[[dashboard-import-api]] == Dashboard Import API The dashboard import/export APIs allow people to import dashboards along with all of their corresponding saved objects such as visualizations, saved searches, and index patterns. Traditionally, developers would perform this level of integration by writing documents directly to the `.kibana` index. *Do not do this!* Writing directly to the `.kibana` index is not safe and it _will_ result in corrupted data that permanently breaks Kibana in a future version. * <> * <> include::dashboard-import/import.asciidoc[] include::dashboard-import/export.asciidoc[]