How to have (author, n.d.) using @misc in natbib

Question

I would appreciate your assistance on how to make the in-text citation be (author, n.d.) instead of (author, nd) for references with no date. Strange thing is that n.d. is showing in my reference list only. Here is an example of the entry I use:

@misc{grace.ordinal,
author = {Grace-Martin, Karen},
year ={{n.d.}},
title = {{Principal Component Analysis for Ordinal Scale Items}},
note  = {\url{https://www.theanalysisfactor.com/principal-component-analysis-for-ordinal-scale-items/}, (accessed October 7, 2019)},
}

the package is:

\usepackage[sectionbib]{natbib}
\usepackage{chapterbib}

and the bibliography style is Chicago.

These are the closest answers I found on the website, but my experience with editing the .bst file is zero and I am worried it would mess up my whole thesis on overleaf. Plus, the answer is based on apalike style. Would following it be safe and give the same outcome?

References with n.d. (no date) using natbib with apalike

Where to find apacite.bst file to change bibliography style

Please note I have tried to keep the year field empty, removed the year field altogether but I am not getting what I want. Actually, if I do these two options the authors' name is copied in the date field as well for in-text citation, i.e. (author, author).

update:@Marjin, in case you might have time to have a look at the whole entry, here it is (I was wondering if it is not working because I am using chapterbib and sectionbib?

\documentclass[oneside,12pt]{report}
\usepackage[paper=a4paper,   
        left=3.5cm,
        right=2.5cm,
        top=2.5cm,
        bottom=2.5cm,]{geometry}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{svg}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage [T1 ]{ fontenc }
\usepackage{arabtex}
\usepackage{epigraph} 
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{booktabs,caption}
\usepackage[flushleft]{threeparttable}
\usepackage{float}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{setspace}
%\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[hyphens]{url}
\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}
\hypersetup{breaklinks=true,
            colorlinks=true,
            citecolor=blue,
            }
\newcommand{\ndlink}[1]{%
\begingroup%
\hypersetup{linkcolor=blue}%
(\hyperlink{cite.#1}{n.d.})%
\endgroup}
\urlstyle{same}
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.1}
\usepackage[sectionbib]{natbib}
\usepackage{chapterbib}
\usepackage{amsmath,amsthm}
\hypersetup{
    colorlinks=false,
    breaklinks=true
}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{1}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{1}
%discourages hyphenated words at end of lines
\hyphenpenalty=5000
\tolerance=1000
\usepackage{appendix}
\appendixpageoff
\usepackage{datetime}
\newdateformat{monthyeardate}{%
  \monthname[\THEMONTH], \THEYEAR}
\newcommand{\quickwordcount}[1]{%
  \immediate\write18{texcount -0 -sum -merge  #1.tex > #1-words.sum }%
  \input{#1-words.sum}%
}
\newcommand\thesistitle{XXXXXX}
\newcommand\authorname{XX XX} % Full name
\newcommand\authordegrees{XX, XX} % This does not have to be filled in, but the regulations state that you should include any degrees you have.
\newgeometry{left=35mm, right=25mm, top=25mm, bottom=25mm, includeheadfoot} % This has to come before the header and footer information
% HEADER AND FOOTER STYLE
% https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Customizing_Page_Headers_and_Footers
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\setlength{\headheight}{15pt}
% For preamble
\fancypagestyle{preamble}{ %
 \fancyhf{} % remove everything
 \fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
 \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} % remove lines as well
 \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
}
\pagestyle{preamble}
% For the main pages
\fancypagestyle{main}{
  \fancyhf{}
  %\fancyhead[R]{\thepage}
  \fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
  %\fancyhead[L]{\textit{ \nouppercase{\leftmark}} }
  \fancyhead[R]{\textit{ \nouppercase{\rightmark}} }
  \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{1pt} % remove lines as well
  \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
}
% For title and chapter pages
\fancypagestyle{plain}{ %
  \fancyhf{} % remove everything
  \fancyfoot[C]{\thepage} %should keep page number
  \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} % remove lines as well
  \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
}
\begin{document}
Some content
\end{document}

Then within each chapter tex file I included at the end of the document before the appendix

\clearpage
\newpage
\bibliography{nameofbibfile}
\bibliographystyle{chicago}

Answer 1

For a simple one-off workaround you can use \citeauthor, whioch just prints the author, and add the (n.d.) manually, as follows:

\citeauthor{grace.ordinal} (n.d.)

If you use hyperref to create links then this text would not be linked. You can add a link manually using \hyperlink{destionation}{link text}. The destination for cite items is cite.bibtex key, in this case cite.grace.ordinal. Note that this syntax may not be guaranteed for different setups so check carefully if it works. Then you get:

\citeauthor{grace.ordinal} (\hyperlink{cite.grace.ordinal}{n.d.})

To simplify this warkaround you can create a new command. Then you can also do some housekeeping, such as making sure the link color is the same as the cite color and creating a group to prevent leaking the color change into the rest of the document.

An even easier workaround of course is to add the year.

MWE:

@misc{grace.ordinal,
author = {Grace-Martin, Karen},
year ={{n.d.}},
title = {{Principal Component Analysis for Ordinal Scale Items}},
note  = {\url{https://www.theanalysisfactor.com/principal-component-analysis-for-ordinal-scale-items/}, (accessed October 7, 2019)},
}
@misc{gracetwo,
author = {Grace-Martin, Karen},
year ={2018},
title = {{Principal Component Analysis for Ordinal Scale Items}},
note  = {\url{https://www.theanalysisfactor.com/principal-component-analysis-for-ordinal-scale-items/}, (accessed October 7, 2019)},
}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage[colorlinks,citecolor=blue]{hyperref}
\newcommand{\ndlink}[1]{%
\begingroup%
\hypersetup{linkcolor=blue}%
(\hyperlink{cite.#1}{n.d.})%
\endgroup}
\begin{document}
This is a blog post: \citeauthor{grace.ordinal} \ndlink{grace.ordinal}. The same: \cite{gracetwo}.
\bibliographystyle{chicago}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

Result:

---

With the chapterbib package the link targets have the string @-[chapter number] at the end, e.g., cite.grace.ordinal@-1. You can add this to the command:

\newcommand{\ndlink}[1]{%
\begingroup%
\hypersetup{linkcolor=blue}%
(\hyperlink{cite.#1@-\arabic{chapter}}{n.d.})%
\endgroup}

An easy way to check the link target is to open the pdf in a web browser and hover over an existing bibliography link, then the full link will be displayed in the bottom left corner.