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Transitioning to the new Explore dashboard builder: Your questions answered
Posted Oct 19, 2023
Hello, Zendesk community! Now that we’ve released the new Explore dashboard builder, we've revised our plan and put together this post to give you a comprehensive overview and to address any concerns you might have.
Before you start, watch this five-minute demo to get a quick overview of the new intuitive and dynamic dashboard builder.
Why have we introduced a new dashboard builder?
The move is driven by our commitment to simplifying how dashboards are built. Many of you shared how the classic experience has a steep learning curve. With the new dashboard builder, we want to provide a flexible, user-tailored experience that gives control and visibility to editors. This new experience represents our commitment to empowering you to create dashboards you're proud to share.
What’s the process for transitioning to the new dashboard?
The transition is taking place using a phased approach over a 12-month period from November 4, 2024 to help you prepare and adapt to the new interface gradually.
We’ll keep you updated during the transition about what you can expect in each phase to guide you through this change. In the meantime, here is a high-level overview of the transition plan:
- Phase 1 - Beta dashboard builder GA release (4 months): The GA release of our new dashboard builder includes a host of exciting features like tabs, exports, schedules, and the ability to link filters across different datasets.
During this phase, while users have the option to continue using the classic builder, it's important to note that our primary focus will be on the development and improvement of the new dashboard builder. As a result, there will be certain limitations for those continuing with the classic experience:- Only highly impactful bugs will be fixed in the classic builder
- No enhancements will be made to the classic builder
- Product documentation will refer to the new dashboard builder with minimal documentation for the legacy dashboard builder.
- Phase 2 - Transitionary period (4 months): Following the GA release of the new dashboard builder, there will be a transitionary period of approximately four months.
During this time, you’ll still be able to edit your dashboards using the classic builder, but you won’t be able to create brand-new dashboards with it. This transitionary period will enable you to gradually adapt to the new interface and take advantage of its enhanced capabilities at your own pace.
At this stage, you’ll also know how your shared dashboards are being used and will be able to identify the relevant dashboards you want to rebuild using the new dashboard builder.
- Phase 3 - View-only access to classic dashboards (4 months): After the transitionary period concludes, dashboards built with the classic builder will remain accessible to all users who have access, but the capabilities will be limited to view-only mode, as edit access to the classic builder will be removed. View-only mode for dashboards built in the classic builder will remain in place for another four months.
- Retirement of the classic view-only experience: In order to be transparent about our future plans, four (4) months after the start of the "View-only access to classic dashboards" phase, we will fully retire the classic dashboard. This means that the classic dashboard will no longer be available for use after this period.
This phased approach is represented in the visual below.
Your questions answered
Following the original announcement, you also raised a number of questions. We've addressed the most common questions below:
Has phase 1 already started?
Yes! As of 4 November 2024, the new dashboard builder is released to GA.
Is there be a tool to help in migrating dashboards built with the classic builder?
Yes, we have developed a tool that will allow you to quickly import reports from an existing dashboard built with the legacy dashboard builder. A beta version of the tool allowing to migrate a single dashboard will be available at the GA of the new dashboard builder. Other improvements will follow post-GA.
What is the timeframe for accessing existing dashboards created with the classic builder?
You will be able to access the existing dashboards created with the classic builder until the end of phase 3, which marks the retirement of the classic view-only experience. This phase is expected to occur approximately one year after the GA of the new dashboard builder.
What features are available at GA?
Many of the features you’ve requested will be available, including:
- Exports in CSV and Excel formats
- Scheduled dashboards
- Tabs
- Linked filters across different datasets
- Excluding reports from being filtered
- Importer tool (Beta)
- Filtered views (Bookmarks)
Will bookmarks be available?
A similar implementation of Bookmarks, named “Filtered views”, is now available. Filtered views make it easy to switch between different sets of filters on a single dashboard tab. A filtered view can be set as a default filtered view for a specific tab as it was possible previously with bookmarks.
Watch this three-minute demo to learn more about filtered views.
Are existing reports compatible with the new builder?
Yes, all existing reports are compatible with the new builder.
Will you delete existing reports after the retirement of the classic view-only experience?
No, we won’t. Your existing reports will be accessible via the report builder and new dashboard builder and won’t be impacted by this plan.
Can you provide some guidance on how to migrate dashboards?
Yes, see this article for help.
At a very high level, you will be able to:
- Identify your most-used dashboards
- Determine whether any of them are similar enough that they would be good candidates to be combined into a single dashboard with dashboard restrictions
- Use the importer tool to quickly import reports from an existing dashboard
Can Professional Services help to rebuild dashboards?
Yes, they will be available as a paid service. We will share more details about their availability and pricing after the GA.
How is this different from migrating from Insights?
It is very different as you won’t have to rebuild any reports. Instead, you can quickly import the existing ones to a new dashboard.
