Articles on: Getting started

Starting from a template

Templates are pre-built rooms your team has already designed and approved. Starting from a template is the fastest way to send a polished room — you skip the blank page and focus on personalizing.


When to use a template


Pick a template when you're sending a room for a recurring use case:


  • A sales proposal
  • A mutual action plan (kickoff, onboarding)
  • A quarterly business review (QBR)
  • A renewal
  • An RFP response


If it's a one-off, highly custom deal, starting from scratch, letting AI generate the room, or duplicating an existing room may be faster.


Create a room from a template


  1. Click + New room in the left sidebar. The New room dialog opens on the template gallery — cards with a cover preview, the name and Used N times · Updated {date}. Hover a card to read its description.
  2. Click the template that fits the moment (or search with Search by name...).
  3. Fill in the room details — Company, Deal (Optional), Room Title (this is what your buyer will see) and Status — and click Next.
  4. Choose how to build it: Standard setup keeps the template exactly as designed (click Create); AI-powered creation uses the template's structure and branding and fills it from your brief (click Generate room).
  5. Open the room from the card that appears top-right.


You can also start straight from the Templates page: hover a card and click Create room.


Katalyz copies the template's structure, widgets, and branding into your new room. Nothing is linked — if the template is updated later, your existing rooms aren't affected.


Template gallery inside the "New room" dialog


What gets copied, what doesn't


Copied from the template:

  • Pages and their order
  • Sections within each page
  • All widgets and their content
  • Task assignees (who owns what)
  • Per-room branding overrides
  • Default language


Not copied (these start fresh for each new room):

  • Participants
  • Activity history
  • Comments
  • Task progress (completion state resets — everything comes in as "not done")


Personalize before you send


A template is a starting point, not a finished room. Most personalization happens automatically — here's what you get for free, and what's left to you:


Automatic:

  • Welcome message, titles, and any copy using $ variables resolve to real values as soon as you fill in the relevant fields (buyer's name, company, deal value, custom fields, etc.) — see Using variables in text
  • The buyer's logo is pulled automatically via our Brandfetch integration (if you use co-branding) — see Per-room theme


Your job:

  • Add buyer-specific context — their challenges, meeting notes, quotes from your discovery call
  • Swap generic references for specific customer stories, use cases, client references, blog posts that resonate with this buyer's situation
  • Review and adjust pricing, dates, and any numbers that need to match this specific deal


💡 Select any section and use the Ask AI launcher (bottom-right) to have the assistant tailor it to this buyer — see Ask AI: your assistant inside a room.


Creating and managing templates


Admins and Pro users can create templates several ways:


  • From scratch — build directly from a blank canvas (New template → Blank template)
  • With AI — describe the template and let the assistant draft it — see Creating a template with AI
  • By duplicating an existing template and editing from there
  • By saving an existing room as a template


The last approach is usually easiest — take a room that already works well and save it as a template. Learn how in Saving a room as a template.


Updated on: 02/10/2026

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