Ability to change the index pattern on a visualization

[stacey-gammon]

Similar to how discover does it. Rather than requiring a new visualization to be built, add a field when editing a visualization that lets you change the index pattern on it. We need to figure out how to handle errors when a visualization was built with fields from the original index that don't exist in the new one.

Splitting this particular part out of this issue: #3668 which includes both dashboards and visualizations. Changing the index pattern on a dashboard is a much different problem and is now covered by this issue: #16917

It will be helpful for us to split these issues out and see which are the most important to the community.

also related: #16831

[ReanimationXP]

I believe the visualization index pattern can already be changed manually by changing its' index guid, but it's extremely non user-friendly considering the compounding issues of (a) those index pattern guids are conveniently not available in the object manager / browser, (b) there is no simple dropdown to change it from within the visualization itself, and perhaps most importantly (c) there is no way to bulk-change multiple visualizations.

[conmurray]

I'll add my request here as well. Im a GOLD licence and Ill raise this with my support engineer but I wanted to pop it here aswell.

• User created a visualization against an index called "logstash_test_metrics"
• We then deleted "logstash_test_metrics" and the index pattern for it aswell.
• We needed to modify the logstash conf file and so re ran the logstash conf file to re-add the logstash_test_metrics index
• We then created the index pattern for this "logstash_test_metrics"
• We'd go to the visualization to be told the underlying index is not there. Actually, it is but because the kibanaSavedObjectMeta.searchSourceJSON now references the index by an ID and not by the actual index name, everything is broken. I have to either recreate the visualization or I have to find the ID for the new index and copy it into the kibanaSavedObjectMeta.searchSourceJSON. This isnt really feasible when I've a LOT of visualizations that all reference the same index.

[conmurray]

Why was this closed? Also the Switch Index on Visualization is also closed so what's the story here? I've referenced this in my Internal Elastic Support case as well.

[stacey-gammon]

This issue isn't closed @conmurray. Switch Index on Visualization was closed because it's a duplicate of this one. Am I overlooking something else?

Regarding your use case above, it almost seems like #16831 is a better fit for it. Just being able to change the index pattern on one visualization in the UI would still require you to open each visualization and change it. If we had an export API that included linked objects you would be able to open the file, do a bulk find/replace, then re-import the file.

[conmurray]

Ah yes I see that. Thanks... @stacey-gammon
With respect to #16831 it doesnt seem to support my particular use case. The fact that you're using ID and not the actual index name is the problem here. Ill add this to the #16831

[PritomAhmed]

+1

[Razikus]

+1