I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but whenever I set an Excel data link path to "Relative" or "No Path" in Data Link Manager, the interface appears to allow it, but if I edit the link again, it will show "Full Path" again every time! This happens if I check it after saving, or before saving, or even if I check it immediately, before fully exiting the Data Link Manager. This is happening on 2015 at work with network locations, and on 2012 at home on the local drive.

What I'm trying to accomplish is 1) a data link to a schedules Excel sheet that will reside in the drawing folder. Either Relative or No path should work for this. And if possible, 2) to make that data link part of my drawing template file, so that each new drawing is already linked to the schedule.

I can see there might be complications with 2), but why I can't get 1) to work can only be attributed to gremlins.