Word templates

Upload Word (.docx) templates so your team can export meeting minutes and field reports in your organization's own layout.

Templates let your team download meeting minutes as a Word document in your organization's layout: your letterhead, your styles, and exactly the sections you want. Org Admins manage them under Organization Settings > Templates.

The Templates page also holds templates for Field Reports (covered in Field Report templates below) and, depending on your organization's licensed modules, Transmittals, RFIs, and Submittals.

Meeting templates in Organization Settings > Templates

How templates work

A template is a regular .docx file containing placeholders: markers like {{summary}} that Cogram replaces with generated content when a member downloads the minutes. Everything else in the file (headers, logos, styles, static text) is kept as-is.

• The exported document only contains the content whose placeholders appear in the template. To leave a section out (for example the summary), don't include its placeholder.

• Placeholders are case-sensitive and must match exactly, including both curly braces.

• Your Custom insights are available as placeholders too, so a template can export any output you've defined. Organization-level insights carry an (Org) suffix in their name, and the placeholder must include it, for example {{Consolidated Minutes (Org)}}.

• Two newer building blocks are {{key points}}, a condensed one-line-per-point version of the meeting notes (used by the Concise Minutes template below), and {{meeting number}}, the meeting's sequential number within its project.

To see every placeholder available to your organization (meeting details, generated sections, and your Custom Insights), click New Meeting Template under Organization Settings > Templates, then View all elements. Click any element to copy it. You can also click Download Sample Template on the same page to start from a working example.

Cogram-provided templates

Cogram ships ready-made meeting templates you can use as a starting point. Find them in the Provided by Cogram section at the top of Organization Settings > Templates:

• Default Cogram Concise Minutes: short bullet-style notes: attendance, executive summary, key points, and proposed actions. This is Cogram's default (see Set an organization default).

• Cogram Detailed Minutes: formal project minutes: attendance and distribution, numbered minutes with status, action items, and a corrections notice.

• Cogram Tabular Minutes: minutes as a numbered items table (Item Number, Description, Action By), alongside attendance.

For the Detailed and Tabular templates, select Add to my templates to place an editable copy in your organization's templates. Cogram then asks whether to set the copy as your organization default. Use Download on any row to save the .docx as-is.

Preview a template

To see what a template produces before you use it, click its row in the template list, or in the Provided by Cogram section. Cogram shows a page-accurate preview of the Word document. Placeholders appear as their {{markers}}; they fill in with a meeting's content when someone exports that meeting.

Add a meeting template (Org Admins)

1. Prepare a .docx document with your layout, and insert placeholders where Cogram content should go.

2. Go to Organization Settings > Templates and click New Meeting Template.

3. Enter a template name (this is what members see when picking a template) and select your .docx file.

4. Click Save Template.

The Create new meeting template page

Cogram validates the file on upload: it must be a valid .docx, contain at least one placeholder, and use only recognized placeholders. If validation fails, the error message tells you what to fix.

To swap the file behind an existing template, use its Replace action in the template list. The new file is validated the same way, and the template keeps its name and default status.

To rename a template, use its Rename action. The Cogram-provided template cannot be renamed. A template that is currently the organization default cannot be renamed in place: clear its default first, rename it, then set it as the default again.

Set an organization default

In the template list, use a template's Set as Organization Default action to make it the preselected choice for everyone in your organization. Only validated templates can be set as the default. Clearing the default reverts to Cogram's provided default, Default Cogram Concise Minutes.

The previous default, Default Cogram Provided Template, is deprecated and scheduled for deprecation on October 1, 2026. If your organization still relies on it, add and set your own default before then.

Download minutes with a template

On a completed meeting page, any member clicks Download at the top right and selects a template. Cogram fills the placeholders with that meeting's content and downloads the Word document. See Downloading, sharing, and templates for the full download and sharing options.

Field Report templates

Field Report templates work the same way: a Word document with placeholders, used when exporting a field report. The form fields available as placeholders come from the report's Report Type.

Add a Field Report template (Org Admins)

1. Go to the Field Reports section of the Templates page.

2. Click New Report Template.

3. Enter a Template Name and select your .docx file.

4. Click Save Template.

The create page lists every placeholder available to you. Click View all elements, then click any element to copy it.

