How to pre-assign a template to the stages of a request set

I am setting up a request set to run a seeded payroll report 8 times, with a different element set parameter on each one.  I figured out how to use shared parameters to pass the common options (like check date range), and it appears that the request set is running properly with all options.  I just input the shared parameters on the first stage and they are passed through.

The issue I'm having is that I can't figure out how to make the last 7 request stages use the same output template that was manually selected on the job via the Options button.  The selected template (Excel) was only applied to the first request stage output, and the following stages output in pdf format.