name, while their part numbers start with "00-".

    Hit the Search icon to find all applicable parts.

  2. We will look at the Filter template. Here are the documents that it contains.