Three templates, one empty job, about ninety seconds, and your client has a working selections portal.
What each one contributes
The area template answers where. It puts the places into the job: Bed 1 through Bed 4, Main Bathroom, Ensuite, Kitchen, Living, Facade.
The selection template answers what has to be decided. It puts the decisions in, attached to area types, so every bathroom on the job picks up the full bathroom set.
The item template answers what is on offer, and what it costs. It puts a shortlist of products against each selection type, with the upgrade price for each one.
The sequence
Create the job, then go to the Selection Settings tab.
Areas. Click Add area template, pick your template from the dropdown, and press Append template. Your areas arrive, and a header appears at the top reading "Composed from 1 template" with a chip naming what you just added.
Selection Groups. Click Add selection template, pick, append. Your decisions arrive, attached to area types, so they populate every matching area at once. One bathroom group becomes decisions in both your bathrooms.
Item Groups. This one is a plain Clone. Pick your item template from the dropdown in the empty state and clone it. Your product shortlists arrive with their upgrade prices and any Price on Application flags, because pricing lives in the item template rather than on the job.
Three actions. Add yourself as the client and look at the portal.
Check your work in thirty seconds
Two checks are worth doing every time, because both failures are invisible from the builder side.
Click into two or three decisions in the Presentation view, across different selection types. If products appear, your item template covered those types. If a screen fails to load, it did not.
Look at the area order. Appended template content does not always land in the order you expect, so glance at the sidebar and drag anything out of place.
Stacking more than one
Area and selection templates are not limited to one each. You can append several, which is what makes a base-plus-packs library possible. A client on your standard range who has added an alfresco takes your base selection template plus your alfresco template, appended one after the other. The header reads "Composed from 2 templates" and the second label carries an "Appended" marker so you can see what came from where. Building add-on template packs covers it.
Undoing part of it
Each label in the header has a small × to remove that template's content, and the confirmation tells you exactly what will go: only the areas or selection groups that template brought in. Anything you added by hand stays, which is what the header means when it says applied templates can be removed without affecting items added directly. Once your client has chosen something against an applied template, it can no longer be removed.
The full order to work in
For a new job with a complete template library:
Create the job.
Areas: append your area template.
Selection Groups: append your selection template, and any add-on packs.
Item Groups: clone your item template.
Tasks: clone your task template.
Check the ordering on areas and selection groups, and drag anything out of place.
Adjust anything specific to this build.
Add the client and check the portal before sending the login.
What to do next
Building add-on template packs if you want the flexible library, or How many templates do you actually need if you are still deciding how to structure it.
Related articles
How templates work in HomePulse
Building a Selection Template
Building an Item Template
Cloning templates into a job
Building add-on template packs