Risk Templates

Reuse template risks and Risk Template Sets to quickly populate a new risk register.

  5 minute read  

Risk Templates let you save common risks and their mitigation actions once, then reuse them whenever a similar project, customer, vendor, item, or resource comes along. Risk Template Sets group related template risks together, for example, a standard set of risks every new project should be checked against, so you can create several risks at once instead of registering them one by one.

When to use it

Use templates when:

  • You’re starting work with a new project, customer, vendor, item, or resource and want to seed the risk register with the risks you always expect to check for.
  • You’ve just registered a risk that’s likely to recur elsewhere and want to save it as a reusable starting point.
  • You want existing risks to follow a standard set of fields and mitigation actions instead of being filled in from scratch each time.

A template risk is a normal Risk record with the Template field set. Templates hold Description, Category, Likelihood, Impact, and their mitigation action lines, but not Owner, Status, or review dates, those only make sense on a live risk.

To create risks from a Risk Template Set

  1. Open the relevant Project, Customer, Vendor, Resource, or Item card or list, and select the record if you’re on a list.
  2. Choose Create Risks from Template.
  3. The Risk Template Sets list opens, filtered to the matching Related Type and bound to the selected record.
  4. Select a set and choose Create Risks from Template.

All risks and mitigation actions in the set are created for that record in one go.

A message confirms how many risks were created and for which record, for example: “3 new risk(s) for Project P0001 created.”

From the Risk List

  1. Choose the 🔎 icon, enter Risks, and then choose the related link.
  2. Choose Create New Risk from Template.
  3. The Risk Template Sets list opens without a related record bound.
  4. Select a set, choose Create Risks from Template, and select or enter the record it’s for.

Choosing which risks to include

If you want to create only some of a set’s risks, open the Risk Template Set Card instead of using the list-level action:

  1. On Risk Template Sets, open the set you want.
  2. Enter Related No. — the specific record the risks will be created for.
  3. On the Risks subpage, clear Include for any template risk you don’t want created this time.
  4. Choose Create Risks from Template.

Only the included rows are created.

Managing template risks

Open Risk Templates (choose the 🔎 icon, enter Risk Templates, and then choose the related link) to see all existing template risks, with Related Type, Category, Likelihood, Impact, and Score. Templates aren’t created directly from this list, use one of the ways below.

Save an existing risk as a template

  1. Open the Risk Card for the risk you want to reuse.
  2. Choose Save as Template.

A new standalone template risk is created, copying Description, Category, Likelihood, and Impact, along with its mitigation action lines (Action Code, Description, Estimated Cost (LCY) — line status resets to Open). The original risk is left unchanged, and the new template isn’t added to any Risk Template Set automatically.

Apply a template to an existing risk

  1. Open the Risk Card you want to fill in.
  2. Choose Apply Template.

If exactly one template risk matches the card’s Related Type, it’s applied automatically. If several match, you’re prompted to pick one. You’re then asked whether to overwrite fields that already have a value, or only fill in the blanks. Owner, Status, and review dates are never touched by this action.

Mitigation action lines are merged by Action Code: lines with a matching code are updated, and lines with a new code are added. Existing lines are never removed.

Create a template risk directly from a set

On a Risk Template Set Card, use:

  • Add Template Risk — creates a new blank template risk and opens its card. If you close the card without entering a Description, the template is discarded and no line is added to the set.
  • Add Existing Risk — links an existing template risk of the same Related Type to the set.
  • Remove from Set — removes the line from the set without deleting the template risk itself.

Managing Risk Template Sets

Open Risk Template Sets to see all sets, with Code, Description, Related Type, and the number of template risks in each. Related Type can’t be changed once a set has template risks, remove them first if you need to change it.

Add or remove a template from multiple sets

A template risk can belong to more than one set. On the Risk Template Card, the Template Sets FactBox lists which sets currently include it, with:

  • Add to Template Set — link the template to another set of the same Related Type.
  • Remove from Template Set — unlink it from a set without deleting the template.

Where templates appear

Template risks are excluded from the Risk List, the Risk Matrix, and Overdue Risk Reviews, they never show up alongside your live risk register, and they’re never flagged as overdue for review since they don’t have owners or review dates.