Improved experience for editing a visualization from a cloned dashboard

[alexfrancoeur]

Because of our relationship approach to visualizations and dashboard, cloning a dashboard can become a complicated process. Especially if you're looking to clone a dashboard to tweak some of the visualizations available in that dashboard. As soon as you edit a visualization on a cloned dashboard, all other saved objects using that visualization are also tweaked.

One proposed option is similar to the experience of creating a new visualization from a dashboard. When you're done creating it, we add this directly to the dashboard. Basically, we know that the workflow came from a dashboard and not the visualize app.

You could imagine a similar experience when cloning a dashboard.

1. Clone dashboard
2. Edit existing visualization
3. Save edited visualization
4. Prompted with a choice to make

• "Your visualization is linked to dashboard X,Y,Z, overwrite existing visualization?"
  *I "Save and replace existing visualization on cloned dashboard" (With option to rename)

We'd need to know (and probably persist) a few things to get this experience. This is an option that came to mind, but I'm sure there are other approaches.

cc: @AlonaNadler

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-design

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-app

[alexfrancoeur]

Seems to be related to a longstanding issue #8862

[AlonaNadler]

After the dashboard change we are currently working on with by value and by reference. Cloning dashboard might get more complex. After cloning there will be no easy way to know if a dashboard panel user edit will be changed only at that dashboard or also in the library.
In general, I think the clone dashboard was always problematic in the world where the dashboard is cloned but the visualizations are not.

After the by value-by reference change, I suggest clone dashboard will clone the dashboard and have all panels be by value.
@majagrubic @ThomThomson @timroes

[ThomThomson]

I'm wondering if transforming all panels to 'by value' is the right direction when cloning a dashboard. It seems to me that once users get used to the new flow, that adding a visualization to the library involves a bit of extra work, and would only be done on purpose. In that case, it could be frustrating if the relationships are lost in situations where users didn't specifically ask to remove them.

I would suggest a confirmation similar to the one @alexfrancoeur originally wrote, though I would argue that it should not only appear when editing a panel from a cloned dashboard, but any time these three conditions are met:

1. You have come to the editor from a dashboard
2. The visualization is already saved to the library
3. The visualization is used in more than one dashboard

The warning could read something like: "This visualization is linked to a library item. Your changes will appear in 2 other dashboards." with an option to "Update Library Item" or "Unlink from Library Item".

Additionally, a 'library' icon that shows up on panels in a dashboard in edit mode could further denote any panels that are 'by reference'.

Most likely my suggestions will be more desirable further down the road when / if embeddables by value becomes an accepted and widespread default.

[ThomThomson]

Closing this, as the by value feature added in 7.12 covers this use case. When you clone a Dashboard, panels that are by value have no linkage to the visualize library item.