Templates won’t help in such case. Template is just a visualization method, while select editor works with options’ IDs.
ID is necessary for data editing. If you use some external options, the ID of the option will be set as a value of the corresponding attribute.
First of all, if the initial value of the attribute doesn’t match with the id of any option, it won’t be shown without a specific template:
columns: [{
id: "Assignee",
template:function(obj){
return obj.Assignee
}
}]
But, as I mentioned, for proper data editing you still need the ID for your options. If you can’t change the original options such way, you can apply a custom datatype to them. Please check the following snippet:
http://webix.com/snippet/8e18757d
If you load the options from some url, a custom proxy can be used for the same purpose.