Updating the Templates contained in the Document Libraries of the Case Management Site Template of the Fabulous 40

Recently I was asked an excellent question:

“How do you update the templates contained in the Document Libraries of the ‘Case Management’ Site Template?”

It is a great and common question, the quick technical answer is:

“Update the document in which the Content Type of the Document Library is derived from”

Instead of keeping the answer technical thought a quick Hands on Lab would easily illustrate and answer much easily, with that in mind what you will need to complete this quick lab is:

Requirements

· A site based on the “CaseManagement.stp”

· Office 2007 as the default Office Suite

· Around fifteen minutes to complete this lab

· For the purposes of this lab we will use:

o Document Library: Case Documents

o Document: Expense Report.xls

o Content Type: Expense Report

Steps

1. Ensure enough permissions to modify the Case Documents Document Library, administrator permissions should work fine

2. Navigate to the Case Management Site

3. Navigate to the Case Documents Document Library in which you wish to change the template

4. Click on the Expense Report WorkSheet

5. Select the Edit Radio Button

6. Click the OK Button

7. Modify the Expense Report Worksheet to match your needs

8. Save it to the Desktop or a location of your choice

9. Click the Settings Link of the Document Library

10. Click the Document Library Settings Link from the list of choices of the DropDown

11. Under the Content Types section click the Expense Report Content Type

12. Click the Advanced settings link under the Settings section

13. Select the Upload a new document template Radio Button

14. Click the Browse… Button

15. Locate the recently modified Expense Report Worksheet

16. Click the OK Button

17. Navigate to the Case Documents Library

18. Click the New Link

19. Click the Expense Report Link from the choices in the DropDown

20. Click the OK Button

21. The updated template is now displayed

22. Congratulate yourself, you did a great job!

Conclusion
After you complete the lab, you might be wondering:

“Do I have to repeat these steps for all the templates I wish to update?”

The answer is:

“Yes”

You might also end up wondering why so much complexity has been added to a simple process, the reason for this is because it does add tremendous flexibility when sharing this same template across your entire Site Collection.

Imagine that this template will be used all across the entire Site Collection which encompasses 50 Sites and dozens of Document Libraries, making a modification to a centric Site Content Type does simplify the entire process of maintenance. Mostly, because you make the modification and it will replicate across the entire Site Collection. One thing to keep in mind is that it will modify all those new documents based on the recently updated template only, in other words it is not a retroactive process; previously created documents will not updated the change.

Enjoy updated the templates!