Templates are used as patterns for frequently used types of documents (letters, reports, forms) that usually contain extensive layout and formatting information as well as calculation formulas, if applicable. In BSCW, arbitrary objects may also be declared as templates: Surveys, flow folders, tasks and even folders with their entire contents.
All templates must be contained in your personal templates or in template folders,
which are special folders containing only templates and metadata profiles. Template folders can have any
name; they are identified 
by the icon. Because template
folders behave just like normal folders, they can be shared with other users.
This way, you can create shareable templates for your workgroup, for example. In
addition to user-defined template folders that contain templates for the use of
a single person or a workgroup, there are system-wide template folders that are
accessible to all registered users of the BSCW server and that are managed by
the system administrator.