The phrase "as a useful template" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when referring to a model or example that can be followed or adapted for a specific purpose.
Example: "The previous project served as a useful template for our current initiative, guiding us through the planning stages."
Alternatives: "as a helpful model" or "as a practical example".
Many, including Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor of the world-wide web, see the marco civil as a useful template for a global accord.
Our high-resolution crystal structure of PTP-Bas PDZ1 will serve as a useful template for rational structure-based design of novel anti-diabetes therapeutics.
Our integrated natural science social science survey design serves as a useful template for similar water quality studies, as well as providing results for benefit transfer by government entities unable to conduct an original benefits analysis as they develop numeric nutrient criteria.
The document index.html is itself available for download from the repository and hence can act as a useful template for other authors.
The history of knowledge about lead toxicity may serve as a useful template to judge and predict progress in understanding other toxicants.
If the Roman principate is a useful template -- for that was as close as the world has come to realizing Alexander's global monarchy -- we can imagine that for every Augustus, there would have been several Caligulas and Neros.
Although this categorization provides a useful template, as Dorosh notes in Chapter 13, disentangling the impacts of policy reforms is complex.
Anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) is well known as an important nanostructured material, and a useful template in the fabrication of nanostructures.
He admired the integrity of the old bluesmen and the willfulness of poets, and his distaste for ingratiation provided a useful template for such later figures as Elvis Costello and John Mellencamp, who traded in related forms of surliness.
We conclude that multivalency is providing a useful template for the development novel integrin αvβ3 antagonists as potential therapeutics.
Johnson's actions show we can be surprised, and they also offer a useful template for Cameron.
