---
title: Building dashboards
description: Choose how to create Kibana dashboards — from the UI, programmatically using REST APIs, or using AI-powered tools — and find the right starting point for your workflow.
url: https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/building
products:
  - Kibana
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Building dashboards
Kibana offers many ways to build powerful dashboards that help you visualize and keep track of the most important information in your Elasticsearch data. Combine multiple visualizations, metrics, and interactive elements into a cohesive view that tells your data story and enables rapid decision-making.
Use the following table to find the right approach for building your dashboards, then follow the link to get started.

| Approach                                                                                                                                                               | When to use this                                                                         | What you get                                                                      |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| [Create a dashboard from the UI](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/create-dashboard)                       | Exploring data interactively and assembling dashboards panel by panel                    | Saved dashboard                                                                   |
| [Create dashboards programmatically](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/create-dashboards-programmatically) | Automating deployments, managing dashboards and visualizations as code, CI/CD pipelines  | Saved dashboard or visualization                                                  |
| [Create dashboards using AI](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/create-dashboards-using-ai)                 | Generating dashboards from natural language, or building AI tools that create dashboards | Dashboard through chat that you save when ready, or saved dashboard using the API |

Once you have a dashboard, you can enhance it:
- [Add filter controls](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/add-controls) to let viewers explore the data interactively
- [Add drilldowns](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/drilldowns) to navigate between dashboards or to external URLs
- [Arrange and resize panels](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/arrange-panels) to optimize its layout

You can also maintain your dashboards after you create them: [organize your collection](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/managing) with search, tags, and favorites, [duplicate](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/duplicate-dashboards) a dashboard to reuse it as a starting point, [import](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/import-dashboards) one from another space, instance, or deployment, or [share or export](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/sharing) it. For repeatable, auditable changes, [manage your dashboards as code](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/dashboards/manage-dashboards-as-code) to version-control their definitions and deploy them across environments.

## Requirements

To create or edit dashboards, you need:
- [Data indexed into Elasticsearch](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/manage-data/ingest) and a [data view](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/explore-analyze/find-and-organize/data-views). A data view is a subset of your Elasticsearch data, and allows you to load the right data when building a visualization or exploring it.
  <tip>
  If you don't have data at hand and still want to explore dashboards, you can import one of the [sample data sets](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/manage-data/ingest/sample-data) available.
  </tip>
- Sufficient privileges for the **Dashboard** feature. Without them, you might get a read-only indicator. A Kibana administrator can [grant you the required privileges](https://docs-v3-preview.elastic.dev/elastic/docs-content/pull/7138/deploy-manage/users-roles/cluster-or-deployment-auth/kibana-privileges).