How to Export Data from ServiceNow (3 Methods)

Organizations that can easily export data from ServiceNow have more options as to how that data can be leveraged.

If you’re working with large volumes of ServiceNow data, you already know that its reporting and export features can quickly reach their limits. Whether you’re working with large tables, custom reports, or external tools that require fresh data, having reliable was to export ServiceNow data is crucial.

In this article, we explore three ways to export ServiceNow data, ranging from quick, out-of-the-box options to real-time replication approaches that benefit from greater automation and consistency.

Why Export Data from ServiceNow?

ServiceNow does a great job managing IT workflows, but when it comes to data availability, it is a challenging data silo. Here’s why exporting data out of ServiceNow matters:

Connecting the Dots Across Platforms

Your teams are probably juggling CRMs, project trackers, and other apps. Extracting ServiceNow data enables you to integrate it with other systems and develop more intelligent workflows across the board, as well as create reports that reflect combined data sets from around the enterprise for greater context.

Cutting License Costs

Not everyone needs a full-blown ServiceNow login just to view data. Exporting allows you to share information with business teams or executives without requiring additional licenses.

Utilize the BI Tools You Already Own

If you’re running Tableau, Power BI, or have a central data warehouse, locking data inside ServiceNow means you’re leaving valuable insights (and ROI) on the table.

Better Dashboards

ServiceNow dashboards (such as the CIO dashboard) and reporting capabilities are fine for quick looks, but third-party tools often offer deeper, more flexible visuals, especially when you’re dealing with cross-domain data.

With data available outside of ServiceNow, organizations can create more comprehensive dashboards, such as in-depth KPI dashboards that include data from multiple sources.

How to Export Data From ServiceNow

When it comes to exporting data from ServiceNow, there are a few key methods available, suited to different levels of complexity and need. In this section, we’ll walk through three common approaches covering both native capabilties and purpose-built solutions:

• Native: Two methods designed for basic or occasional use cases, available directly within the ServiceNow platform
• Purpose-built: One method tailored for more advanced, large-scale, or repeatable data requirements, using third-party data replication and integration tools

The first two methods—exporting via ServiceNow’s reporting features and from list views—work well for quick, one-off exports. They’re simple and accessible but come with limitations in terms of volume, automation, and the completeness of exported data.

For more advanced scenarios—such as ongoing data synchronization, exporting large datasets, or preserving relationships between records—organizations typically rely on external data replication and integration solutions. These tools provide greater flexibility, maintain data context, and support automation and scalability.

Let’s start by exploring the basic built-in options before diving into the more robust alternative.

Method #1: Export Data from ServiceNow Using the Platform’s Built-in Reporting Features

The platform’s built-in capabilities let users of ServiceNow export reports to excel, PDF or CSV.

To export data from ServiceNow using the built-in reporting features, users should:

1. Navigate to Reports: Go to Reports → View/Run
   
2. Select Your Report: Choose the report containing the data you want to export
   
3. Access Export Options: Click the Sharing icon (square with arrow) → Schedule
   
4. Configure Export Settings:
   • Enter recipient email addresses
   • Add message details
   • Select export format from the dropdown
     
5. Execute Export: Complete the configuration and send

Supported Export Formats

• PDF: Ideal for formatted reports and presentations
• Excel (.xlsx): Perfect for further data analysis and calculations
• CSV: Best for database imports and simple data transfers

Method #2: Export Data from a ServiceNow Platform List

Organizations can also export ServiceNow data to excel and in other formats from a ServiceNow platform list. Exporting from a list allows users to avoid exporting a whole report. 

To export ServiceNow data from a ServiceNow List:

1. Navigate to Target List: Go to your desired list (e.g., Incident → All)
2. Access Export Menu: Right-click any column header (Number, Opened, Short description, etc)
3. Select Export Format
4. Download: The system generates your export file immediately

Available Export Formats:

• Excel (.xlsx): Spreadsheet format for analysis
• CSV: Comma-separated values for database import
• XML: Structured data for system integration
• JSON: Web-friendly format for API consumption
• PDF: Read-only formatted output
• Export Set: ServiceNow-specific format for data migration

Why Native Export Options are Limited

While the built-in export methods are available to everyone, they have inherent limitations that make them not fit for purpose when working with large volumes of data. Here’s why:

Performance

Exporting large amounts of data using native capabilities can put a significant strain on the platform’s resources. This disruption is not only felt in the slow rate of data transfer off the platform, but in the day to day use of the platform by its users. Query speeds are affected which slows the rate at which dashboards can be refreshed, and the platform itself can become slow and unresponsive. 

