Web parts can be used on both portal page templates and ASPX page templates. However, with ASPX page templates, you lose the friendly user interface and need to set the properties in Visual Studio.

 

Go to CMS Desk -> Content, click some page and choose Design in the toolbar. You will see the page template structure like this:

 

 

Any web part can be moved up/down or to another web part zone and its properties can be edited using the Configure () button. This opens the Web part properties dialog as shown below:

 

 

When you click OK, any changes are saved and the window closes. If you click Apply, the changes are saved, but you can continue modifying the properties. All changes are applied immediately. Page templates are not connected with workflow, but it is possible to use object versioning to keep track of changes made to templates, including their web part content (and roll back to previous versions if necessary). Please read the Development -> Object versioning chapter to learn more.