Your feedback matters
Please share your thoughts in the comments below. We'll incorporate your feedback into continuous improvements to the new dashboard builder.
We're excited about the improvements the new dashboard builder brings and look forward to supporting you through this transition. Thank you for being a valued member of our Zendesk community.
-13
91 comments
Ashley M
We need a quick option to set “all history” in time filters like on the legacy dashboard.
Otherwise you have to into custom range and pick a random date way before to capture everything.
1
Walter Bellante
Hi Vladimir P ,
thanks for your feedback.
While you can't set the “Run for” option indefinitely, you will be notified via email when a schedule is about to expire so you can renew it.
As for the PNG and PDF schedules, we are aiming to release them before the end of the year.
Regards,
Walter
-1
Walter Bellante
Hello Mark Nino Valencia,
we plan to rebuild the change attribute as part of the post-GA items.
You can learn more about the supported components here
Regards,
Walter
1
Walter Bellante
Hello Ashley M ,
thanks for your feedback about time filters.
We no longer allow selecting “All history” on any time filters as it's detrimental to the dashboard loading time.
In case you want to replicate a similar behavior, you can filter by using a rolling range and then add them as default filters by using filtered views
Regards,
Walter
0
Vladimir P
Thanks Walter Bellante
Is there any more insights you can share why the Indefinitely option isn't possible?
Also, is there a way to send the ‘schedule expire’ alerts to more than one person? If the alert only can be sent to the person who created the schedule, then there is a risk of losing visibility on these alerts if the person, for example, leaves the team or business. Is there a workaround in getting visibility on the timing of DB schedules without manually checking each of them?
Good news re PDF and PNG, thanks.
1
Cathy Cleek
I need/want the dashboards to be available as a PDF not just Excel or CSV files when the reports are scheduled. Please make this change available to all of us!
1
Marco
Prezados, gostaria de saber se alguns recursos como a Alteração de Atributo e as funcionalidades de botão de exportação de dados nas tabelas, e configurações de interação ao painel, estarão disponíveis. Seria importante, também ,que os painéis legados não fossem apagados automaticamente, para que possamos conferir os novos, visto que houve problemas em vários durante a migração, por perderem a configuração, ou não trazerem os relatórios com os ajustes que estavam no painel legado. Também não localizei as configurações de formatação dos widgets e textos na versão nova.
0
Kate
Can we expect the new dashboard editor to allow searching for reports based on their tags? It is a pain searching only by title.
1
Owen Greenberg
The following issues are hard-preventions of transitioning our dashboards:
- Hidden filters are a must. We have scheduled reports using large numbers of widgets that are mass-reconfigured for events using this feature. If need be, the ability to place widgets on top of each other to manually hide a filter below something else would be a suitable workaround.
- Overlapping and exactly-placed widgets are a must. We visually condense large amounts of information & increase readability on our reports by using overlapping and exactly-placed widgets that are not meant to respond to changes of screen size. We also use Explore to generate reports in specifically-requested formats (e.g., “duplicate this report from a different software”) and presentation slides.
- Similarly to the above, some replacement for shapes/images is a must to organize our dashboards and fulfill requested data presentation formats.
- Like others here, we require PDF/PNG export, but I'm happy to see that's being addressed as an EOY item. Thank you for this.
We're currently looking at a substantial decrease in capability compared to our existing dashboards, even after completely manually rebuilding them.
4
Arthur Mori
While i attempt to migrate some of our dashboard, i was dealt with this error
How do i move forward with this?
0
Walter Bellante
Hi Arthur Mori ,
I am sorry to hear you have encountered some issues while migrating your dashboard.
Can you please create a ticket so we can investigate the issue?
Regards,
Walter
0
Walter Bellante
Hi Vladimir P ,
thanks for your feedback about schedules.
When schedules are about to expire a notification is sent to the schedule owner.
You can learn more about schedules here.
Regards,
Walter
0
Walter Bellante
Hi Owen Greenberg ,
thanks for your thorough feedback about the new dashboard builder.
- As for hidden filters, you can currently set a default view with filtered views and schedule it. While the filters might be displayed in this case, viewers won't be able to interact with them as the scheduled dashboard is not interactive. In the next year, we will provide the capability of scheduling dashboard restrictions. This will prevent exposing any filtering criteria to the viewer while reducing the number of dashboards to maintain.
- Regarding placing components, while it's not possible to overlap components and set a specific width and height, you can specify a specific position for a component by using “Place anywhere” as layout option.
- As for Shape/images, while the shape component won't be rebuilt, we plan to provide the Image component later. You can learn more about supported components here.
Regards,
Walter
0
Owen Greenberg
Walter Bellante Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure this helps, but if it would be easier from a flexbox/grid standpoint to just implement overlapping as having solely a “front layer” and a “back layer” with a separate grid, we'd certainly take that!
