Version History

Superset can record the history of a chart or dashboard as you edit it, and let you look at, restore, or branch from any earlier version.

The panel lists each saved version with its author, timestamp, and a plain description of what changed — "Chart renamed to Q3 Revenue", "Added filter on 'Region'" — rather than a raw diff. You can search the history and filter it down to changes on the entity itself or on the things it depends on.

Enabling it

Two switches are involved, and both matter.

Setting	Type	Effect
VERSION_HISTORY	Feature flag	Shows the version history UI
ENABLE_VERSIONING_CAPTURE	Config value	Records versions as entities are saved

# superset_config.py
FEATURE_FLAGS = {"VERSION_HISTORY": True}
ENABLE_VERSIONING_CAPTURE = True

Both default to off. They are separate because capture is the expensive half: an operator may want to start recording history before exposing the UI, so that there is something to show when they do.

Turning the UI on without capture gives a panel that reports "No history yet" and never fills, so enable capture first — or at the same time. History only accrues from the moment capture is switched on; earlier edits are not reconstructed.

Viewing history

On a chart, open … (actions) → View version history in Explore. A dashboard uses the same entry in its own … (actions) menu.

The entry appears for users who may edit the entity — the same rule the server applies to overwriting it: administrators, plus anyone whose subjects are among the entity's editors. Users who cannot edit do not see the panel.

Previewing a version

Selecting a version loads it into the page so you can see it before deciding anything. While a preview is active:

• A banner across the top marks the page as historical and names the version.
• The dashboard or chart itself is inert — filters, controls, and chart interactions are disabled, so nothing you click can be mistaken for editing the live entity. You can still scroll, and still move between tabs.
• Saving is unavailable. Preview never writes.

Close the preview to return to the live version, along with whatever filter selections you had before you opened it.

A dashboard preview reconstructs the layout as it was, including charts that have since been removed from the dashboard. A chart that has been deleted outright cannot be reconstructed; its slot shows a placeholder instead.

Preview is a close approximation of the version, not a pixel-faithful replay. The dashboard's own saved properties — title, CSS, metadata, description, slug, certification, draft or published state, and theme — are shown as they were. Charts, though, render with their current definitions rather than the definitions they had at that version, and a dashboard's chart membership is reconstructed from the saved layout, so charts that belonged to the dashboard without appearing in the layout are not represented. Restore applies the full captured state, so a restored dashboard can differ from its preview in these respects.

Restoring a version

Restore rewrites the entity back to the selected version. Two things are worth knowing:

• History stays append-only. A restore is itself recorded as a new version, so restoring never destroys the states you moved away from — you can always restore forward again.
• A dashboard restore may be partial. If the version referenced charts that have since been deleted, the layout is restored without them and Superset tells you how many were not reattached.

Restoring is offered to the same users who may edit the entity, and is withheld from externally managed entities, whose source of truth lives outside Superset and would overwrite the restore on the next sync.

Opening a version as something new

Open as new creates a brand-new chart or dashboard from the selected version and leaves the original untouched. This is the safer option when you want an old state back but are not certain you want to give up the current one.

How much of the version comes across differs by entity, because the two copy paths do. A new chart is built from the version itself: its name, visualization type, dataset, controls, query context, description, and cache timeout. A new dashboard is a copy of the live dashboard with the version's title, CSS, metadata, and layout applied over it — the copy endpoint accepts only those fields, so properties such as description, slug, certification, and theme come from the dashboard as it stands today, not from the version.

What gets recorded

Versions capture the entity's own saved state — a chart's name, visualization type, and controls; a dashboard's title, layout, filters, and properties.

The timeline also shows related activity: changes to things the entity depends on, such as the dataset behind a chart. These are shown for context and cannot be restored from the entity's own history — restore acts on the entity you are looking at.

Changes made outside a save, such as ownership or permission edits, are not part of version history.