--- title: "Dashboard Templates" description: "Start from a prebuilt dashboard, connect it to your feeds in a couple of clicks, and save your own dashboards as reusable, shareable templates." section: "Dashboards" canonical: "https://banksync.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates" --- Templates are prebuilt dashboards you can start from instead of a blank canvas. A template defines the widgets and layout but leaves the data open: when you use one, you connect its widgets to **your** feeds, and it fills in with your numbers. You can also save your own dashboards as templates to reuse or share. [![Working with dashboard templates: choosing a template from the empty dashboard gallery, instantiating a normal editable dashboard, then opening Share and using Save as template for reuse.](https://cdn.banksync.io/videos/dashboard-templates.poster.12dba8b0ab0b3c4f.png)](https://cdn.banksync.io/videos/dashboard-templates.31ee290904ad7877.mp4) [Watch: Working with dashboard templates: choosing a template from the empty dashboard gallery, instantiating a normal editable dashboard, then opening Share and using Save as template for reuse.](https://cdn.banksync.io/videos/dashboard-templates.31ee290904ad7877.mp4) A couple of plain-language terms used on this page: - A **data slot** is a placeholder for a feed the template needs, for example "a transactions feed". A template lists its slots, and you fill each one with one of your feeds. - To **connect** (or "bind") a slot just means picking which of your feeds fills it. > **What's available today:** Dashboards and templates are in beta and roll out per workspace. If you don't see Dashboards or Templates in the left navigation, the feature isn't enabled for your workspace yet. Today there are two built-in starter dashboards (Spending Overview and Balance Trend) plus a few built-in starter widgets (Spend by category, Net cash flow, Balance over time), and you can save your own dashboards as templates on top of those. ## Starting from a template Open the template gallery from the empty-canvas screen or the Dashboards area. Each template card shows what it builds and whether your workspace has the feeds it needs. ![The dashboard template gallery showing template cards. Each card describes what the template builds, and some cards are marked eligible while others are flagged as blocked because the workspace is missing the feeds they require.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/dashboards/template-gallery.85b7935e184d8fca.png "The template gallery flags which prebuilt dashboards your feeds can support.") **Use a template** 1. **Pick a template** — Browse the gallery and choose one that matches what you want to track. 2. **Connect your feeds** — For each data slot the template needs, choose one of your feeds. 3. **Create the dashboard** — BankSync builds a real, editable dashboard from the template, wired to your data. 4. **Tweak it** — Edit any widget exactly as if you had built it yourself. ![The template binding dialog listing each data slot the template needs, with a single feed picker beside each slot so you can choose one of your available feeds to fill it.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/dashboards/template-binding.35e664356d727af5.png "Connect each of the template's data slots to one of your feeds.") > **Templates need the right kind of feed:** A template that charts transactions needs a transactions feed to connect to. If a required data slot has no matching feed, the gallery flags it and you'll be prompted to connect one first. Optional slots can be left empty (that part of the dashboard simply stays empty). > **One feed per slot:** 'Each slot is connected to one specific feed, not to all of your accounts at once. If you have several transactions feeds (say one per bank), the picker asks you to choose one. There\\'s no "all my accounts" option here on purpose, because connecting to a single feed is what keeps each widget editable afterward. Once the dashboard is created you can change the feed, add more widgets, or combine feeds just like any dashboard you built by hand.' ### Worked example: Spending Overview Say you want a quick monthly view of where your money goes. 1. Open the gallery and pick **Spending Overview**. 2. In the connect step, the template needs one transactions slot. Choose your **Chase Checking** transactions feed from the picker. 3. Click **Create dashboard**. BankSync mints a real dashboard with the template's widgets (for example **Spend by category** and **Net cash flow**) already filled in with your Chase Checking numbers. From there you can resize widgets, swap the feed, or add your own, exactly as if you had built it from scratch. ## Saving your own template Built a dashboard you want to reuse or share? Save it as a template. BankSync lifts your concrete feed references into open slots so the template is portable to other workspaces and feeds. (Today you save at the whole-dashboard level: there's no "save this one widget as a template" button in the app yet, even though individual widgets have their own Share tab.) ![The save-as-template dialog showing a portability blocker, warning that a widget cannot be made into an open slot and must be adjusted before the dashboard can be saved as a template.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/dashboards/save-as-template-blocked.1ad17917ab01c9d9.png "Portability checks flag any widget that cannot be made template-ready before saving.") > **Portability checks:** When you save a template, BankSync checks that every widget can be expressed without hard-coding your specific data, then tells you what to adjust before saving. Common reasons a save is blocked:A widget that reads directly from a bank or account instead of from a feed. Point it at a feed first.A widget that has fields set but no data source to connect them to.A widget using a saved query that can't be carried over to another workspace.A cross-filter that points at a filter that no longer exists. ## Sharing a template Saving a template keeps it to yourself. To let others use it, open it from **My templates** and choose **Publish**. The publish dialog lets you set: - **Visibility**, one of four levels: - **Private**, only you. - **Workspace**, anyone in this workspace. - **Public link**, anyone who has the link. - **Public**, listed in the template marketplace so others can discover it. - A **category** and up to eight **tags** (chosen from set lists, so the marketplace stays tidy). Before it lets you publish, BankSync runs the same portability check plus a safety check, and shows the result right in the dialog. If either check fails, it lists what to fix. When you publish at one of the public levels, BankSync mints a share link (a short `/t/...` URL) you can hand out. So the dialog gathers all of this in one place: the visibility level, the category and tags, the pass-or-fail portability and safety results, and (for public levels) the resulting share link. > **Share links are always real:** BankSync won't hand you a copyable link that wouldn't actually resolve. Because templates are in beta, public template links and the marketplace roll out per workspace. If public serving isn't available for your workspace yet, the dialog says so plainly instead of giving you a dead URL. ## Managing and updating Your saved templates live under **My templates**, a list showing each template's name, category, publish state, and visibility, with the Publish and state-transition actions sitting on each row. From here you can **Publish** a template (opens the share dialog above) or move it through its publish states (for example Draft to Published, or Published to Deprecated or Unlisted). There is no in-place edit or delete in this view today: to change what a template contains, save a fresh template from an updated dashboard. When a template you created a dashboard from gets a newer version, the dashboard shows a friendly **A newer version is available** banner with **Review update** and **Dismiss** actions. Reviewing builds the latest version into a brand-new draft and shows you the differences side by side. It never overwrites the dashboard you've already tweaked, so your edits are safe and you decide whether to adopt the new version. > **Build templates with an agent:** If you drive BankSync through an AI agent or the MCP tools, the agent can browse templates, check whether a template's feeds are connectable in your workspace, create a dashboard from a template, and publish a template for you. These agent tools are available in staging while the feature is in beta. ## Related guides - [Creating your first dashboard](/docs/dashboards/creating-a-dashboard): the blank-canvas alternative. - [Binding data](/docs/dashboards/binding-data): how connecting a widget to a feed works under the hood. - [Publishing & sharing](/docs/dashboards/publishing-and-sharing): publishing a finished dashboard or widget (separate from publishing a template, which is covered above). [Connect your data](/docs/dashboards/binding-data)