Export Volume Limitations

One of the main limitations is export volume. The default export limit is typically set at 10,000 rows per export, but this can vary between export formats. For many organizations dealing with large datasets, such limits can be restrictive. While it’s possible to override ServiceNow’s export limit, it is not recommended as the limits are in place to minimize performance issues on the platform.

Other workarounds – such as breaking up large exports into smaller chunks – but this can add a significant amount of time to the process, cause bottlenecks in an organization’s data pipeline and be disruptive to teams that require data promptly, to support their work. 

Format and Integration Constraints

Another issue is the lack of flexibility in the format and integration options. These built-in methods support only basic file formats, like CSV and Excel. While these formats are suitable for basic exports, they don’t enable seamless integration with more advanced business intelligence (BI) or analytics tools. Typically, such tools require an additional transformation step to prepare the data for ingestion into the BI or analytics platform. 

Additionally, once the data is exported, it becomes static. There’s no way to automate updates to exported data so that it reflects the latest updates at the source, and no way to automate the itself export. This means manual intervention is baked into the process, further complicating operations and making human error-related data quality issues more likely.

Scalability Challenges

Native export methods need to be configured per export, meaning there’s no way to define conditions where data should be automatically and dynamically exported. Lacking this functionality impacts data availability and data quality as human intervention – that takes time and is prone to error – is required to configure exports and then load the data into the target.

Loss of Data Context

Finally, exporting data using these methods results in a loss of critical context. Relationships between records, such as attachments, comments, or child records, are not included in the export, making the data less informative. 

Moreover, the connections between related records in different tables are lost, and essential system metadata and change history are not captured, which could lead to gaps in the audit trail and reduce the completeness of the exported data.

Method #3: How to Export ServiceNow Data via Data Replication and Integration

Users of ServiceNow can speed up, formalize and automate the export of data in ServiceNow by introducing a data replication and/or integration solution.

While the out-of-the-box capabilities for exporting ServiceNow data will suffice for one-off or occasional use, any repeat or consistent requirement for data is better supported through data replication and integration. 

Data replication and integration provides greater scope to configure the types of data exported, the conditions that trigger exports and the target of data exports.

Data replication and integration solutions can also export data with its original context intact by maintaining referential integrity and including related data in the export event.

For example, when exporting a ServiceNow record, users can also choose to export any related attachments, comments, and other data. 

Since different vendors and platforms offer varying configuration options, you’ll need to contact your chosen data replication or integration vendor for a specific, step-by-step process. So instead of a step-by-step process, we’ve listed the features enabled by Method #3 below section.

• For help choosing the right data replication and integration vendor, check out this whitepaper. 

ServiceNow Data Replication and Integration Solutions: Typical Features

While features can vary between vendors, most data replication and integration solutions (including ServiceNow’s Integration Hub) provide a greater degree of automation and control over the export and distribution of data, relative to ServiceNow’s native export capabilities. Typical features include:

Condition-Based Filtering

Many purpose-built replication and integration solutions allow organizations to define detailed criteria for what data should be exported. This enhances scalability, reduces redundancy and improves data quality by allowing the exact data required only, to be exported without human intervention, and whilst avoiding the delay and potential for error associated with manually configuring datasets for export.

For example, instead of exporting all incident records and filtering them manually in Excel, users can configure an export to include only P1 incidents opened on a specific date.

Integration with a Wide Range of Targets

Unlike ServiceNow’s default export options, many integration and replication solutions support a broader ecosystem of destinations and handle the transformation required to ensure that data arrives in an ingestible and usable state. 

Targets include data repositories (like AWS, MySQL, Snowflake, SAP HANA, SQL Server), and BI tools (like Tableau or Power BI), enabling better data availability and more timely distribution of data downstream.

Smaller Impact on Performance

Some integration and replication solutions are carefully architected to limit their impact on ServiceNow, and make the retrieval and distribution of data more efficient. 

Organizations interested in ServiceNow data integration and replication solutions should evaluate their requirements such as throughput and records exported per day, relative to the solution’s capabilities. 

Real-time Data

For organizations that require real-time, dynamic data movement, there are integration and replication solutions providing different levels of support.

Some solutions simply mimic real-time data movement by increasing the rate at which a given data set is exported. This can lead to redundant data replication and transfers and put additional strain on the platform.

Other solutions are aware of when records and/or rows in a table are changed, and initiate data transfers in response. 

One-to-many Replication

As they benefit from a greater level of automation, some ServiceNow data integration and replication solutions are able to scale up the replication of data to multiple targets. This is particularly useful when there are multiple departments or teams that lack ServiceNow licenses that all have a requirement for ServiceNow data. 

