Umbraco Dashboard

What is it?

Dashboards are customizable components that appear in Umbraco's backoffice sections to display information and functionality. They show an 'editor' for the selected item in the tree or default section information when no item is selected. Dashboards use conditions to control where and when they appear in the backoffice.

Documentation

Always fetch the latest docs before implementing:

Main docs: https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/customizing/extending-overview/extension-types/dashboard
Foundation: https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/customizing/foundation
Extension Registry: https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/customizing/extending-overview/extension-registry
Tutorial: https://docs.umbraco.com/umbraco-cms/tutorials/creating-a-custom-dashboard

Reference Example

The Umbraco source includes a working example:

Location: /Umbraco-CMS/src/Umbraco.Web.UI.Client/examples/dashboard-with-property-dataset/

This example demonstrates a dashboard that uses property datasets for data binding. Study this for production patterns.

Related Foundation Skills

If you need to explain these foundational concepts when implementing dashboards, reference these skills:

Umbraco Element / UmbElementMixin: When implementing dashboard elements, explaining UmbElementMixin, UmbLitElement, or base class patterns
- Reference skill: umbraco-umbraco-element
Context API: When implementing context consumption (consumeContext), providing contexts, or accessing services like UMB_NOTIFICATION_CONTEXT
- Reference skill: umbraco-context-api
Localization: When implementing translations, using localize.term(), or adding multi-language support
- Reference skill: umbraco-localization
State Management: When implementing reactive state, using observables, UmbState, or @state() decorator
- Reference skill: umbraco-state-management
Conditions: When implementing visibility controls, section restrictions, or conditional rendering
- Reference skill: umbraco-conditions

Workflow

Fetch docs - Use WebFetch on the URLs above
Ask questions - What section? What functionality? Who can access?
Generate files - Create manifest + implementation based on latest docs
Explain - Show what was created and how to test

Minimal Examples

Manifest (umbraco-package.json)

{
  "type": "dashboard",
  "alias": "my.dashboard",
  "name": "My Dashboard",
  "element": "/App_Plugins/MyDashboard/dashboard.js",
  "meta": {
    "label": "My Dashboard",
    "pathname": "my-dashboard"
  },
  "conditions": [
    {
      "alias": "Umb.Condition.SectionAlias",
      "match": "Umb.Section.Content"
    }
  ]
}

Implementation (dashboard.js)

import { LitElement, html, css } from '@umbraco-cms/backoffice/external/lit';
import { UmbElementMixin } from '@umbraco-cms/backoffice/element-api';

export default class MyDashboardElement extends UmbElementMixin(LitElement) {
  render() {
    return html`
      <uui-box headline="My Dashboard">
        <p>Dashboard content goes here</p>
      </uui-box>
    `;
  }

  static styles = css`
    :host {
      display: block;
      padding: var(--uui-size-space-4);
    }
  `;
}

customElements.define('my-dashboard', MyDashboardElement);

That's it! Always fetch fresh docs, keep examples minimal, generate complete working code.

umbraco-dashboard