The template is a great feature and allows us to layout the glyphs properly. There is a disparity between the baseline of items in the template and importing/dragging them into the plugin window.
When you drag into the Fontself plugin, especially when you have items like that sit on the baseline and well above it, we get an alert about the differing baselines of the imported items. Once in the plugin, these glyph’s baselines are no longer aligned to the way they were in the template.
The template is actually just a visual guideline that you can customize at will, and to leverage the actual guides into the font metrics, you actually need to select them during import: https://help.fontself.com/en/articles/900365-set-font-metrics-with-illustrator-guides
So, if I am reading this correctly, I would unlock the guide so they are copied into the Fontself plugin; and that would ensure the placement remains consistent to the template’s presentation?
Exactly! And the full guidelines are only required once to set vertical metrics. For additional characters, the baseline is the only useful one.
Learned something new today, thanks 
Guess I can call it a day now.