I'd like to request two other minor features as well that should be easier to integrate into the new paradigm:
- The ability to, from the widget configuration panel, hide the bottom-left element on widgets that shows what dataset they're from (which in larger exported reports becomes excessive visual clutter):
- The ability to show on time filters the exact dates, even when picking options like “last month", like in the legacy builder (pic below). This is very nice to have for exports, so people can quickly reference what e.g. “last month” means in an old scheduled export file.
Thanks again for replying so quickly on this!
5
Elaine Foster-Jones
I have significant concerns about the Omnichannel datasets not being included in restrictions. If we do not have the ability to hide filters, we need data restrictions to be applicable to any/all datasets to create functional dashboards for each of our team's productivity metrics. Currently, we have a dashboard looking at schedule adherence for our agents, which is measured based on their online time for certain channels. These reports are useless if we cannot restrict this data based on the viewer. We do not want agents to have access to other agents' individual data via these dashboards, so filters & default filter settings will not meet our needs because we cannot hide them.
We either need the ability to hide filters, like the Legacy dashboards had, or we need all datasets included in data restrictions.
0
Walter Bellante
Dear customers,
I am pleased to announce that schedules in PNG and PDF formats are now available.
You can learn more here.
Regards,
Walter
1
Tina Yates
I have now noticed that when the scheduled email is sent out the names of all recipients is no longer visible. I don't understand why this needed to be changed, I use these emails as confirmation that the reports have been sent out and we use it for audit purposes that all parties have been sent reports. There is no audit within Zendesk to show emails were sent successfully. As this is not the way legacy works is this going to be corrected?
0
Joanna Kime
When migrating dashboard, I see there is no blocker caused by reports including custom metrics and attributes which is great! However, with the new builder, not including an option to create additional custom metrics and attributes or edit any already created, I am concerned that these may be deleted come 04/11/2025, please can you confirm if this is the case and what will happen to custom metrics and attributes. Is there a plan to bring this functionality to the new report builder?
0
Walter Bellante
Hi @Joanna,
Thank you for sharing your feedback.
It appears you are referencing the report builder, not the dashboard builder. The reports are not affected by the migration to the new dashboard builder.
Regards,
Walter
0
Darren Bell
We have Dashboard build to report for specific Agents and only for their own actvity.
Whilst you can set a Default Filter, how can you prevent people from changing the Filters? Such as Agent Name?
We previously used Data Filters / Bookmarks as hidden widgets.
We have ZERO Dashboard Restrictions available to us due to the type of licence we have.
Is there an alternative method?
0
Walter Bellante
Hi Darren Bell ,
thanks for sharing your feedback.
We are currently exploring the option of enabling dashboard restrictions for customers on the legacy plan. Dashboard restrictions allow for dynamic data filtering based on the agent, which should be used to replace hidden filters and bookmarks.
Regards,
Walter
0
Holly
We need the ability to schedule indefinitely, especially if the account owner leaves, since we would not receive that reminder notification. This is essential as we send 100s of dashboards to our clients.
4
Heros
When scheduling the export to PDF format, the elements become completely distorted. This seems to be due to the limited space, causing diagrams, tables, or other graphics to either get misaligned or shrink excessively. In the case of tables, they are completely cut off. If the diagram is enlarged, there is not enough space left.
NEW VERSION IN PDF
NEW VERSION IN WEB
2
William Carr
I'm also having the same problem as Heros. The PDF and PNG are both massively shrunk when sent through the schedule. Is the old feature to resize the font gone in the new builder?
Web :
PDF/PNG:
3
Jon Thorne
We have the same issue with the PDF distortion, and can't use it for its intended purpose if that isn't fixed. Also huge +1 for Holly's feedback about the ability to schedule indefinitely - this is critical for us as well. Thanks
2
Vladimir P
Big plus 1 to the ‘schedule indefinitely’ option AND the PDF formatting bugs. Please give these high priority
2
Eleanor Madison
Thank you for adding pdf as an option. I am having issues with the text being difficult to read and the chart not properly filling the space. How can I fix this?
0
Laura
Hello! There are 2 features unavailable in the new experience that I rely on:
1. I use the Promote as URL parameter so I can save a dashboard for each individual Agent with their metrics compared to the average of all Agents. The specific URL is how each agent accesses the dashboard.
2. I use the show selected/excluded filter options to make it super clear what filters are applied.
How can I accomplish these in the new dashboard builder? Thank you.
1
Walter Bellante
Hi Eleanor Madison,
I apologize for the issue. We are working on fixing the quality of the PDF schedules, and a fix should be released before the end of the month.
Regards,
Walter
1
Walter Bellante
Hi Laura ,
thanks for your feedback on the new dashboard builder.
As for saving a specific dashboard view for each agent, it is now possible to dynamically adapt the data to the agent by using dashboard restrictions.
Regarding the ability to select all and exclude filter values, while we do not yet have an ETA, it is on the roadmap for this year.
Regards,
Walter
0