In Looker 21.20 we are upgrading the default dashboard experience for all users to the new dashboard experience. As part of that effort, we are introducing a change to dashboard and legacy dashboard URL routing:

This change will not break any links or bookmarks to dashboards.

Any links or bookmarks using /dashboards-next/ will automatically redirect to dashboards/. Any links or bookmarks to /dashboards/ will direct to the new dashboard experience, as opposed to legacy dashboards.

When navigating within Looker, any dashboards that have not been reverted to legacy dashboards will default to the new dashboard experience.

For customers that adopted Looker on or after Looker 7.18 (October 2020)

For user-defined dashboards, your instance already defaults to the new dashboard experience, and dashboards will continue to appear as your users have created them. Any dashboards that were legacy dashboards before Looker 21.20 will remain legacy dashboards after Looker 21.20.

For LookML dashboards and dashboards created via API, if the dashboards have no preferred_viewer parameter set, they will be upgraded to the new dashboard experience. To keep them as legacy dashboards, set the preferred_viewer parameter to dashboards.

Embedded dashboards will also be upgraded to the new dashboard experience. To keep them as legacy dashboards, update their URLs to contain /embed/dashboards-legacy/.

For customers that adopted Looker before Looker 7.18 (October 2020)

As of Looker 21.20, dashboards on your instance will default to the new dashboard experience, unless they have been reverted to legacy dashboards.

Any dashboards with the following configurations will continue to appear as legacy dashboards:

• User-defined dashboards that have been reverted to legacy dashboards
• LookML dashboards that have a preferred_viewer parameter set to dashboards
• Dashboards created via API that have a preferred_viewer parameter set to dashboards

Any dashboards with the following configurations will be upgraded from legacy dashboards to dashboards:

• User-defined dashboards that have not been reverted to legacy dashboards
• LookML dashboards with newspaper layout that have no preferred_viewer parameter set
• Dashboards created via API that have no preferred_viewer parameter set
• Embedded dashboards that use /embed/dashboards/ in their URLs

If you would like to keep particular dashboards as legacy dashboards after Looker 21.20, see the If you want to continue viewing legacy dashboards section, below.

If you would like to postpone the change to URL routing entirely, see the Postponing the change to dashboard URL routing section, below.

If you want to continue using legacy dashboards

Looker plans to fully deprecate legacy dashboards in 2022. Currently, we are incorporating customer feedback and adding new features to the new dashboard experience. During the transition, you can choose to continue viewing legacy dashboards.

To continue viewing legacy dashboards, there are several methods, depending on the type of dashboard.

Reverting user-defined dashboards to legacy dashboards

If you have individual user-defined dashboards that you would like to keep as legacy dashboards after 21.20, you can revert them.

To revert dashboards to legacy dashboards:

1. Make sure the Revert to Legacy Dashboards legacy feature is enabled.
2. Follow the steps outlined on the Viewing Dashboards documentation page.

The dashboard then defaults to a legacy dashboard within Looker and via external links using dashboards-legacy/.

To temporarily revert a dashboard to a legacy dashboard while you’re viewing it, replace dashboards/ in the URL with dashboards-legacy/. Revert to Legacy Dashboards does not need to be enabled. This change will not be saved to the dashboard and if you navigate to the dashboard within Looker, it will default to the new dashboard experience.

Reverting LookML and API-created dashboards to legacy dashboards

If the preferred_viewer parameter is undefined, as of Looker 21.20, the dashboard will appear in the new dashboard experience.

For LookML dashboards and dashboards created via the API, setting a dashboard’s preferred_viewer parameter to dashboards reverts the dashboard to a legacy dashboard.

For more information about the preferred_viewer parameter, visit the Dashboard parameters documentation page or the Create Dashboard and Update Dashboard API documentation.

Reverting links, bookmarks, and embedded dashboards to legacy dashboards

To revert links, bookmarks, and embedded dashboards as legacy dashboards, update your links to use dashboards-legacy/ instead of dashboards/.

For more information about embedded dashboard links, visit the Private embedding and Single sign-on (SSO) embedding documentation pages.

Postponing the change to dashboard URL routing

To postpone the upgrade from legacy dashboards to dashboards for all dashboards on your instance, enable the Use old dashboard routes legacy feature. This legacy feature defaults to enabled in Looker 21.18 but will default to disabled in Looker 21.20 and beyond.