[Template guided surgery with the open-access software "smop"]

For many practitioners the pre-implantological work and, thus, the related costs have been an obstacle to integrate navigated implantology into their workflow. In this article we shed light on a new approach: "smop" reduces the working procedure to a minimum. Based on an intuitive planning system implant-prosthetic treatment can be carried out with a high degree of predictability as well as manageable costs. However, contrary to some opinions the use of the navigation template does not automatically lead to better results. It does not automatically guarantee the success of the process. To just "blindly" attach the implants without surgical experience can lead to fatal consequences. For the seasoned implantologist, however, the template is a tool to get the optimum result. As a practice for oral surgery and implantology we often receive challenging cases. Though we have been practicing for many years and have a lot of experience even for us such cases are extraordinarily challenging. Working on such specific cases we don't want to work without the three-dimensional diagnostics, the virtual implant planning as well as the template based implant insertion anymore.