The GTD Dashboard site template that I demonstrated at the SPBiz conference in my session called Create a GTD® Dashboard in Office 365 to Get Things Done is now ready for download!
Getting Things Done (or GTD) is a set of principles created by David Allen to help you capture, clarify, and organize all the stuff you have going on in your life in one place, and to empower you to make smart choices about what to work on when, so that you can get more done in the limited amount of time that you have (for more details and to check out the slides from the session, check out my earlier blog post).
As I stated in the session, I had tried using a few software apps that were designed according to the GTD principles, but each fell a little short in functionality for me. So I created my own GTD site in Office 365 that was customized to how I wanted to see all my actions and projects.
WANT TO GET THE TEMPLATE FOR FREE? As a thank you for subscribing to my newsletter, I’ll send a download link to the template right over to you, just fill out the form below. Please also read the disclaimer below the form.
Disclaimer
This template has only been tested in Office 365. It has NOT been tested in SharePoint 2013 On Premises. Since this is a free template, it may not be 100% bug free. Use at your own risk. You may want to install and test in a “test” site collection away from your company’s mission critical content. I have identified a few issues that you may run into and how to solve them that are documented below. Also because this is a free template, I can’t provide premium-type support for questions and issues. While I will make every attempt to answer any questions or address issues you have in a timely manner, I can’t guarantee any kind of response time. If you desire expedited response time, you could always hire me as a consultant 🙂
Installing the Template
- Once you receive the template downlink link from me via email, save the template somewhere on your computer.
- Navigate to your top level site collection’s Site Settings page, and click on Solutions (under Web Designer Galleries).
- Click the Upload Solution button in the ribbon. Browse to the template file and upload the file.
- It should automatically activate the solution, but if it doesn’t you can activate it from the ribbon.
Creating a New Site from the Template
To create a new site from the template, follow the following instructions:
- At the place you’d like to add your sub site, navigate to the Site Contents page.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click new subsite.
- Give your new site a name, optional description, and URL, and make sure to choose the GTD® Site Template custom template. Configure the permissions and navigation settings as you wish and click Create.
Known Issues
Following are a few issues that you may run into either when trying to create a new site from the template or after the site is created.
- When trying to create a site from the template, you might receive the following error: “This web template requires that certain features be installed, activated, and licensed. The following problems are blocking application of the template” and then there will be a list of features that are missing. If you run into this, follow the instructions in this blog post to activate the features. Once they are all activated, you should be able to successfully create a site from the template.
- The calendar overlay from the Actions list did not get saved with the template for some reason. If you wish to display your Actions that are due on the Events calendar, open your Events list in calendar view and follow the instructions from this great post by Rackspace. Choose the Actions list and the Calendar view when configuring the overlay.
- On the new actions forms, the JS Link property does not get set properly when a site is created from the template. When you click on the New Collect Item, New Action, New Tickler, and New Someday buttons on the dashboard home page, the Actions add form will open and the Action Type should get automatically set based on which button was clicked. Since the JS Link property is messed up, it always gets set to the default Action Type (which is Collect). To fix this, click on one of the four buttons mentioned above, and go into page edit mode (click the Gears icon then Edit Page). Edit the web part properties, expand the Miscellaneous section, and change the JS Link property to “~site/SiteAssets/ActionsNewForm.js”
If you run into any additional issues that I haven’t listed here, please let me know in the comments.
Hi Wendy,
I have downloaded and installed your GTD wsp and apply the manage-feature fix with the features problem, but now when I create a new site with this template, I get a new error as reported below.
Do you have any idea what is missing now?
Thank you in advance for your help.
——————— Error creating site ————
Sorry, something went wrong
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: id
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPTimeZoneCollection.GetTimeZoneInfoById(Int32 id)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.SPWebWorkflowSecurityContext.AddWebSpecificConfiguration(WorkflowEventContext webContext, SPWeb web, String prefix, UriBuilder siteUri)
at Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowServices.SPWebWorkflowSecurityContext.CreateOrUpdateServiceGroup(SPWeb lookupWeb, SPAppPrin
Hey Wendy!
