Imagine a construction process where every new project feels like square one: new documents, new workflows, and no consistency. Or, think about how chaotic it gets when every project manager runs things their own way—different naming conventions, mismatched files, and no clear process for handoffs. Miscommunications happen, time is wasted, and the project suffers.
This is why templates are so important. From construction planning to closeout, templates help teams standardize workflows, reduce errors, and keep projects running smoothly.
Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC) enables you to create templates that bring greater structure and predictability across the entire project lifecycle.
Whether you're just starting with templates or looking to maximize their impact, here are six ways to deploy them effectively.
Construction project templates help you kick off projects on the right foot by eliminating repetitive setup work. With Autodesk, you can use templates to specify certain project settings and access permissions for things like:
From there, you can share those templates with other users in your account so that they can create projects with the same settings. The result? Consistent structure and permissions across projects, reduced setup time, and uniformity in data management.
To make things even easier, ACC offers free, pre-made project templates configured for different stakeholders like GCs, subcontractors, public service owners, owner operators, and more. Simply select the proper template, and you can hit the ground running with proven industry best practices built in.
And if you're an account admin, you can use these templates as a starting point or base, then customize them for your firm's specific needs.
Templates don't just help you move quickly—they also enable you to standardize quality control and ensure that work consistently meets or exceeds industry standards.
ACC helps you do just that through various project checklists and inspection templates. Project admins can create or import checklist templates tailored to specific scopes of work. These tools simplify construction inspections, as your field teams can use their mobile devices to complete their checks and manage any issues on the go.
And with checklist and issue summary reports, project leaders gain a clear, real-time view of compliance and recurring problems. This, in turn, makes it easier to track progress, spot trends, and address quality concerns.
Nothing matters more than sending your crew home safely every day. With ACC, you can standardize safety with inspection, incident, and daily report templates.
Start by choosing a pre-formatted template; ACC has the following:
You can also start with a blank template for custom safety forms.
From capturing near misses and good catches to logging root causes and tracking resolutions, these templates ensure safety procedures are applied consistently across every jobsite.
The payoff? Less guesswork, stronger compliance, better insight and the ability to spot issues before they become incidents.
Managing the project budget is one of the most critical responsibilities in construction. Cost Management in ACC makes it a whole lot easier. One of the standout features is its document templates. Instead of starting from scratch every time, you can build templates in Word or Excel for contracts, payment applications, and change order documents. Style them to match your brand and drop in variables that auto-fill with project data. Templates can be managed at the account level to keep things consistent across all projects.
Cost Management also includes a powerful cost settings library. Admins can pull in custom fields, columns, and saved views from existing projects and save them as reusable components. These can be pushed out to all projects, selected ones, or even baked into project templates. That means less manual work for teams and a smoother way for leadership to roll out cost standards across the board—making budget control easier and more reliable.
The tools we use to communicate are just as important as the information we want to convey. Documenting meeting minutes for standard construction project meetings - such as OAC and status meetings, can get messy and inconsistent without a standard process.
The good news is that ACC has meeting templates to help your team share updates in a clear, consistent format every time.
With meeting templates, teams can set up custom meeting agenda templates to standardize the setup and documentation of project meetings. Communication is more efficient, and stakeholders get the info they need to move the project forward.
With the sheer amount of data being generated during the project lifecycle, the very process of creating actionable reports can be overwhelming. How should you slice and dice your data? Which KPIs actually matter to your business? Without well-structured reports, teams risk making critical decisions with incomplete or inconsistent information.
Enter Autodesk's KPI Power BI Templates. These out-of-the-box dashboard templates highlight the KPIs that matter most—quality, cost, and schedule—at both the project and account levels. They're built on real feedback from contractors, so teams can start with proven benchmarks instead of guessing where to begin.
KPI Power BI Templates help turn overwhelming data into clear insights that drive smarter, faster decisions.
As Heather Soderquist from Jacobsen Construction puts it: "The KPI dashboard templates allow us to customize reports for our needs, but sometimes, knowing where to start is difficult. These KPIs give us a good, solid starting point with many great ideas from which we can build."
Consistency is what keeps projects, and ultimately, construction firms, on track. Templates in ACC take the guesswork out of setting up projects and processes, so your team can focus on building, not reinventing workflows.
So, start exploring ACC's templates today and see the difference in your next project.
