QBR templates

A template is the outline every client review follows: its slides, the metrics on them and the plain-language prompts that AI answers. Reports and schedules are built from a template, so one well-made template saves you from rebuilding the same review for every client. You manage templates on the Templates page of QBR Studio (route /qbr/templates). Opening a template shows it in the editor at its own address under that route.

Before you start: the QBR Reporting module must be on for your organisation (an administrator controls this on Module Management), and you must be an Administrator or a Service Desk Manager. Customer Success users can run QBR Studio but do not see the Templates, Schedules and Settings tabs.

Start a template from a starter

QuantumOps ships five starters, built on the review arc that MSPs use with their clients. A starter is copied into your templates when you use it, so you can edit your copy freely and the starter itself stays as it was.

1. Open Templates in QBR Studio.
2. Scroll to Start from a starter.
3. Pick the starter that is closest to the review you give, then select Use this starter.
4. The copy opens in the template editor under the starter's own name. Rename it if you like.

If your organisation has no template at all when someone starts a review, QuantumOps creates the Strategic QBR template for you and makes it the default.

Start a blank template

1. On Templates, select Blank template.
2. Type a Name (up to 200 characters), then select Create template.
3. The template opens in the editor with one Cover slide. Add the slides you need from the plus icon in the slide list.

Save a review as a template

A review you have already built can become a template. Open the review, choose Save as template from the ellipsis (…) menu in the review's header (its tooltip reads More actions), name it under Template name and select Create template. The new template has the review's slides and block settings, without the client's numbers and text, so every review made from it builds its own. It opens in the template editor. The steps are in Review, publish and share with the client.

Make a template the default

The first template you create becomes the default, and a new review uses the default template when nobody picks another. Exactly one template is the default at a time.

1. Find the template under Your templates.
2. Select Make default.

The default template shows a Default badge and is listed first. You can also choose the default on the Workflow tab of the QBR settings, described in QBR settings: brand, workflow and HaloPSA items. A template that is archived cannot be made the default: unarchive it first.

Open, duplicate, archive or delete a template

Each template under Your templates is a card with its name, an optional category and description, and four counts: Slides, Blocks, AI blocks and Version. The line under the counts says how many schedules and reports use it and who changed it last.

The default template has no archive or delete icons. Make another template the default first.

A template that a schedule still uses cannot be deleted. The confirmation says how many schedules use it and suggests pointing them at another template first, or archiving this one instead. Change the schedules on QBR schedules.

Start a review from a template

Select New QBR from this template on a template's card. The new review form opens with that template chosen. The button is not shown on archived templates. The review form itself is covered in QBR Studio.

See which schedules and reports use a template

The card shows "Used by" followed by the number of schedules and reports built from the template. The numbers update on their own while you keep the page open, as reports are queued and finish. To see the schedules themselves, open QBR schedules.

Edit a template

The editor is the same canvas you use when you edit a review, applied to the template's block definitions instead of a client's results. The details of moving blocks, the Add palette and the Chat assistant are in Editing a review; this section covers what is particular to templates.

The header carries the template's name (change it in place), a Version badge, Default and Archived badges where they apply, and the category, slide count, block count and when it was last saved. Unsaved changes appears as soon as you change anything.

The editor has three areas:

• Slides on the left lists every slide with a thumbnail. Use the plus icon to add a slide from a layout: Blank, Cover, Section divider, Title and text, Two columns, Executive summary, Service desk, Satisfaction or Recommendations. Each slide has icons to move it up or down, duplicate it, hide it from or show it to the client, and delete it.
• The slide itself in the middle, with Speaker notes underneath.
• A panel on the right with five tabs: Add, Block, Chat, Preview and Revisions.

Add and define blocks

On Add, drag a block onto the slide, or select it to place it where there is room. When a block is selected, the Block tab shows its definition. Which fields you see depends on the kind of block:

• A data block (KPI, chart, table or quote) has a Show as choice, the Metrics it shows, Compare with the prior period and Show the top for category charts. The metrics come from the Metric library.
• A prompt block has a Focus, the instruction What should this block say? and Evidence metrics, the numbers the AI reads and cites. The option "Let the AI look things up with connected tools" lets it use read-only look-ups; whether that is allowed at all is set on the AI tab of the settings (QBR settings: CSAT sources, metrics and AI).

