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QuickSight: How To Create Custom Action to Link Dashboards & Pass Parameters

If users want to link one dashboard to another, custom actions can be created  to support this along with the ability to pass parameters between the dashboards. This guide will detail how to accomplish this.

Step-by-step guide

1. To create a custom action, select Actions on the ribbon to the far left of the screen. Users need to have a visualization to select to create a custom action on. For this example, the US map visualization is selected (on the right side of the screenshot below) and passed the state parameter to link to another dashboard with that state’s metrics.
   
   
2. Select 'Define a custom action' option on the left hand side of the screen under 'Configure new action' (directly above the 'Quick Create' option).
   
3. Choose an action name.. Users can make the action name dynamic, by parameterizing. Select the '+' near the action name header to show the available variables. Variables are enclosed in angle brackets <<double arrows>>. Parameters are prefixed with a $.  
   
   
   1. Users can also select how the action is activated by choosing 'Select' or 'Menu option'. Select the data point (left-click) or navigate to the menu option (right-click). Navigation actions and URL actions are listed in the middle of the context menu, just above 'Color' options. Actions that are activated by menu are also available from a visual's legend.
4. Select the 'Action type' drop down. For an action that links between dashboards, select 'URL Action'.
   1. URL action settings include the following:
      1. The URL to open.  URL actions can be deep links into another application.  Valid URL schemes include https, http, or mailto.
         The parameters to send to the target URL (Values).  Parameter names start with a $. The parameters on both the sending and the receiving end must match in name and data type.
      2. Where to open the URL. The options are New browser tab, Same browser tab, or New browser window.
   2. Input the URL of the QuickSight dashboard needed to link to. Then, select any parameters needed to pass to it by clicking the three dots above the URL text box. For the custom action to work, every field and parameter it references must be actively in use in the parent widget.
      
5. To pass a parameter into the relevant dashboard, the same parameter should be included in both the current visualization, and the target analysis on the linked dashboard. Passing the '$StateParameter' to the linked dashboard tells the dashboard to filter its data by the state parameter. To do this, add the string #p.StateParameter=<<provider_state>> to the end of the target dashboard's URL.
   
6. Select 'Save'. Users can then test the action to make sure it properly passed the parameter.  For this example, the outcome is that when  'Alaska' is selected in the US map visualization, a new browser tab opens with a dashboard analysis showing Alaska's state Nursing Home Covid-19 metrics.