To reproduce: follow the steps defined in the following help article: http://docs.telerik.com/devtools/winforms/gridview/hierarchical-grid/tutorial-binding-to-hierarchical-data Then, add a nested template in the second level. After closing the GridViewTemplate Collection Editor, you will notice that the template is not saved. http://screencast.com/t/7VDYiopuUHn Workaround: setup the hierarchy programmatically : http://docs.telerik.com/devtools/winforms/gridview/hierarchical-grid/binding-to-hierarchical-data-programmatically