Make it so that a dashboard and all its components (widgets) belong to the owner of the dashboard.

Brooks

Currently, a dashboard's components do not belong to the dashboard's owner. If another user adds or edits a widget on a dashboard, that widget does not belong to the dashboard's owner. Instead, it belongs to the person who added the widget. This means that if a dashboard changes ownership, the dashboard will break when the widget-adder is un-shared to the dashboard.

This issue is a big one, with far-reaching consequences which necessitate changes be made to its current behavior as soon as possible...

If you build a dashboard, it is assumed that all elements displayed on that dashboard are a part of that dashboard. It is also assumed that the ownership of that dashboard (along with all of its elements) belongs to the "owner" and not that each individual widget belongs to the person who last edited it.

This behavior is very puzzling. Why do the dashboards function this way when none of your other products work in this way? For example, if a sheet is shared with several users with admin-level permissions, the form doesn't belong to the person who made or edited it. Similarly, the automations for that sheet do not belong to the person who added them. Additionally, the sheet does not break when an admin-level user is un-shared to the sheet. The sheet and its automations and forms are seen as one unit. That is how a dashboard should function; as one unit.

The design of dashboard ownership functions poorly because a dashboard's widgets are not considered part of the dashboard's ownership/elements. This creates so many issues, including the fact that a dashboard will break if an admin-level employee made changes to a widget when they leave our employ. It is unreasonable to assume: 

1) that we would give that employee access to our data in perpetuity or

2) that we will manually re-link hundreds, if not thousands, of widgets every time an employee leaves our employ.

Neff

I think this is a very important issue to resolve, and I just wanted to throw in my support. Thanks.