Document based Content Types are a nice way of creating document templates in Document Libraries.
Creating Templates
- Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Content Types
- Create a new Document based Content Type
- Go to the Advanced Settings
Here there are two ways in which you can upload a document template:
- Upload a new document template - this has a disadvantage that when if you would want to change the template you would have to find the Site Content Type and upload a new document. This is not a very user-friendly approach.
- Enter the URL of an existing document template - what you should be doing is create an "Administration" with access to a few select users / groups. In this site create a Document Templates document library. Any document templates you need should go in here (Example MeetingAgendaTemplate.doc). Once you have uploaded your document template, copy its URL and put this in the Advanced Settings of the Site Content Type for your template.
With this approach, if a template changes you just guide your users to change the template in the Document Templates library. Since your content type is reading from this library, the new template will now be used automatically.
You should then take the necessary precautions to not allow users to change this document library unintentionally, such as hiding it from search results and assigning the appropriate permissions.
