Idea Details

Currently, if an update needs to be made to an Action Plan Template, since you aren't allowed to make updates/edits to an Action Plan Template in a 'Published' status you must do the following:

1. Create a new Action Plan Template either by cloning an existing template or creating a brand new one and then publishing that template to make it available for use. 
2. If the original template you needed to make updates to is no longer valid, and users should not be allowed to select this template, you must deactivate the template.

When you deactivate an Action Plan Template the status of that template is changed to 'Obsolete' and you are no longer able to create Action Plans with that template, which makes complete sense.

However, what doesn't make sense at all is that if an Action Plan Template is deactivated and is now 'Obsolete', any Action Plan record that was created with that now obsolete template, is completely locked and can no longer be updated.  If a user attempts to modify a field on the Action Plan like change the status from In-Progress to Completed, they are unable to do so and are met with the following error:

• Error: You can't create an action plan based on an inactive action plan template. Select an action plan template version with a status of Final and try again.

Like the above error mentions, I agree you shouldn't be able to CREATE an action plan based on an inactive template, but you should be able to edit one even if the template is inactive.  

This came up because I am currently working in an org in which because of a minor tweak to an Action Plan Template, there is now a very large number of ongoing Action Plans which are completely locked and unable to be updated for which we're going to have to come up with a creative solution in order to solve.