A pack is the concept of a small template covering one optional part of a house, designed to be appended alongside a base template rather than used on its own. Packs let you cover every combination your clients ask for without building a full template for each one. How many templates do you need, and keeping them current covers whether this approach is right for you.
Why packs work
Area and selection templates can be appended, so a job can be composed from several. The combination lives on the job rather than in your template library, and your library only has to hold the pieces. A client on your standard range with an alfresco takes your base template plus your alfresco pack. You never build a combined template for "standard plus alfresco plus theatre", because you assemble it in two clicks at the point of need.
What belongs in a pack
The test is whether it is genuinely optional and genuinely separable.
Good packs are the areas some clients add and others do not: alfresco or outdoor living, theatre or media room, butler's pantry, study, guest suite, pool surrounds, granny flat or secondary dwelling. Either it exists on a job or it does not.
Bad packs are things that modify an area you already have rather than adding one. A "premium bathroom" pack that adds three decisions to a bathroom you already covered in the base gives you two bathroom selection groups on the job, which is not typically what you want. If the upgrade changes what is offered rather than what is decided, the answer is your item groups and upgrade prices, not a pack.
Packs add decisions in new places. Item groups change what is on offer for decisions you already have.
Build the area pack first
Go to Templates, then Area Templates, and create one named for the thing it covers, such as "Pack, Alfresco". Add the areas that come with it. For an alfresco that might be just Alfresco, or Alfresco and Outdoor Kitchen if you treat those separately.
Then build the selection pack
Create a selection template with the matching name, "Pack, Alfresco". Add only the area types the pack introduces. If your alfresco areas are of area type Alfresco, add a group for Alfresco and nothing else.
Extend the item template to cover it
Your packs will usually introduce selection types your base did not use. An alfresco might bring in Outdoor Kitchen Appliances or External Tiling. Every selection type used anywhere needs a group in your item template, because item templates do not stack and the single one you clone has to cover everything. So whenever you add a decision to a pack, check the item template covers its type in the same sitting.
Using packs on a job
On the job's Selection Settings tab, append the base first and then each pack, on both the Areas and Selection Groups screens. The header shows what the job is composed from, with a tag per template. Tags after the first carry an "Appended" marker, so you can see the base and the packs at a glance.
Appended content does not always land in the order you want, so check the area order and drag things into place before your client sees it. And each tag has a × to remove that pack's content, right up until they have chosen something against it, at which point it locks.
A worked example
You build a single storey range. Your library is:
Base, Single Storey area and selection templates: Bedroom, Bathroom, Kitchen, Living, Laundry, Exterior
Pack, Alfresco: area type Alfresco
Pack, Theatre: area type Theatre
Pack, Butlers Pantry: area type Butlers Pantry
One item template covering every selection type used across all four
A client takes the standard house with an alfresco and a butler's pantry. You append three templates on each of two screens, clone the item template, and their portal covers exactly their house. Nothing to delete, nothing to add by hand.
The next client takes the base with nothing added. Two appends, one clone. Neither of those required a template that describes their specific combination, and you maintain four selection templates rather than eight.
Review the base every twenty jobs. If a pack is going onto nearly every job, it belongs in the base. If something in the base is being deleted regularly, it belongs in a pack.
What to do next
Combining templates to produce a working selections portal covers the loading mechanics in detail, including what stacks and what does not.
Related articles
How many templates do you need, and keeping them current
Building a Selection Template
Building an Item Template
Combining templates to produce a working selections portal