Field Report templates in Organization Settings > Templates

Cogram checks that the file is a valid Word document when you upload it. To also check the placeholders, use the Validate action on the template's row: it points out any placeholder that does not match a builtin or one of your Custom fields.

By default, every Field Report template is offered when downloading any report. To narrow the choice for a specific Report Type, link templates to it in the Report Type's Linked Templates section. See Report types.

Field Report placeholders

You can use three kinds of placeholder in a Field Report template.

Builtins. Cogram fills these in automatically:

Placeholder	What it fills in
{{ title }}	The report's title
{{ author }}	The email address of whoever created the report
{{ project name }}	The project's name
{{ project id }}	Your own project number, as set on the project
{{ status }}	The report status, for example "DRAFT" or "FINAL"
{{ date }}	The date the report was created, for example 07/30/2026
{{ time }}	The date and time the report was created, for example 2026-07-30 14:05:00
{{ dotw (english) }}	The day of the week, for example "Monday"
{{ address }}	The site address, from the report's location
{{ weather }}	The weather at the report's location
{{ executive summary }}	A summary of the observations, written by Cogram
{{ metadata }}	A table of all the report's custom field values
{{ total observations }}	The number of observations on the report
{{ total photos }}	The number of photos across all observations
{{ observations }}	The full observations section, laid out per the Report Type's Format the Export settings

Custom field placeholders. Every custom field on the report's Report Type is available under its Template Placeholder name: a field named client_firm fills {{ client_firm }}. See custom fields.

Table placeholders. For a Table field, put the placeholder in one row of a Word table. On export, that row repeats for every entry your team added, keeping your styling. For example, for a persons_present field with columns Name, Role, and Company:

Name	Role	Company
{{ persons_present }}

If someone enters three people on the report form, the exported table shows three rows.

If a placeholder comes through unfilled in the export, Word may have split it into pieces while you typed. Select the placeholder in Word, retype it in one go, save, and upload the file again.

Transmittal templates

If your organization licenses Transmittals, the Transmittals section of Organization Settings > Templates holds one cover-sheet template for your organization.

One template covers both download formats. When a member downloads a transmittal as PDF or as DOCX, both come from the template you upload here, so the PDF you file and the Word document you edit are the same cover sheet.

Until you upload one, transmittals use Cogram's built-in cover sheet, which carries the logo from your navigation bar branding.

Add a transmittal template (Org Admins)

1. Click Download sample in the Transmittals section to start from Cogram's own cover sheet.

2. Edit the .docx in Word: apply your letterhead and styles, and keep or move the placeholders you want.

3. Click Upload template, enter a name, and select your file.

Cogram validates the file on upload. A template that fails validation is not used: transmittals fall back to the built-in cover sheet until you replace it.

Expected result

Open any sent transmittal, click Download, and choose PDF. The cover sheet is your layout, with this transmittal's number, recipients, and documents filled in. Choosing DOCX gives you the same sheet as an editable Word file.

Transmittal placeholders

Placeholder	What it fills in
{{ transmittal number }}	The transmittal's number, for example TRA-078
{{ date }}	The date the transmittal was sent
{{ subject }}	The transmittal's subject
{{ purpose }}	Why it was issued, for example "Issued for construction"
{{ status }}	The current status, for example "Sent"
{{ due date }}	The response due date, when one is set
{{ project name }}	The project's name
{{ project number }}	Your own project number, as set on the project
{{ sender name }}	The full name of whoever sent the transmittal
{{ sender company }}	The sending organization's name
{{ sender email }}	The sender's email address
{{ to recipients }}	A table of the To recipients: name, company, email
{{ cc recipients }}	A table of the copied recipients: name, company, email, discipline
{{ documents }}	A table of the documents issued: quantity, dated, title, notes
{{ remarks }}	The remarks entered on the transmittal

Troubleshooting

Symptom. Cogram rejects the file when you upload or replace a template.

Likely cause. The file is not a valid .docx, or it uses a placeholder that is not in the table above.

Fix. The error appears in the upload dialog as soon as you select the file, and it names what to correct. Fix the file in Word and select it again — a rejected template is never saved, so there is no row to revisit later.

Symptom. A field on the cover sheet is blank.

Likely cause. The placeholder is spelled differently from the table above, or Word split it into pieces while you typed.

Fix. Select the placeholder in Word, retype it in one go, save, and upload the file again.