There is not a better method. It should work.
Can you provide some more details? What version of Obsidian are you using?
When you go to the Daily Notes preferences, do you see something similar to this? Did you fill it out with a valid page? If you filled it in with a page that doesn’t exist, it will not work. If you start typing, it should auto-fill suggestions, so you’ll know it wasn’t a typo.
The Daily Notes does not need the Template plugin to be loaded. It uses its own Template. The settings are under “Daily Notes” here:
(It might need the template plugin loaded to fill in the {{date}} and {{time}}. I don’t know that.)
