Task Templates

Task templates allow for reuse of pre-defined tasks without having to manually configure all the settings each time a new task is run. These templates can be reused across any studies within the application rather than being limited to the original study in which they were defined.

Naming of task templates and where they are stored is the same as for normal tasks, so it is up to the user to decide how they would like to organize and name their templates.

Creating a Task Template

To create a task template from an existing completed task navigate to step 1 of the completed task. Toggle the Template switch to On, which can be found near the top of the screen below the Start the Task title. This task is now a template and all of it's currently defined settings can be reused within other new tasks.

When creating a template from scratch, simply follow the usual process for task creation and toggle the Template switch to On. Note that you must ensure that you have a representative dataset available to load into this new task template otherwise you will not be able to progress past the dataset selection phase. This dataset will not be copied over to new tasks created from the template, and is only needed to ensure that the template settings are valid.

Using a Task Template

When creating a new task, you can select a task template to use as a starting point. This will pre-fill the task with all of the settings from the template. To do this, during step 1 of the task creation process, select a named template from the dropdown below Choose user defined template that appears above the Author section of the screen rather than selecting a analysis type directly. When a user-defined template is selected, the analysis type will automatically switch to the type defined in the template.

Note that the new task that is created from the template will not be linked to the original template. This means that any changes made to the template after the new task is created will not affect it. Additionally, the dataset and task name will not be copied over from the template. Those are left blank since they are specific to the new task being created and a user must set them themselves.

Exporting and Sharing Task Templates

Since task templates are just tasks they are able to be exported in the same way as any normal task. Navigate to the study that contains the task template you wish to export and download it as usual. These exported templates can then be provided to other users to import into their own studies for reuse by sending them the .pumascp file.