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Create documents from templates

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Templates are reusable structures that provide a starting point when building workbooks, reports, and AI apps, helping you create consistent and useful documents more quickly.

This document explains how to access existing templates and use them to create workbooks or reports. For more information about available templates, see Get started with templates.

For details about creating your own templates, see Create and edit document templates and Share document templates.

User requirements

The ability to access an existing template and use it to create a workbook or report requires the following:

  • You must be assigned an account type with the Can create, edit, and publish workbooks and/or Can create, edit, and publish reports permission enabled.
  • To access templates created by users of your organization, you must be the template owner or be granted Can use or Can edit access to the template.
  • To access templates made by Sigma and other templates shared with your organization, you must be an internal user. Guest users cannot access external templates.

Create a workbook or report from a template

  1. Go to Home > Templates.

  2. Select your desired template to review details about it.

  3. To use and explore the template, click Use template. If you open an app template made by Sigma, it can take up to a minute to copy data and make the template ready to be used in your organization.

    The template opens for editing as an exploration named after the template, enabling you to explore and interact with the template without affecting the template itself. Templates made by Sigma use sample data.

  4. To create a new editable and publishable document, in the document header, click Save as.

  5. Enter a name and choose a location for the new document in your organization.

Use your data with a template (swap sources)

To explore a template made by Sigma or another organization using your own data, change the data source of the template. The data you want to use must be available in Sigma.

To swap the source of a template:

  1. From Sigma Home, select Templates from the navigation panel.

  2. Select your desired template to review details about it, then click Use template.

  3. If the workbook is built on sample data, you are prompted to change the data source. Click Change sources.

    The Swap data sources overview modal opens.

  4. Sigma attempts to automatically match your data with the data expected by the template. If the template uses input tables or a CSV file, the data is copied to the default write destination of the selected connection. If you swap to a different type of connection, only the structure of the input table is copied.

    You can override the automatic match to choose a different data source. If no data source is automatically matched, you must manually select a source.

    To replace a matched source, select the source drop-down menu, then select a new source.

    If a template contains custom SQL as a data source, you cannot change the source to a different type of connection.

  5. When all data sources are ready to be swapped, click Swap now.

  6. Explore the changes to confirm that your data looks correct.

  7. To create an editable and publishable workbook from the template, click Save as in the document header, then save the exploration as a document.

After saving a template as a new document, you can swap the source again. See Change the data source for a workbook, data model, or element.