Share Templates
How to use share templates
Share templates are a way to group together similar types of shares for CSA farmers. They allow you to offer a variety of shares but streamline how shares appear in reports. Templates must be created BEFORE creating the associated shares. In GrownBy, we use the terminology “Parent Templates” and “Child Templates.”
Here are a few examples of times or ways that you might use share templates:
- To offer different frequencies of share: "Full Vegetable Share" is the template. You know that this has 8-10 items and feeds a family of four. Within that template, the farmer creates a few options, such as: "Weekly Vegetable Share," "Bi-Weekly Group A Vegetable Share," "Bi-Weekly Group B Vegetable Share," and "Monthly Vegetable Share.” All of those shares would be the same size from the point of view of the farmer, so the farm would harvest and pack the correct number of "Full Vegetable Shares." There could be another template for "Small Vegetable Share" with similarly corresponding shares nested within it.
- To offer different price points for the same exact share: Many farms are offering sliding scales/payment tiers and templates can streamline this. The template may be "Fruit Share" and within that template is "Fruit Share - High Income," "Fruit Share - Mid Income," and "Fruit Share - Low Income." On the sign-in sheets, it will just show that each member has a fruit share, without saying the income level associated with the share.
- If you offer a few shares at a special discount: For instance, a discounted share for faculty at the daycare where your pickup is hosted. If you have a limited number of these shares, you could handle the need for a discount with farm credit or promo codes, but if you have quite a few, they might be easier to manage as separate shares under the same template
Note that you can use one Parent Template for multiple uses. For example, you could have a “Full Vegetable Share” that has child shares within it with different frequencies AND different price points AND a special faculty share, as described above.
When do I NOT want to use templates?
You won’t want to use a template when the Product itself is different. For example, if you offer different types of yogurts on subscription–plain, vanilla, honey, and maple–, you would not use a template because you need to know if you have 15 vanilla and 25 maple. Similarly, you wouldn’t have pints and quarts together in the same template because you want to know how many of each you will need to take to distribution.
How to Create a Template
- Starting on the Products Page, choose “Add New Product”
- Choose “Subscription or CSA Share”
- Choose “Share Collection Template”
- Add:
- Template Product Name: the name that will appear on your Daily Summary, Location Summary, and all customer-facing Sign-in Sheets, as well as some other reports. Choose a costumer-facing name that will feel the most clear providing privacy regarding sliding scale pricing and income levels.
- SKU: a farmer-facing code for inventory management.
- Short Description: describe the share in short and descriptive language.
- Long Description: describe the share experience to the customer. Some good details you might want to include in maybe the types of vegetables in the share, range of the number of items, general storage tips, suggestions on who this share is best for, or any info about pricing tiers. This is currently the only longer format field for all of your shares under a template, so if you need to give information on any differentiations between the templates, this is the spot!
- Production Method: This is a text description of your production method. You can add any text that you'd like, such as IPM, Pasture Raised, Rotational Grazing, No-till.
- Category: Select a standard category or create a new category for your CSA share. The category is only visible on the Farm Manager side for sorting shares on the product page. In your Farm Shop, this share will be shown under the name of the CSA group.
- Producer: If you produce the shares included in this template, you can put your farm name here or leave it blank. If someone else produces this share, you should be clear about the name of that producer here.
- Suggested Family Size
- Minimum number of items
- Maximum number of items
- Photo: This is the photo that will be for all of the shares under this Template. You can either click Add a Photo and select one from your computer or drag and drop an image into the box. You may add up to 5 photos.
Once you have filled out the “Parent Template” it can apply to any associated “Child Templates.” The next step will be to create a Share.
- Return to the main Product page and choose “Add New Product.” Then choose “Subscriptions or CSA share.” Choose the type of share that you would like to create, either Primary or Add-On.
- To create a share using the template, you need to click on “Use Template” located on the right-hand side under the Photo. Select the template that you want to use from the drop-down menu. That will autofill all of the details from your template.
- Set the number of pickups and stock for this specific share. Choose the billing options and schedules to be associated with this share. Read more about shares here.
How to edit a template
Choose “Edit” on a share associated with this template or choose to create a new product with the template. Under the drop-down menu with the templates, you’ll see a “Edit Share Template” button.
Where and how do templates show up?
One of the main reasons that templates exist is to streamline how a farmer views the share options they provide. In some cases, the farmer will want to see the individual share name and not see the information aggregated. In other instances, it will be better to show the shares as aggregated by the Template Name. The chart below provides info on where you’ll see the shares aggregated and where you can see the specific share names.
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If you have any questions or concerns, please contact support@grownby.app or schedule a time to talk with us here!
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