# Creating and managing custom templates !!!info A **Custom Template** is a fine-tuned selection of fields in your data so that you can see the exact fields in your record that you want to. !!!

--- There are four controls for managing templates, to the right of the **Using Template dropdown**, which you will see when you are looking at an individual record. - **Edit** allows you to edit the basic properties of the current template - **Clone** makes a copy of the current template that can be edited - **Delete** deletes the current template - **Add** allows you to create a new template from scratch When creating or editing a custom template, you should have a rich record open, of the type that you are creating a new template for. For eg, if you are creating a new object template, choose a rich object record with lots of data. Editing an existing template or adding a new template brings up a pop-up. The basic properties of a new template are Title, Endpoint, and Rules. - The **Title** is the name of your template as it will appear in lists. - The default **endpoint** is ‘all endpoints’ and should only be changed if you need to restrict the template to a particular endpoint. - The **rules** are entered in a further popup which requests two values: **Path** and **Match Pattern**. For the **path**, you will typically choose **@datatype.base**. This can be found by typing an @ and using autocomplete. For the **match pattern** you need to replace the text between the caret (^) and the dollar ($) in the text ``` ^match_this_value$ ``` You will typically enter ``` ^object$ ``` for an item record or ``` ^agent$ ``` for an organisational record and then click **Add**. If you’re familiar with regular expressions, you can use one here. In the rules section of the lower popup you will then see a rule that looks something like ``` @datatype.base = ^object$ ``` You can then choose either to **save** an empty template, or to **autogenerate** a template. An **autogenerated template** looks at the data in all records of the current type (eg an agent) and creates a template best suited to display the data of the record that you have open. It might need some adjustment once it’s created. An **empty template** allows you to add, structure and edit the appearance of the fields in your data from scratch.