---
title: "Creating a meeting template"
description: "Build a reusable meeting structure in Talkspirit: add sections and agenda items, then choose who in your organisation can use the template"
category: structure-governance
section: meetings
type: Tutorial
lastUpdated: 2026-08-26
locale: en
canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-meeting-template
---

# Creating a meeting template


## Creating a meeting template
A meeting template is a reusable agenda. Its **Sections** become the steps a meeting walks through, and its **Agenda items** are copied into every meeting built from it. You create and manage templates in the **Meetings** app, under **Meeting settings** > **Templates**.

> **In summary:** open **Meeting settings** > **Templates** in the **Meetings** app, click **Add template**, name it, choose a **Category** and a **Visibility**, then add the sections the meeting should walk through.

You can open **Templates** if you can create meetings, or if you administer a circle. Anything you create is yours alone (**Personal**) until you move it: only a meeting administrator can publish a template to the whole **Organisation**.

## How do I create a template?

1. Open the **Meetings** app, click **Meeting settings** at the bottom of the sidebar, then **Templates**.
2. Click **Add template**. The editor opens on a template called **New template**, in the **Standard** category, with **Personal** visibility and a single **Agenda** section.
3. Click the name and type your own. A name is the only requirement.
4. Choose a **Category**, then set **Visibility** to decide who can use the template.
5. Click **Add section** once per part of the meeting. Give each section a title, an icon, a **Section Type** and a description.
6. Click **Add agenda item** for any discussion point you want on every meeting built from this template.
7. Click **Save**.

To start from a ready-made structure instead of a blank one, install a template from the gallery and adapt the copy.

![The Templates page in the Meetings module. Templates are grouped into an Organisation lane and a Personal lane, each split by category, with a Browse gallery and an Add template button at the top right. The highlighted Meeting settings entry at the bottom of the sidebar is how you get here.](/images/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-meeting-template/01-meeting-templates-page.png)

## What can I put in a template?

A template carries a name, a **Category**, a **Visibility**, a description, its sections and its agenda items. The **Section Type** is what makes a section behave differently during the meeting:

| Section Type | What the section does in the meeting |
|---|---|
| **Agenda** | An open list of discussion topics to work through |
| **Custom** | A blank section for any content, such as notes or links |
| **Check-in** | A quick opening round; the participant list is filled in automatically |
| **Checklists** | Lists recurring checklists and tasks for the meeting's participants |
| **Goals** | Lists goals and OKRs for the meeting's participants |
| **Metrics** | Lists metrics and KPIs for the meeting's participants |
| **Projects** | Lists projects for the meeting's participants |
| **Closing** | A final round to capture everyone's feedback before the meeting ends |

Every type except **Custom** can be used once per template. **Custom** sections can repeat, which is why they are the right place for free-form meeting notes. A template always keeps at least one section, so the last one cannot be deleted. Drag the handle on the left of a section or an agenda item to reorder it.

> **Note:** **Checklists** and **Metrics** sections require the Holacracy add-on, and **Goals** and **Projects** sections require access to those apps. Types you cannot use are absent from the list. Your organisation may also have renamed *Checklists*, in which case the section carries your own wording.

![The template editor for a template called Team Meeting, showing its Category, Visibility and description above a list of four sections: Check-in, Discussion, Action Items and Closing. The Discussion section is expanded on its Section Type selector, set to Custom, with the explanation of what that type does and the section's own description below it.](/images/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-meeting-template/02-template-editor.png)

## Which templates come with Talkspirit?

Ten system templates ship with Talkspirit: Governance Meeting, Streamlined Governance Meeting, Tactical Meeting, Sprint Retrospective, Daily Standup, Team Meeting, Strategic Review, 1-on-1, Sprint Planning and Sprint Review.

Click **Browse gallery** on the **Templates** page to see them, filter them by category, search them, and read the sections each one contains. Click **Install** to add one to your own templates. You always get a **Personal** copy, which you can then rename, restructure and move like any template you built yourself. The system templates themselves are read-only: they are not editable and cannot be deleted, so a fresh copy is always available.

Governance and Tactical templates appear in the gallery only when your organisation has the Holacracy add-on.

![The Meeting Template Gallery. A sidebar lists the categories with a count each, and every card shows the template name, its category, how many sections it has, its rough duration, a description and an Install button.](/images/structure-governance/how-to-create-a-meeting-template/03-meeting-template-gallery.png)

## How do I edit, move, or delete a template?

To edit a template, click its row on the **Templates** page. Once a template is saved, every change you make is stored as you go, and the **Save** button in the editor closes it.

The three-dot menu at the end of each row holds the rest:

- **Move to…** changes which people can use the template: **Organisation**, one of the circles you administer, or **Personal**. Talkspirit asks you to confirm, because moving a template out of a shared lane takes it away from the people who were using it. You can also drag a template row into another lane.
- **Duplicate** creates a copy named after the original, with " (copy)" appended.
- **Delete template** removes it.

> **Warning:** deleting a template is permanent, and it changes the meetings built with it. Those meetings fall back to a single **Agenda** section and no longer show the structure they were run with. Their agenda items are kept. Duplicate the template first if any meeting still refers to it.

## How do I use a template in a meeting?

When you create a meeting, the form shows a **Template:** line with a **Choose…** link. It opens a searchable list grouped by category, where each entry previews the sections in order. **None - open meeting** gives you a free-form meeting with a single **Agenda** section. Picking a template fills in the meeting title and description when they are still empty, and sets the meeting type to the template's category. For the full meeting form, see [Opening, scheduling, editing, or deleting a meeting](/structure-governance/how-to-open-schedule-edit-or-delete-a-meeting).

## What's Next?

- [Meeting Templates: Best Practices and Example Uses](/structure-governance/meeting-templates-best-practices-example-uses)
- [Opening, scheduling, editing, or deleting a meeting](/structure-governance/how-to-open-schedule-edit-or-delete-a-meeting)
- [Adding agenda items to a scheduled meeting](/structure-governance/adding-agenda-items-to-a-meeting)