# Dashboard groupname as variable

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [25 May 2019 18:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542 "2019-05-25T18:29:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RogierQ](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/rogierq/32/3211_2.png) [@RogierQ](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/RogierQ)\
**Post date:** [25 May 2019 18:29 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542/1 "2019-05-25T18:29:48Z")

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is it possible to use the dashboard group name as variable?  
as i am a lazy programmer i would love to copy paste some dashboard text fields to another dashboard group and use them for different records.

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**Author:** ![RogierQ](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/rogierq/32/3211_2.png) [@RogierQ](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/RogierQ)\
**Post date:** [25 May 2019 18:35 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542/2 "2019-05-25T18:35:23Z")

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to be more clear, the idea i have is that the dashboard text input node also sends something like:  
msg.tab = tab name of node  
msg.group = group name were node is  
msg.label = label of the node  
msg.name = name of the node

so i can do a flow set like button + group for example

thanks

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**Author:** ![dceejay](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/dceejay/32/38_2.png) [@dceejay](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/dceejay)\
**Post date:** [25 May 2019 18:48 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542/3 "2019-05-25T18:48:10Z")

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Sorry but no you can’t. You can use an environment variable if you like but that is read once at deploy time and isn’t dynamic.

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**Author:** ![RogierQ](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/rogierq/32/3211_2.png) [@RogierQ](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/RogierQ)\
**Post date:** [25 May 2019 19:00 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542/4 "2019-05-25T19:00:47Z")

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clear, thanks!

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**Author:** ![udusa](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/udusa/32/26151_2.png) [@udusa](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/udusa)\
**Post date:** [1 September 2020 07:11 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/dashboard-groupname-as-variable/11542/5 "2020-09-01T07:11:16Z")

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Hi, dceejay, how can i use environment variable to define dashboard node group?  
I have small subflow that includes a few dashboard nodes, now i want to create several instances of that subflow so it's dashboard elements will be associated with different dashboard groups by the setup up environmental variable.

Thanks.