Blueprints for Beginners 💙

Hey Wrike Community!

Let's talk about Blueprints! 🏗️

We know many of you are using Wrike's Blueprints to streamline your workflows and save time. At the same time, some of you may just be starting with Wrike and need a little help getting started.

If you have experience with Blueprints, we'd love to hear your insights!

📌 What's your favorite Blueprint tip or trick?

📌 Have you created any custom Blueprints that have been game-changers for your team?

📌 Any creative ways you've used Blueprints that others might not have thought of?

Share your wisdom in the comments below! Your tip could be just what another Community member needs to take their Wrike game to the next level.

If you are a Wrike newbie, feel free to ask if you have any questions on Blueprints too 🙂

Don't forget to check out other comments too - you might discover a new Blueprint hack that revolutionizes your workflow! 👇

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Comments

Han Solo

For Blueprints, location (Global or Space level) is very important. This determines who can use and manage it.

Kendra Ciszczon

📌 What's your favorite Blueprint tip or trick?

When making major/large changes to any of my blueprints, I always duplicate the blue print, modify it, then test it prior to using it and deleting the old one.

Anna Giacobbe

Sharing some tips that I found especially helpful

📁Blueprint Organization with Folders

Before even getting started with creating blueprints, make sure your Blueprint section is organized with Folders! This will help you tremendously to keep your blueprints organize by department, team, user, etc. - however your team is organized based on its size!

For us, we've created folders per sub-team, so our blueprint Folder structure looks something like:

Content blueprints
Creative blueprints
Digital blueprints
Event blueprints
etc.!

That way, we know that when we need to edit X blueprint, we can easily find it by navigating to the blueprint Folder for that team!

Something else that we've done was creating another folder at the above level called "z_Request Form blueprints":

We added "z_" so that when sorting folders alphabetically, this one always remains at the bottom
This folder contains a subfolder for every request form we have, each following the same naming convention "[Request form name] blueprints"
If a blueprint is tied to a request form (populates as a result of the submission of a request form), we will not only make sure that the blueprint is tagged (or "lives in") the appropriate team blueprint folder (i.e. Content blueprints folder), but also cross-tagged into the respective request form blueprint folder (i.e. [Blog request form] blueprints)
This is SO helpful when it comes to blueprint maintenance; say you know there is an issue with a blueprint that's created from XYZ request form, instead of going on an account-wide search for it, you can quickly go to the blueprint folder for that specific request form!

🔍 Blueprint search

Did you know that if you are in your Blueprints section of Wrike, you can use the text-based search function to look specifically within Blueprints?

This has been really helpful in helping locate blueprints quickly if we know them by name, however that means that it's extra important to name your blueprints something obvious!

You can also search for anything other than Blueprints in the search bar by toggling to the right option!

Happy Blueprint-ing! 🏗️

John Egleston

Thanks for starting this discussion!

It may already be standard practice for others, but one of the best uses of Wrike blueprints for our organization has been to consistently initialize the content of tasks or projects resulting from Wrike request forms. That way the resulting item's description includes what's needed for the standard stages of - for example - a product backlog request. Then our product owners and others helping evaluate and/or implement the item have built-in prompts aligned with our common expectations (like user story, technical solution, testing and deployment details, and follow-up documentation and communications).

David Simmington

Kendra's response above is huge! I can't stress enough to duplicate before making changes. You're editing the main source of truth, so you want to be sure before saving.

Also, pay attention to where you're saving your Blueprint. You'll save yourself the panic of thinking all your hard work has been lost

Emily Bressler

I also recommend sharing blueprints that you create with others! It's super helpful when members of my team are able to set up their own tasks based on blueprints that I have shared with them.

Sven Passinger

Do not make the blueprint too complicate. Nlueprints offer the possibility to make complex projects with details.

We have seen that we have similar projects but in details they are different. So the blueprints give a basic guideline. In the beginning we made the to much detailed. That generated useless work by eleminating tasks.

Lindsey Fricke

Our team loves blueprints and uses them often. My biggest tips are:

Build them out for all repeatable tasks that your team does often. I also like to have them for larger, yearly projects like tradeshows.
Keep them updated and review them often
Work with the teams that get assigned tasks within the blueprint to make sure you're covering all action items and that they understand what will be needed from them

Eric Fiero

I want to echo Sven here. Don't overcomplicate the blueprints. It gets overwhelming if you try to get every single little task or item you have and that reduces the customizable nature of these tools. I like to just build blue prints with the essential, non-negotiable steps, then encourage folks to build around it once deployed.

Jeffrey Bond

We are using blueprints simply to capture the key critical tasks that are common throughout every project, this helps ensure that we are consistent across the organization.

Pietro Poli

I use blueprints for 90% of the projects we manage as an agency. To create the best blueprints, before working in Wrike, I define the ideal process and design it with Whimsical, a very useful software, especially for Waterfall projects.