This is a late e-mail to your post from last year, but it’s only because I discovered GTD about 2 months ago.
Great presentation and tools by the way… I’d gladly try out your template if I had the opportunity.
I’m a heavy user of Outlook and saw that there’s also a GTD template available for that. So above in your post (and in your presentation, I believe) you say that you’ve tried other GTD apps and they came up short somehow.
So my question is, does this list include GTD for Outlook? If so, would you see a reason to switch to a personal version of Office 365, and then use a GTD template for that?
Thanks!
Hi Bill, no I did not try GTD for Outlook so I’m not sure if it would have all the things I included in the O365 template I created. I would recommend you try it out and see if it works for you before making the investment in Office 365. GTD can be flexible and based on personal preference so a tool that works for one person may not be ideal for another.
Hi Wendy,
I watched your movies about creation of the template and I have a strong feeling that it will be really helpful to me, but I am really new to SharePoint and there’s some details which I’m missing in configuring the template myself, so I applied on your blog for it.
Still, I got no reply or confirmation that you received my application so I was wondering how I could get it?
Thanks!
Hi Valentin, I’ve gotten a few reports that some people are not receiving the automated email that contains the download link. I also saw your message you sent me on this topic. I’ll reply and send the link to you.
Same here. Did not receive the automated email with the link. 🙁
V, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting back to your comment. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive your comment notification 🙁
I have changed email providers so the download form should work now. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template this time. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
Wendy,
I am very interested in the template. I also did not receive the automated email with the link. Is it possible for you to send it manually?
Many thanks!
Corey, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting back to your comment. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive your comment notification 🙁
I have changed email providers so the download form should work now. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template this time. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
I have requested the template a couple times as well. No response.
Eric, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting back to your comment. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive your comment notification 🙁
I have changed email providers so the download form should work now. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template this time. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
I submitted request for download link to The GTD Dashboard site template and never received it.
Chris, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting back to your comment. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive your comment notification 🙁
I have changed email providers so the download form should work now. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template this time. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
No automated link received – could someone please send it to me? or paste it here
Peter, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting back to your comment. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive your comment notification 🙁
I have changed email providers so the download form should work now. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template this time. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
Wendy,
I am also interested in this template. I filled out the form, but have not received any download links. Would you be kind enough to email a link my way?
Thank you so much.
Cheers,
Jason
Jason, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting back to your comment. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive your comment notification 🙁
I have changed email providers so the download form should work now. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template this time. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
Everyone, HUGE APOLOGIES for the problems some of you have been having in receiving the template via email. I have been having issues with my former email provider in sending out emails. I did not even receive any comment notifications to let me know that you guys were having trouble.
I have changed email providers and I’m now using MailChimp. If you could kindly fill out the form above one more time, you should receive the template. Again, very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you!!
Hi Wendy
I don’t appear to be receiving your email template either.
I’d be grateful if you could send it to me please?
Thanks
Guy
Hi Wendy,
Any chance I can get the template?
Thanks.
Hi Wendy,
Thanks for sharing this template!
As some others here in the comments also point out, there is no automatic mail being sent. Or at least, I’m not getting them.
Btw, on your https://wendy-neal.com/contact/ page, the form is missing ([contact-form-7 404 "Not Found"])
Could you provide me the GTD-template some other way?
Thanks!
Jannick Oeben
Hi Wendy.
I receive this error when I try to activate the template:
Sorry, something went wrong
Feature definition with Id a59a9f2d-cd77-49b9-932e-aa6e61fc6f3a failed validation, file ‘GTDDashboardWebEventReceivers\Elements.xml’, line 104, character 23: The ‘http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/:Type’ element is invalid – The value ‘WebRestored’ is invalid according to its datatype ‘http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/:EventReceiverType’ – The Enumeration constraint failed.
Hi Wendy – love this blog post and video, however, its been awhile since this blog. I filled out the form today but haven’t received the link – is this still active?
Wondering if it is still possible to get this template?
Hi Wendy, I submitted a couple of requests for downloading the link to The GTD Dashboard site template and never received it. Could you have a look? Sarah