Looking for a better method to import dashboards

[dorj1234 (Dor Juravski)]

Hello, looking for advice on a set of visualizations and their dashboards, that I need to duplicate.
I am hoping there is a better way than what I do below.

I have index1 with existing dashboards. Same data from different source goes into index2.
After bulk-edit and import I now have a new set of visulizations with new IDs for index2.

The challenge
Exported dashboard files use the old visualization IDs. There is no bulk edit that can fix the file before importing copied dashboards.
To point to the new visualizations I am forced to:

1. Look for the old visualization ID
2. Look for the new visualization ID of the equivalent one
3. Put the new ID in the file
4. Repeat the search/edit for every visualization

Any advice welcome, thank you.
JD

[Brandon_Kobel]

@dorj1234 so you're trying to copy Visualization/Dashboard from one index pattern to another index pattern? Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a more elegant workflow than the one that you've mentioned.

Can you instead use a more generic index-pattern that covers both of the Elasticsearch indices and then use filters to create the isolation?

[dorj1234 (Dor Juravski)]

That would be ideal, since it's the same data sets. However - the data is sensitive (customer names) and even seeing the names of the visualizations or the names of the filters may be sensitive.

My dashboards are a little complex but not too complex. So based on your answer, after I copy the visualizations (bulk edit of export file) then I can just create a new dashboard and recreate from the original.

My feedback to Elastic Product team is to think about a more elegant way to do it.
For example:
(apologies, it's a bit raw thinking)
Visualizations: give a group name to visualizations. Then copy them all to a new index.
Dashboards: allow to link to a visualization-name not just the ID.

Maybe give a prefix/suffix to visualization groups and dashboards and allow users to change the suffix. For example visualization "my-pie-chart-customer1" (customer1 as the suffix). All visualizations I choose become "something-customer1".

The dashboard then points to a set of visualizations, and when I add a customer2 then the dashboard starts pointing to my new set of visualizations that I copied, that end with customer2.

I can explain this more in depth, but the purpose is to change little in how Kibana manages json structures, and allow more flexibility.

Best,
JD