I think you will have lost your audience by saying "an 'empty' Survex template file". Anyone with limited experience of computing or surveying who reads the Survex
Getting Started page will be completely lost.
One day, someone will get around to writing the Idiots guide, but until then, the simplest thing is just to say that Survex reads text files written in a simple text editor such as Windows Notepad, but with the three letter extension changed from .txt to .svx and to borrow an example file from a kind friend, open in in Notepad and look how it is laid out.
When you have both installed Survex on your computer and produced your data file, as above, you highlight the file, right click on it and choose the "Process" option from the drop down menu. This will generate three further files, if it only generates one them your data is wrong somehow and the file will, at least, tell you where the error is. If you get all three files then double click the .3d file and you will get a pretty picture to play with.
NB if you look at the folder that the files are in, in Windows, with the "tiles" view option, then Windows kindly explains what the files are for you.