Issue with Report Export: Missing Columns when Exporting Report

saichary · 11 hours ago

Background:

We had a report called CSAT Survey that pulls insights from the Assessment instance table. The report contained around 600 records, and when exporting the data to Excel, we noticed that only a few columns had values while the remaining fields were blank. Interestingly, the missing fields were all dot-walked fields from the Task table.

Investigation:

Observations

The issue was not reproducible for admin users, but itil users consistently faced it.
When exporting less than 100 records, all columns and fields were correctly populated.
The problem appeared only when exporting a larger dataset (~600 records).
This behavior was quite strange and inconsistent.

Troubleshooting

We validated access controls and report configurations.
Multiple attempts were made to reproduce the issue in different environments.
A case was eventually raised with ServiceNow Support for deeper investigation.

Findings from ServiceNow:

ServiceNow identified this issue as a known platform bug:

PRB1846673 – Reports not exporting all dot-walked fields when the record set is large.

The behavior is tied to the platform property:

glide.partial_record_optimizer.enabled

When ON, the system does not pull all extra field data from joins.
When OFF, the system fetches full data from related tables, ensuring dot-walked fields are included.

ServiceNow Recommendation

For some customers, setting the property to false resolved the issue without any noticeable performance impact.
A permanent fix is being actively worked on and will be delivered in upcoming platform releases.

Solution / Workaround

Short-Term Fix

Update the property : glide.partial_record_optimizer.enabled = false

This ensures that all dot-walked fields are included during export, even when exporting a large dataset.

Long-Term Fix

ServiceNow has associated our case with PRB1846673.
Once the fix is available, customers will receive a notification, and it will be addressed in future platform releases.

Key Takeaways:

Export issues with dot-walked fields may not be related to ACLs but rather to platform optimization.
glide.partial_record_optimizer.enabled property is the root factor.
Short-term fix is available, and a permanent fix is in the works.

Closing Note:

If you encounter similar issues where exports from reports are missing certain fields, especially dot-walked fields, check if your instance is affected by PRB1846673. In the meantime, try disabling the partial record optimizer as a workaround.

If this article resolves your problem, please mark it as helpful and feel free to share your comments so it can help others in the community too!🙂

Thanks & Regards,
Sai