Cloudformation wait on another resource creation within same stack - amazon-web-services

Question

I am creating a an AppSync cloudformation and a dashboard and I notice that the ApiId export is finished creation much after.
I create my output like so in a appsync file :
Outputs:
GraphQlApiIdOutput:
Description: Main GraphQl Api ID.
Value:
Fn::GetAtt:
- GraphQlApi
- ApiId
Export:
Name: GraphQlApiIdOutput
In another dashboard file:
CloudwatchDashboard:
Type: AWS::CloudWatch::Dashboard
Properties:
DashboardBody:
{
'Fn::Sub': ['{
...
,{
ApiId:
!ImportValue GraphQlApiIdOutput}]
However, I get the error: No export named GraphQlApiIdOutput found. Rollback requested by user.
The only way I can get around this is by removing the import value first so that the stack creation succeeds and then add in the import value. I notice that there is a waitcondition but none of the resources are external. I also notice that creation policy is only supported for AWS::AutoScaling::AutoScalingGroup, AWS::EC2::Instance, and AWS::CloudFormation::WaitCondition.
Is there a way to wait for resource creation in Cloudformation so that the template does not try to use an output value before it is created in the same stack?

Answer 1

When you have this in your code:
!ImportValue GraphQlApiIdOutput
it means that stack from Template 1 must be created beforehand.
So normally what you do is the following:
Deploy Template 1
When this succeeds, then you deploy your another template file.
The DependsOn is for the resources within same stack, not across different stacks. The same goes for WaitCondition as you wont be able to reference conditions in another template file from Template 1 before the Template 1 stack has been successful created.

Answer 2

Yes, use the DependsOn Attribute:
With the DependsOn attribute you can specify that the creation of a specific resource follows another. When you add a DependsOn attribute to a resource, that resource is created only after the creation of the resource specified in the DependsOn attribute.
The attribute points to another resource in the same stack. If Resource A DependsOn Resource B, then Resource A will only be created once Resource B has finished creation.