Export
Exporting your Glint data: what comes out, what does not, and the setting you cannot change
Microsoft documents every one of these limits openly on Microsoft Learn. This page puts them in one place, in the order an exit needs them, with the one irreversible setting flagged first.
Glint’s export is the best of the three
On by default for every new program
Microsoft’s wording is that raw survey responses are exportable for each new survey program. No API, no BI tool and no support ticket sits between you and the file.
Microsoft LearnA CSV that downloads to your device
Larger files take longer and arrive by email when ready, but the mechanism is a download rather than a data request, with no API and no support ticket in between.
Microsoft LearnYou choose what travels with it
Survey Cycle ID, sent date, comments, comment topics, the sensitive-comment flag, and full question text rather than a UUID, plus any employee attributes your organization sends.
Microsoft LearnA rendered report is not the figures. The spreadsheet holds numbers another platform can read; the slide and the document do not. That distinction is the whole of report exports and raw exports.
The setting that locks when a cycle goes live
- Export is only enabled for a cycle if it was enabled before launch. Microsoft states it in those terms, then adds the caution: once a survey is live, that choice cannot be changed for it.
- Changing the control today only affects future cycles. Closed cycles permanently conform to the setting that was live when each one launched. A program set to YES today can still hold older cycles nobody can ever export.
- So audit every historical cycle now, not at exit. Microsoft is blunt about a NO: you cannot take those raw responses with you, and says neither you nor Microsoft can transfer them to an alternative survey platform.
- The documented exceptions are narrow, and worth knowing about anyway. Extreme Circumstances covers fraud, safety and legal compliance, and a data subject request returns one person their own answers. Neither moves a dataset to another platform.
What the export leaves behind
- Your response counts will not reconcile with the portal. Partially completed surveys nobody submitted are excluded, and blank surveys are excluded from the export while still being counted in the portal.Microsoft flags the discrepancy itself.
- Some identifiers arrive deliberately truncated in the file. Only the last twelve digits of the Survey Cycle ID are exported, with the leading numbers shown as X, because product IDs count as metadata. Plan joins on the cycle title instead.
- Two gaps come from a practitioner rather than the documentation. A People Analytics Manager reviewing Glint names no anonymised dataset export and no way to export comments translated. If your comment history is multilingual, that second one matters.
Thresholds are applied as the file is built
- The multi-attribute export obeys your confidentiality and suppression thresholds. Microsoft adds that it re-evaluates what to suppress every single run, and weighs the order you picked the attributes in, so two exports of one cycle can differ.
- Two practical limits apply before you even get a file. A warning appears once your selected attribute value combinations pass twelve thousand, and Microsoft restricts this export to Viva Glint Admins alone. Document your thresholds before you run it.
- CultureMonkey behaves the same way, and that is worth stating. Masking and minimum-group rules are applied while the file is built, so an export can never reveal something the on-screen report would hide. No edge is claimed here.
Before you cancel
Check the setting on every historical cycle
Program Setup, Confidentiality section, Enable Raw Survey Response Export. Set Approved to NO first or you cannot switch it on. Closed cycles never change.
Export raw responses for every closed cycle
Survey Programs, Completed cycles, the ellipsis on the cycle row, Export Raw Survey Responses. Tick Cycle ID, sent date, comments and topics.
Use the Actions menu for lifecycle and always-on
Those two types have no Completed cycles tab. Configuration, Survey programs, the Actions menu, then a start and end date.
Add every attribute you report on
The Attributes list is your one chance to carry demographics across. Anything left unticked is not in the file.
Run the multi-attribute export
Invitees, respondents, response rate, average score and percent favorable, for up to three attributes at a time.
Reconcile the counts before trusting either
Blank surveys are excluded from the export and still counted in the portal. Record both figures while you can see both.
Write down your thresholds as they stand
Rated, comment and suppression. Months from now this is the only thing that explains a missing group score.
Confirm the deleted-user control
Platform-level, applies to every deletion, and defaults to retaining responses. Check it before anyone processes a request.
Work inside the thirty-day window
A deleted record sits in a soft-deleted state for thirty days, then goes permanently. Any export covering those people happens first.
Treat rendered reports as documents
A PDF or a slide will not load into another platform. Expect to rebuild the numbers from the raw exports.
Set the deadline from your contract
Microsoft holds the data while the subscription is active, so no clock is published. Work back from your contract end date.
The full Glint migration guide
Still deciding where to go? Our roundup of Glint alternatives compares the field. This page works the same whichever one you pick.
Exporting from Microsoft Viva Glint
The export
Sourced to Microsoft’s own public documentation.
What does exporting your data from Microsoft Viva Glint involve?
Can you export raw survey responses from Microsoft Viva Glint?
Why does the export count differ from the portal count?
Who is allowed to run a Viva Glint export?
Can Glint export comments already translated?
How long do you have to export your Glint data?
Exported everything? See what it rebuilds.
Bring the files to a working session and we will walk through what carries across, what does not, and what your first cycle on a new platform looks like.
4.7 / 5 on G2