With a solution that can automate the replication of ServiceNow data among many systems, organizations benefit from better data availability and greater consistency of data across the enterprise. 

However, ServiceNow users should be aware that while many solutions make one-to-many replication possible, very few are able to do so at scale without a noticeable impact on performance. 

Table comparison: 3 Methods to Export Data from ServiceNow

Feature	Export from a ServiceNow Report	Export from a ServiceNow List	Data Replication and Integration Solutions*
Real-time updates	❌	❌	✅
Conditional automation	❌	❌	✅
Multiple targets	❌	❌	✅
Referential integrity	❌	❌	✅
Performance impact	⚠️ High	⚠️ High	✅
Scalability	❌ Limited	❌ Limited	✅
Maintenance overhead	✅ None	✅ None	⚠️ Low to High

*All features listed under Data Replication and Integration Solutions are vendor dependant. Organizations should carefully evaluate vendors to establish whether they meet their requirements. Download the “Choosing the Right ServiceNow Integration” whitepaper to make an informed decision.

Not All Replication and Integration Solutions Are The Same: Traditional Methods vs Modern High Throughput Solutions

While ServiceNow’s native export options are useful for ad hoc and smaller-scale needs, organizations that require ongoing, automated exports often turn to API-based data replication solutions. 

Most commonly, when organizations realize they need a more robust process for exporting and distributing ServiceNow data, they turn to ETL and or API-based solutions. 

These traditional methods are widely supported and offer key features that improve flexibility and reach—but they come with limitations.

A short summary of each solutions pros and cons is as follows:

ETL data integration and replication:

• Pros: Designed for moving high volume data sets in batches. 
• Cons: Not suited for high frequency, dynamic data movement.

API data integration and replication:

• Pros: Widely implemented and well supported technology designed for high frequency, dynamic data movement.
• Cons: Not optimized for moving large datasets in batches.

Limitations of API and ETL ServiceNow Data Replication and Integration

Both solutions have advantages relative to native export capabilities. However, both solutions ultimately run into the same issues at scale: throughput, performance, scalability and maintenance. 

Performance Issues

Because of the inherent limitations to API/web services, which both solutions rely on to communicate with the ServiceNow platform, both ETL and API integration impact ServiceNow’s operational resources.

When third-party API calls are made to initiate data movement from ServiceNow, the ServiceNow platform has to receive and process those requests. This traffic consumes the same operational bandwidth that supports users interacting with the platform, slowing down data transfers, and impacting query speeds and general platform performance. 

For many large organizations, the volume of API calls from multiple API integration solutions connected to the platform is enough to cause a noticeable – and challenging – impact on performance. For ETL solutions, the volume of the data included in batches is what causes the performance drag. 

Resource-Intensive to Maintain

Whether custom-, or vendor-built, API and ETL integrations often require a significant amount of maintenance from in-house resources. Firstly, there is often extensive customization required for such solutions to adequately meet the requirements of the enterprise.

Further, when issues arise—such as broken data flows or unexpected system behavior—troubleshooting falls to internal teams, potentially becoming a major resource drain.

And finally, ServiceNow releases updates each year, which can impact the behavior of integration and replication solutions. Many organizations find themselves needing to rework such solutions to ensure continuity after each new release.

Scaling Challenges with Multiple Targets

Most API-based solutions require separate API calls for each target system (e.g., data warehouse, BI tool, cloud storage), which increases API traffic and competition for platform resources—making it harder to scale without degrading ServiceNow performance.

High-Throughput ServiceNow Data Replication (The Perspectium Approach)

To address the scalability, performance, and resource challenges of API ServiceNow integration, Perspectium a modern solution, purpose-built for ServiceNow uses technology native to ServiceNow, coupled with a publish/subscribe (Pub/Sub) architecture to optimize data exports, replication and integration. 

Perspectium not only supports the core features of traditional tools—such as conditional automation, retention of referential integrity, and real-time data—it also introduces a range of enhancements designed to maximize performance and throughput, and minimize maintenance requirements.

Real-Time Data Delivery

Perspectium is built to move large volumes of data with high throughput and low latency, enabling real-time data replication. This is particularly valuable for organizations that maintain live dashboards or centralized analytics platforms, where up-to-date information is critical for decision-making.

Dynamic Sharing and Automation

With features like Dynamic Share, Perspectium allows exports to be automatically triggered when specific conditions are met—such as when a record is created, updated, or matches a defined field value. This automation improves data availability and eliminates delays in the data pipeline.

Minimized Impact on ServiceNow Performance

Unlike API-based tools, Perspectium does not rely on external API calls to initiate data transfers. Instead, it uses native push technology to send data to a message broker system (MBS), that then feeds data to the target(s).

