A useful clinical template should reduce repeated typing without forcing every encounter into the same language. Repertoire’s Template Studio lets you adapt built-in templates and create local templates that reflect how you organize recurring documentation.
This guide explains the main customization paths, how recognition works, and how to keep your personal library recoverable.
Template customization changes writing tools, not clinical standards. Review all generated language for the individual encounter. Before real-world use, be sure to obtain approval from your IT department. If you have questions, please contact Repertoire.
Decide what should become reusable
Not every repeated sentence needs a template. Good candidates usually have a stable structure but meaningful choices within that structure.
Examples include:
- A familiar assessment and plan outline
- Counseling language that needs small encounter-specific changes
- A recurring group of pertinent findings
- A preferred starting structure for a common problem
- A short piece of narrative text you repeatedly retype
Avoid storing patient-specific details or wording that is likely to become inaccurate when reused. A template should make the relevant differences easier to see, not hide them inside a wall of boilerplate.
Customize an existing template
Open Browse, select a built-in template, and use Customize to open it in Template Studio. A customization creates a local override in the current browser workspace; it does not edit the shipped template library in the project.
This is useful when the built-in template is close to what you need but you want to:
- Change the default selected options
- Add or remove recognition aliases
- Revise narrative wording
- Add, remove, or reorganize selectable content
- Change how selected options are combined in the output
Because the override is local, another browser, device, or deployment URL will continue using the original built-in template unless you transfer the workspace with Export and Import.
Create a new template
Choose New template in the template library to begin with a blank template. Give it a clear canonical title and, when useful, one or more recognition aliases.
The title should describe the problem or documentation block precisely. Short, generic titles are more likely to collide with ordinary note text. Recognition aliases should be phrases you would intentionally place on their own line, not common fragments that may appear accidentally.
Template Studio checks for exact normalized recognition conflicts. It also warns about unusually short aliases. These safeguards matter because an ambiguous phrase should not silently choose between multiple templates.
Understand the available section types
Templates can combine different kinds of sections.
Option groups
Option groups present selectable pieces of content. Use them when a section has multiple findings, actions, or statements that may be included independently.
An option group can render selections in several layouts:
- One bullet for each selected option
- One bullet with selected options appended using spaces
- A natural-language list ending in “and” or “or”
Choose the layout based on the final note, not merely on what looks compact in the editor. Several distinct plan items are usually easier to review as separate bullets; short related phrases may read better as one sentence.
Narrative sections
Narrative sections contain reusable prose rather than selectable options. They work well for counseling, instructions, or shared boilerplate that still needs review in every encounter.
Built-in narrative sections may render in italics to distinguish them visually from selectable bullets. Template Studio can switch a narrative section between italic and normal text.
Inline choices
Inline choices keep a small choice directly inside generated text. They are helpful when alternatives belong within one sentence and separating them into multiple lines would make the note harder to read.
Selecting a structured inline choice does not count as an ordinary manual rewrite, so the generated block can remain linked to its template controls.
Turn existing note text into a template
If you already wrote the wording you want to reuse, select that text in the note and choose Save template. Template Studio opens with the selected wording as narrative content.
This is often the fastest way to grow a useful library: write naturally first, then save the language that proves worth reusing. Before saving, remove patient-specific information and make any encounter-dependent parts explicit.
Use recognition aliases carefully
Repertoire’s automatic recognition is exact by design. A diagnosis title or alias must occupy the complete line, apart from capitalization and trailing punctuation.
A good alias is:
- Distinct enough not to appear accidentally
- Easy for you to remember
- Specific to one template
- Long enough to avoid collisions
After saving a template, test its title and each important alias in a temporary blank note. Confirm that the intended template appears and that ambiguous wording remains untouched.
If you prefer not to rely on recognition, you can always insert the template from Browse.
Review local changes
The template library provides a customization review that shows locally added and removed lines. Use this view periodically, especially after a series of experiments.
Ask three questions during review:
- Does every default statement apply often enough to deserve that position?
- Are important alternatives visible, or buried in narrative text?
- Would another clinician understand what each selection changes in the note?
Clear labels make the template easier to audit months later, even if you are its only user.
Back up the library you build
Custom templates and built-in overrides live in browser storage. They are not associated with an account and do not automatically follow you to another browser.
After meaningful customization:
- Open Browse.
- Choose Export.
- Save the downloaded Repertoire workspace file somewhere appropriate for your organization’s policies.
- Keep a recent export before clearing browser data, changing devices, or moving the app to a different domain.
Import validates a complete workspace bundle and checks recognition conflicts before replacing local settings. Treat an export as a workspace backup rather than a human-editable template file.
A practical template-design pattern
When creating a template, begin small:
- Add a precise title and one reliable recognition phrase.
- Put stable shared wording in a short narrative section.
- Add only the options that change frequently enough to justify a control.
- Choose defaults conservatively.
- Insert the template into a test note and read the output without looking at the controls.
- Revise anything that is unclear or too easy to overlook.
- Export the workspace after the template proves useful.
The best template is not necessarily the most comprehensive one. It is the one that makes relevant choices visible and produces wording that remains easy to verify.
For more detail about what the browser preserves—and what it does not—continue with protecting manual edits and backing up your Repertoire workspace.