Exporting Dashboard Data to Excel

Superset can export every chart on a dashboard to a single Excel workbook, with each chart's underlying data rendered as its own worksheet. The export reflects the dashboard's currently applied filters and runs asynchronously: the page polls for completion and downloads the workbook automatically, and a logged-in user with an email address also receives a time-limited download link by email. Sessions with no email on file — embedded guest-token sessions and anonymous (Public-role) users — rely on the polling download alone.

Using the export

From a dashboard, open the ... (actions) → Download submenu and choose Export Data to Excel. The action appears for users who have the dashboard can_export permission. You'll see a confirmation that the export is being prepared; the workbook downloads automatically when ready.

A second option, Export Images to Excel, embeds each non-table chart as a rendered image (tables stay tabular) instead of exporting raw data. Because it renders charts through the headless webdriver, this option only appears when the webdriver screenshot feature flags are enabled (see the prerequisites below); which viz types stay tabular is controlled by EXCEL_EXPORT_TABLE_VIZ_TYPES.

Notes on the generated workbook:

• One worksheet per chart, named {chart_id} - {chart title} (truncated to Excel's 31-character limit; the chart id keeps names unique).
• Charts nested in tabs are included.
• Data reflects the dashboard's active filter state at the time of export.
• A chart with no saved query context (charts only store one once they've been re-saved in Explore) still exports when it is a table, big_number, big_number_total or pie, by rebuilding the query from the chart's saved form data. Charts of other types — and charts relying on post-processing the rebuild can't reproduce — are skipped and listed in the email; open the chart in Explore and re-save it to include it next time, or configure EXCEL_EXPORT_QUERY_CONTEXT_BUILDER.
• Row counts per sheet are capped the same way as the chart-level CSV/Excel export (ROW_LIMIT, bounded by SQL_MAX_ROW), and never exceed Excel's per-sheet maximum.

Prerequisites

This feature is disabled by default. It requires:

1. A storage bucket and backend. Configure EXPORT_STORAGE with both a bucket and a backend matching the bucket's provider — there is no implicit default:

   from superset.utils.s3 import S3ExportStorage       # AWS S3
   # from superset.utils.gcs import GCSExportStorage   # Google Cloud Storage
   
   EXPORT_STORAGE = {
       "bucket": "my-export-bucket",
       "backend": S3ExportStorage(),
   }

   Until both are set, the export endpoint returns 501 and the menu action surfaces a "not configured" message.

2. The backend's SDK dependency, on both the web and worker tiers (the worker uploads, the web server streams downloads). Not installed by default; install pip install apache-superset[excel-export] (boto3) for S3ExportStorage, or pip install apache-superset[excel-export-gcs] (google-cloud-storage) for GCSExportStorage. Without it, exports fail.

3. A running Celery worker. The export runs as a Celery task. If no worker is running, the request is accepted but nothing is produced.

4. A configured SMTP transport, for email delivery only. When set (same settings as alerts & reports: SMTP_*, EMAIL_REPORTS_SUBJECT_PREFIX), logged-in users with an email address also receive the download link by email. The polling auto-download works without it.

Export Images to Excel additionally requires a working headless webdriver — the same infrastructure scheduled reports and thumbnails use (WEBDRIVER_*, plus the ENABLE_DASHBOARD_SCREENSHOT_ENDPOINTS and ENABLE_DASHBOARD_DOWNLOAD_WEBDRIVER_SCREENSHOT feature flags). The menu option is hidden when those flags are off; if the webdriver is unreachable, image charts come back empty even though the data export path still works.

Deployments that override CELERY_CONFIG must add "superset.tasks.export_dashboard_excel" to the imports tuple, or the task will not register.

Configuration keys

Key	Default	Description
EXPORT_STORAGE["bucket"]	unset	Destination bucket. Required; 501 if unset.
EXPORT_STORAGE["backend"]	unset	Storage backend instance: S3ExportStorage() (superset.utils.s3), GCSExportStorage() (superset.utils.gcs), or a custom superset.utils.export_storage.ExportStorage implementation. Required; 501 if unset.
EXPORT_STORAGE["key_prefix"]	"dashboard-exports/"	Object key/blob prefix: {prefix}{dashboard_id}/{job_id}.xlsx. A callable (() -> str) is invoked per export, for prefixes only known in request/task context (e.g. per-tenant scoping of a shared bucket).
EXCEL_EXPORT_LINK_TTL_SECONDS	86400	Lifetime of the Superset download link (24h) shared in the email and polling response. Each click streams the file from storage through Superset. Guest-token exports cap the link at one hour regardless of this value, since a guest retrieves the file within the polling window and has no email link to revisit later.
EXCEL_EXPORT_TABLE_VIZ_TYPES	None	Viz types kept tabular in Export Images to Excel mode; every other type is embedded as an image. None uses the built-in default (table, pivot_table, pivot_table_v2).
EXCEL_EXPORT_QUERY_CONTEXT_BUILDER	None	Optional Callable[[form_data_dict], dict | None] to build a query context for a chart missing a saved one, tried before the built-in form-data rebuild. Point it at a service that runs the chart's real frontend buildQuery to faithfully export viz types the built-in rebuild can't handle. Must return None when it can't build faithfully, so the export falls back.

Credentials resolve through each SDK's standard chain — for S3, environment variables, shared config, or an instance role, with overrides available via S3ExportStorage(client_kwargs={...}) (e.g. region_name, or endpoint_url for MinIO/LocalStack); for GCS, Application Default Credentials. Two tiers need bucket access, which matters when they run under separate identities: the Celery worker uploads the file (write, e.g. s3:PutObject), while the web server streams it back at download time (read, e.g. s3:GetObject; on S3 also grant s3:ListBucket, or a lifecycle-expired object surfaces as AccessDenied instead of a clean "link expired"). No signing permissions are needed on either tier: downloads stream through Superset rather than redirecting to a signed storage URL.

Security considerations

• The download link is an unguessable Superset URL: anyone who holds it can download the workbook until the link expires, and every download streams through Superset (never a transferable signed storage URL). Keep the bucket private, enable encryption, and consider a lifecycle rule to delete objects after a few days. Lower EXCEL_EXPORT_LINK_TTL_SECONDS if 24 hours is too long for your data.
• The export runs with the requesting user's permissions; each chart's query is access-checked, so users only ever receive data they are entitled to.

Limitations

• Embedded guest-token sessions get the polling download only. The export runs under the guest token's RLS rules and resource claims, and the page polls for completion and downloads automatically — but there is no email fallback, so the browser tab must stay open until the export finishes. Export Images to Excel is not available to guest or anonymous (Public-role) sessions: the webdriver cannot render without a real user identity, so the menu hides it and the API rejects it for any session without a user id.
• The default Export Data to Excel mode exports data only (no visual styling). Use Export Images to Excel to embed rendered chart images, which requires the webdriver infrastructure described in the prerequisites.
• Scheduled/automated exports are not part of this feature.