This design:

• Operates within the ServiceNow platform, minimizing resource consumption.
• Allows data transfers to run more efficiently than externally orchestrated API pulls.
• Helps maintain high platform performance, even during large or frequent exports.

One-to-Many Distribution

With the MBS handling the distribution of data to targets, replicating data out of ServiceNow and delivery to the target is decoupled, meaning data can be distributed to multiple solutions with no additional burden on ServiceNow’s performance.

This results in:

• Lower operational overhead on the ServiceNow instance.
• Greater scalability for multi-system environments.
• Smoother distribution of data across analytics and storage tools.
  

Implemented and Maintained as a Service

One of Perspectium’s biggest advantages is that it’s delivered and maintained as a service. Unlike custom API integrations that demand constant attention from in-house teams, Perspectium handles:

• Initial implementation
• Ongoing maintenance of the MBS, including ensuring support for new ServiceNow releases
• 247 x 365 support

This approach significantly reduces the internal resource burden, freeing up teams to focus on high-value work rather than maintaining fragile integrations.

Plus, Perspectium’s is aligned with ServiceNow releases, so customers benefit from fewer integration disruptions after ServiceNow platform upgrades.

If your organization stands to benefit from Perspectium’s advanced data replication and integration features for ServiceNow, today, or as it scales, then contact us to learn more.

Exporting ServiceNow Data: Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What’s the maximum amount of data I can export from ServiceNow at once? 

A: The default export limit is 10,000 records per export for most formats. A list of export limits per format can be found here. While administrators can increase this limit, ServiceNow does not recommend this as the limit is in place to avoid performance issues on the platform.

Q: Can I schedule automatic exports from ServiceNow?

A: Yes, but with limitations. ServiceNow’s native reporting allows you to schedule reports to be emailed as Excel, PDF, or CSV files. However, you cannot set up conditional exports (like “export when a record changes”) or real-time automation with built-in methods.

Q: Why can’t I see all fields when I export from ServiceNow?

A: By default, ServiceNow only exports visible fields in your current view. To export all fields, you need to use the URL parameter sysparm_default_export_fields=all or modify your list view to include all desired fields before exporting.

Q: Will exporting large amounts of data slow down my ServiceNow instance?

A: Typically, yes. Large exports using ServiceNow’s native methods consume operational resources and can impact performance for other users. However, some specialized replication solutions like Perspectium minimize this impact and allow for tens of millions of records to be exported per day, without impacting performance.

Q: How often can I run exports without affecting ServiceNow performance?

A: This depends on your instance size and user load. Small exports (under 1,000 records) can typically run multiple times per day, but large exports should be scheduled during off-peak hours. For more extensive requirements such as large data volumes and real-time data, consider a specialist solution like Perspectium, that can replicate large amounts of data without a noticeable impact on ServiceNow’s performance.

Q: Can I export data from multiple ServiceNow tables at once?

A: Not with native ServiceNow methods. You’ll need to export each table separately or use third-party integration tools that support multi-table exports.

Q: Can I export ServiceNow data to my data warehouse or BI tools?

A: Yes, you can, but the method you choose will depend on your requirements:

• Native Exports: This involves manually exporting files and uploading them to your BI tools or data warehouse.
• API and ETL: These solutions help scale, but can be resource-intensive to maintain and hit a wall in terms of performance and throughput when data movement exceeds millions of records per day. 
• Perspectium: This specialized solution provides the capabilities of both API and ETL without their impact on ServiceNow’s performance.

Q: Will my ServiceNow data exports include related records like attachments and comments?

A: Not with native ServiceNow exports. Standard exports do not maintain referential integrity of records or capture related records, attachments and/or comments. To export related records (attachments, comments, child records), you need purpose-built replication solutions.

Q: Do I need ServiceNow licenses for everyone who needs to view the data?

A: No, that’s one of the key benefits of exporting data. You can share exported data with business stakeholders, executives, or external teams without requiring additional ServiceNow licenses. However, it’s far easier to support data availability across the enterprise with an automated data integration and replication solution, as opposed to manually configured exports. 

Q: Can I export historical data and maintain audit trails?

A: Native ServiceNow exports provide a snapshot but don’t maintain audit trails or change history. For comprehensive historical data and audit trails, you need specialized replication tools that capture and preserve system metadata.

Q: What happens if my ServiceNow export fails?

A: With native exports, you’ll need to manually retry. Some advanced replication solutions provide mechanisms for ServiceNow integration error handling, such as retry capabilities, and monitoring to support data delivery and quality.

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