question Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning in Developer forum

Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Khanna Ji — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:57:54 GMT

I want to exclude some data from the Incident to be cloned into Dev and Test instance. How can I do that?

Do I need to have a clean-up script to delete the data?

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

GlideFather — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:01:08 GMT

Hi @Khanna Ji,

for that, you can specify tables to be excluded:

Or data to be preserved:

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Dr Atul G- LNG — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:01:12 GMT

Hi @Khanna Ji

When you say "some data," what exactly do you mean? Technically, you can either clone the full table or not clone it at all—there’s no way to exclude specific data during a table clone.

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

miftikhar20 — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:02:58 GMT

Hi @Khanna Ji ,

you can use Data preservers for this purpose.

Data Preservers usually keep data during a clone, but you can flip the logic by setting a condition so that only those matching records are preserved in the source only → meaning they won’t be cloned to sub-instances.
Example: If you have a field Risk Level = High, you create a Data Preserver for the Incident table with the condition Risk Level is High.
During clone, those records won’t be copied over to Dev/Test.

Thanks & Regards,
Muhammad Iftikhar
If my response helped, please mark it as the accepted solution so others can benefit as well.

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Dr Atul G- LNG — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:05:50 GMT

Hi @Khanna Ji

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Ankur Bawiskar — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:31:24 GMT

@Khanna Ji

you can exclude the incident table during clone so that it doesn't flow from source to target

good explanation here

Clone results based on Exclusion and Preserver configuration

Clone Basics

Cheat Sheet: Mastering ServiceNow Cloning Configurations

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Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Khanna Ji — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:46:29 GMT

Hi Atul - I have incident table data and there is a field called sensitive. If that is true then those records should not be cloned but others must be cloned. Isn't there any way to do that?

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Khanna Ji — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:47:35 GMT

Hi Ankur - not the complete table data has to be excluded. Only the onces with customField = True must be excluded in the clone. Rest all must be copied to the lower instances.

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Dr Atul G- LNG — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 13:50:31 GMT

Hi @Khanna Ji

As far as I know, it's not possible. You either clone the full table or you don’t—there’s no option to partially clone a table.

https://www.servicenow.com/community/servicenow-ai-platform-articles/cloning-best-practices-data-anonymization/ta-p/2327833

https://www.servicenow.com/community/instance-help-forum/remove-personally-identifiable-information-during-system-clone/m-p/312879

https://www.servicenow.com/docs/bundle/yokohama-platform-security/page/administer/security/concept/dp-clone.html

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

GlideFather — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:26:25 GMT

@Khanna Ji then maybe skip the whole table and export only particular records - via XML for example.

Re: Exclude some filtered data during cloning

Dr Atul G- LNG — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:58:16 GMT

Hi @Khanna Ji

That could be a good option—filter records where the custom field is set to false, export the XML, and then import it into the lower instance.