With nothing selected, the Block tab shows the slide's own settings: Slide title, Subtitle, Layout (Title and blocks, Cover or Section divider) and the option Start hidden in new reviews.

Default speaker notes

Open Speaker notes under the slide and type the default talking points for that slide. Reviews made from the template start with these notes.

Slides that start hidden

Turn on Start hidden in new reviews for a slide the client should not see unless you decide otherwise, for example a deep-dive that only some clients need. The slide is in every review made from the template but is marked as hidden from the client. In a review you can show it when that client needs it. The hide and show icon in the slide list does the same thing.

Description, category and slide theme

1. Select Details in the header.
2. In Template details, write the Description (when to use the template and who it is for, up to 1,000 characters) and pick or type a Category (up to 100 characters). The category suggestions are Quarterly business review, Monthly service review, Executive, Security and lifecycle and Annual technology plan.
3. Under Slide theme, keep Brand kit so reviews use your organisation's colours, font and logo, or choose Custom for this template to give reviews made from it their own look: main and accent colours, chart colours, slide background, font, company name, footer and logo (PNG, JPG or SVG, up to 500 KB). A preview of the theme appears below.
4. Select Apply. The change is part of the template once you save.

Preview a template with a client's numbers

You can see a slide filled with a real client's figures before you save anything.

1. Open the Preview tab.
2. Pick a Client from the list of your active HaloPSA clients. If the list cannot load, check the HaloPSA connection in your settings.
3. Set the period with From and To. It starts on the last full calendar quarter.
4. Select Preview this slide, or Preview every slide.

KPI, chart, table and quote blocks are filled in place, and a banner tells you which client and period you are looking at. AI blocks are not run in a preview; they only run in a real review. If a slide has no KPI, chart, table or quote blocks, the tab says so. Nothing from a preview is saved. Select Clear preview to go back to the plain template. Changing a block's definition clears the preview of that block, because it would no longer match.

A block whose metric your client's HaloPSA cannot supply shows as unavailable with the reason, not as zero. See QBR metric library.

Save a template and its versions

Saving writes a new version of the template. Reports that were already made from it keep the version they started from, so editing a template never rewrites a review in progress.

1. Select Save template to save with the default note, or Save with note… to describe the change.
2. In the Save template window, the text under the heading says which version you are about to write. Type what changed (optional, for example "Added an SLA slide"), then select Save template.

The Revisions tab lists every saved version with when it was saved, by whom and its note. To go back, select Restore… next to a version, then Restore. Restoring does not delete anything: it saves the old content as a new version. If you have unsaved changes, the restore warns you that they will be lost.

If you leave the editor with unsaved changes, you are asked to confirm before you go.

Design a template you can reuse

• Start from the starter nearest to your review and cut what you do not use. It is quicker than building up from a blank page.
• Keep numbers in data blocks and words in prompt blocks. AI writes around the numbers and never produces a figure of its own, so give each prompt block the evidence metrics it should cite.
• Write prompts that work for any client. Describe what the block should say ("summarise the three biggest risks for the client's leadership, citing the numbers"), not who the client is. The preview shows placeholder names until you pick a client.
• Put the talking points you repeat in every meeting into the speaker notes.
• Use Start hidden in new reviews for slides that only some clients need, rather than keeping several nearly identical templates.
• Keep one template per kind of review, set its category, and use the description to say when to use it.
• Preview with a typical client before you save, and use Save with note… so the revision list tells you what changed.
• Remember that a block can only show what the client's HaloPSA holds. Check the metric library before you build around a metric.

Related pages

• QBR schedules draft a review from a template on a cadence.
• Editing a review covers the canvas, palette and chat assistant that the template editor shares.
• QBR metric library lists every number a block can show.
• QBR settings: brand, workflow and HaloPSA items holds the brand kit and the default template.