After mapping out the various activities, I proceed to define for each:

Timeframes
Responsibles / Assignees
Task type
Possible states for each task type
Any additional fields to be added

At this point, I prepare:

Specific Custom Item Types for particular task types (e.g., Meetings to differentiate them from normal tasks)
The Workflows resulting from the analysis of the states on the tasks (e.g., with meetings, it will have "Meeting Scheduled," "Meeting in Progress," and "Meeting Completed," while with tasks, I will have "To Do," "In Progress," "Done," etc.)

Only now can I start preparing the blueprint. I start from the Table View and then organize the timelines and dependencies in the Gantt View. If necessary, I also prepare the addition of custom fields directly in the table. I pre-assign tasks to work groups to be quicker when launching a new project and assigning tasks to identified people.

Sometimes, there are 2 different groups of activities (e.g., Basic or Advanced). The process is identical but for 5 different activities. Then I create a custom field called "TYPE" where I insert "Basic or Advanced" and when launching the blueprint, knowing which type was sold, I delete the unnecessary one. I avoid having 2 blueprints to maintain but I have some deletions to make.

Ali Moses

We use blueprints in conjunction with custom item types and request forms to make sure that tasks coming into our account are set up exactly as they should be from the get-go. That way we don't have to waste time reviewing tasks before they can be worked.

Brian Bulthuis

We use Wrike blueprints to save time and improve consistency in our project management processes. Using blueprints ensures that all our projects are well-organized and follow best practices.

With this in mind, we've created a library of blueprints tailored to specific project areas while maintaining consistency with our core project template's key tasks and milestones. For example, a Food & Beverage project would have different tasks and stakeholders than an Information Security project.

Kevin Thalacker

We use Blueprints to create all of our projects. We have a request form that uses our blueprint as our process is repetitive.

Hitesh Karkal

Blueprints by default get saved at Account level, make sure to review the settings as to where the blueprints are placed. Additionally, creating group of folders for similar blueprints may be helpful

Florian Gascho

📌 Have you created any custom Blueprints that have been game-changers for your team?

We have for our seperate Projects, different Blueprints in various languages. We utilize them by generating them via Form

Heather Perkins

📌 Have you created any custom Blueprints that have been game-changers for your team?

We use blueprints connected to request forms to help streamline facility and operations management (i.e. requests for maintenance, equipment, office supplies, meetings, employee onboarding/offboarding, event planning, etc.) as well as client-facing forms for advanced shipment notices and special projects.

Fillipe Neyl Walecki

My advice is to create blueprints even if you're not sure if it's the best approach to that use case, there's no better way to master it then puting to use and learn with the real day to day use and feedback.

Brooke Langley

I do not make the blueprints, but I am part of a team that will use the Gnatt Chart to alter things every day. We are a Group that would be @XXXXX and then we would use the Gnatt chart to alter the information that is on the Information tab.

Laura Lysaght

We've found that anything historically saved as a "template" make a perfect use case for a Wrike Blueprint. For example, instead of an Excel spreadsheet RAID log, we've got a RAID Blueprint with Risk, Assumption, Issue, Decision CITs. The table view has the same look and feel as a spreadsheet with 100x the functionality. Slowly, all our spreadsheets have been moving to Wrike and Blueprints helps keep us aligned.

Sherrie Besecker

I wrote a sample here for how we use our bluerprints -- /hc/en-us/community/posts/21833214182423-Blueprints-Dashboards

Remember - Data in your custom fields is KEY!!

Shelly Erickson

We couldn't live without blueprints. We utilize the request form to create new projects and depending on project type, it will then pick the appropriate blueprint. We have almost 200 task in our onboarding blueprint. We also use custom fields as custom item types within our blueprint. Remember ... you can also change them! It won't change existing projects but it will help with those moving forward.

Amy Augustyniak

Blueprints are tied to custom project types and our intake/request form to generate the correct project type depending on the level of support our team is being requested to provide. This includes:

- PM led projects (which may or may not also have a Change Manager assigned)

- Change Manager only projects (where someone in the business is doing the PM support)

- Consultative only support (we are providing guidance, tools, training, but no PM/CM support)

- Workshop facilitation and planning

This allows us to ensure the correct processes, playbooks, and checklists along with relevant data points (custom fields/statuses) are being provided to the owner of the project and elevating the team's opportunity for success and providing stakeholders consistent experiences when working with us. It also helps reduce the amount of unnecessary work across our portfolio since each project type/blueprint is streamlined to only what is needed/relevant in that circumstance.

By keeping our blueprints available at account level, we are also able to use them across multiple Spaces and share them with stakeholders for whom we may be providing consultative support so everyone benefits even if they're not part of our team or portfolio.

Dana Harris

We plan to use Blueprints to align with our Request forms and implement automation to reduce redundant actions. Blueprints will help keep our team working consistently.

Andrey Nikitin

I'm seeing some really great tips for the use of Blueprints in this thread!
For those who are starting out with Wrike and are unsure how to begin implementing blueprints, we've prepared a webinar on that very topic, so be sure to check it out!