A template is a whole dashboard someone already configured — its layout, its elements, and what each one reads — with the field names left as roles for you to fill in.
It is a starting point, never a cage. Everything a template set is editable the moment you have applied it.
What a template promises
Every template states what it needs from your data, and Tamaat derives that from the template itself rather than taking anyone's word for it. That is why the gallery can tell you, before you choose, that your layer has nothing to serve as a date.
The templates Tamaat ships are built around four roles:
| Role | What it wants | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Any non-geometry field | Grouping — bars, slices, breakdowns |
| Value | A number | Sums, averages, rankings |
| Name | Any non-geometry field | Labelling rows in a list |
| Date | A date or timestamp | Trends over time |
Because they read roles rather than column names, they bind to any uploaded vector layer. Only the templates about time need a date field, which is the one role most layers lack.
Applying one
Pick your layer, then the template. Tamaat auto-matches the roles against your fields where it is confident, and leaves the rest for you in the configure step — see Build a Dashboard.
Swapping to a different template replaces the layout and starts the mapping again. Elements you had configured under the old layout belonged to a layout that no longer exists.
Where templates come from
The gallery groups templates by scope:
- Tamaat — the shipped catalogue, available to every tenant.
- Your organization — templates published for everyone in your org.
- Yours — templates only you see.
Publish your own
Once a dashboard reads the way your team should read this kind of data, publish it as a template so nobody rebuilds it. "Save as template" in the dashboard header.
- 1
Give it a "Title" and a "Summary". The summary is what a colleague reads in the gallery, so make it the question the dashboard answers rather than a list of its widgets.
- 2
Choose "Who can use it" — "Only me", or "My organization". Only Tamaat publishes the system catalogue.
- 3
Check the line reading "Anyone using this will be asked to map:". Those are the field names your colleagues will see. If they came from your own schema, this is the moment to rename them — see below.
Publishing freezes a snapshot of the dashboard and derives the contract from that snapshot, so a template's promise can never drift from what it actually contains. Your own dashboard is unaffected and stays yours to keep editing.
Versions
To update a template rather than add another, choose "Replace" and pick it. That bumps its version and keeps where it lives — you do not choose the scope again, because it already has one.
Dashboards already created from the old version are not touched. A template is copied at the moment it is applied, not linked, so nobody's dashboard changes under them.
Naming the roles
If you are building a dashboard other people's data will be poured into, name its fields after the role they play, not after your own columns. A template whose axis is called Sales_R12 tells the next person nothing; one called Value tells them exactly what to map.
The same goes for element titles. A chart titled "Sites by region" still reads correctly when someone maps it onto districts; one titled "Sites by SUB_REGION" does not.
Templates for Tamaat's own products
Most of the shipped catalogue is generic on purpose — organized by the shape of the question rather than by industry, so it is useful on a tenant's first day.
There is one domain template: Remote sensing change, which reads the detections layer a change monitor produces when you accept a candidate. It binds to those layers with no mapping at all.
Coverage studies, cell sites, ETL runs and geocoding results have no template, because they are not vector layers — a dashboard reads attribute tables, and those domains produce rasters, database records or per-request results instead. The generic templates cover any vector layer you export from them.
Can I edit a template after applying it?▾
Yes — all of it. The chart types, the fields, the measures, the filters and the titles. A template is what the dashboard starts as, not what it must stay.
If someone updates a template, do my dashboards change?▾
No. Applying a template copies it. A newer version is offered to whoever creates a dashboard next; yours is yours.
Why is a template marked as unusable with my layer?▾
It needs a field your layer has nothing to fill — most often a date. The card says which one. Choosing a different layer or a different template are both fine answers.