Making template project in ArcGIS Pro that has broken data links on purpose

Question

I am trying to take a project file and save it as a template project file so users can not accidentally save their changes to the template file when they start a new project without a "save-as" first.

However, the project file purposely has broken data links, as each project that starts gets relinked to a new geodatabase with the expected feature classes to repair all the broken links, we leave them broken so we don't have to go one by one to each layer and re-point the source, instead we repair one layer and the rest sort themselves out.

When I go to make a template file though I get the error that a layer's data source is inaccessible, and it won't make the template file.

Is there a way to ignore those errors, or potentially fix them to a temporary GDB, make the template, then remove the temp GDB and have the links in the template break but it still work?

Answer 1

Yes, this is possible. I created a temporary GDB, linked the layers that need to be broken to it, made the template without the errors, then trashed the temporary GDB. Next time I opened the template and made a new project it opened and the proper links were broken and ready for re-pointing.