Template Library
The Template Library is a shared catalog of ready-made document request templates: a curated set published by FileOnion, plus templates that other firms have chosen to share with the community. This page is for anyone on your team who wants to start requests from proven checklists instead of building them from scratch, and for Owners and Admins who want to publish your firm's own templates.
What's in the Library
The Library mixes three kinds of templates:
- FileOnion-curated templates — 22 professionally built templates at launch, covering common matters across five industries. These carry a verified "Curated by FileOnion" mark.
- Community templates — templates published by other firms on FileOnion. Each one shows the publishing firm's name.
- Your own templates — these do not live in the Library itself. Templates you create (or import from the Library) sit in Templates → My Requests, private to your firm, until you choose to publish one.
Browsing and using the Library is available on every plan. Publishing your own templates to the community requires the Professional plan or higher.
To open the Library, click Templates in the sidebar. The Browse tab is the Library; the other tabs (My Requests, Documents, Checklists) hold your firm's private templates.
Industry segments
Every template in the Library is grouped into one of five industry segments, each with its own color:
| Segment | Example tags that map to it |
|---|---|
| Immigration | immigration, visa, green card, asylum, naturalization, uscis |
| Tax & Accounting | tax, accounting, bookkeeping, cpa, irs, payroll |
| Mortgage & Real Estate | mortgage, real estate, loan, closing, escrow, refinance, homebuyer |
| Legal | legal, law, attorney, estate planning, divorce, probate, litigation |
| HR & Onboarding | hr, onboarding, new hire, contractor, i-9, w-4, benefits |
A template's segment comes from its tags. Matching is case-insensitive and looks for whole words or phrases, so a tag of Family Law lands in Legal, and Immigration Law lands in Immigration (segments are checked in the order shown above, so the more specific industry wins). The first tag that matches any segment decides the placement. Templates whose tags match no segment go into an Other bucket.
Tag your own templates with the industry in mind
If you plan to publish a template, put its industry as the first tag (for example Immigration or Tax). That guarantees it appears under the right segment chip for everyone browsing the Library.
Browsing the Library
Filter by segment
A row of chips sits above the template grid: All, followed by one chip per segment, each with a color dot and a count of templates in that segment. Segments with no templates are hidden. Click a chip to filter; click it again (or click All) to clear the filter. The active segment is reflected in the page URL, so you can share a link that opens the Library pre-filtered.
Search
Use the Search templates box to search by title, description, and tags. Search is fuzzy and ranks results by relevance, so close matches still surface. While a search is active, results are ordered by relevance rather than by your selected sort.
If nothing matches, you'll see a message such as "No Legal templates match "trust"" with a Clear filters button to reset both the search and the segment filter.
Sort
The Sort by menu offers four orders:
- Most popular (default) — templates with the most imports first. When import counts tie, featured templates lead, then templates are grouped by segment order.
- Recently added — newest publications first.
- Recently updated — most recently changed first.
- A–Z — alphabetical by title.
Grid or list view
On desktop you can switch between the card grid and a list view with a toggle next to the sort menu. The list view adds columns for Type (Checklist or Freeform), Documents, Industry, Publisher, Imports, Updated, and Tags. On mobile, the Library always shows cards. Results are paginated 12 to a page.
Reading a template card
Each card shows:
- The segment name with its color dot (omitted for the Other bucket).
- A star icon in the corner if the template is featured — a curated pick that FileOnion highlights.
- The template title. If a title contains a personalization variable such as
{{clientName}}, the card hides the placeholder for readability; the variable is still part of the template and fills in with the client's name when you create a request from it. - The publisher (see below).
- A short description.
- A footer with the document count and, once a template has been used, its import count (for example "6 documents · 12 imports").
Hovering over a card reveals a "Preview →" hint — click anywhere on the card to open a read-only preview of the full template, including its documents and checklists.
Publisher attribution
Every card attributes its publisher so you always know where a template came from:
- Curated by FileOnion — templates published by FileOnion show a purple verified check mark next to the FileOnion name. Hover the mark to see the tooltip "Curated by FileOnion".
- Firm-published — community templates show a small building icon and the publishing firm's name.
- Community — if a publisher name isn't available, the card falls back to a generic "Community" byline.
The same attribution appears in the list view's Publisher column.
Using a template
Click Use on a card (or Use template in the list view's row menu). The button shows "Saving…" while FileOnion copies the template into your firm, then a confirmation appears:
Checkpoint
You should see the toast "Template saved to your library" with the note that the template "is now in My Requests", plus a View link that takes you to Templates → My Requests.
Importing does not send anything to a client and does not open a request. It gives your firm its own private copy, which you can rename, edit, and reuse as many times as you like. To turn it into a request, go to Templates → My Requests, open the template's three-dot menu, and choose Create request from template — or pick the template from the template selector inside the request composer. See Templates and Requests.
Imports are counted: each time any firm imports a template, its import count increases, which feeds the Most popular sort.
Publishing your own template
On the Professional plan and above, Owners and Admins can share a firm template with the community:
- Go to Templates → My Requests.
- Open the three-dot menu on the template you want to share.
- Click Publish to Community.
Checkpoint
You should see the toast "Template published to community". If you try to publish the same template twice, FileOnion tells you it has already been published.
Your template now appears in the Library for all FileOnion firms, attributed to your firm by name. Publishing shares the template's structure — its title, description, document list, checklists, and tags. It does not share any client data or uploaded files.
Before you publish
Review the template's descriptions for anything firm-specific or confidential. Give it clear tags (industry first) so it lands in the right segment.
The "My published" view
Owners and Admins see a My published button at the top of the Library. Click it to switch from browsing to a My Published Templates view listing every template your firm has shared, each with its import count. Click ← Back to Browse to return.
Unpublishing a template
You can withdraw a template from the community at any time:
- From the My published view, click the Unpublish chip under the template, or
- From Templates → My Requests, open the template's three-dot menu and choose Unpublish from Community.
Either way, an Unpublish Template dialog asks you to confirm ("Are you sure you want to unpublish template name from the community library?") and offers an optional Reason field. Click Unpublish to confirm. The template disappears from the Library for other firms; your own copy in My Requests is unaffected, and firms that already imported it keep their copies.
Related
- Templates — creating and managing your firm's own templates
- Requests — turning a template into a client request
- AI Request Builder — building a document list with AI instead of (or alongside) a template
- Billing — plan features and upgrading