Exploration links and exports

Data Explorer can share the current exploration state and download a governed result. These are viewer operations; they do not publish a dashboard or create a copy of someone else's unpublished work.

  • Current query link is a live, canonical URL for the working query. A recipient must authenticate and have RESOURCE_USE access to the referenced semantic model. The query runs again against the active serving generation and current data policies, so results may change.
  • Saved exploration (latest saved version) contains only the saved-exploration ID. It resolves the latest saved version through the normal viewer authorization path; possessing the URL does not grant access. Unsaved edits remain local until you explicitly save them.

The browser labels both links and provides a visible link fallback beside its Copy link control. Personal saved links remain personal. Choose Organization when saving only if the intended audience has the corresponding viewer/data access; visibility does not bypass model permissions, row policies, or masking.

Save as current query creates a new personal exploration from your current working state without changing the original saved item. Duplicate saved version copies the persisted revision instead; it does not include unpublished edits. Use Save after reopening when you intend to update the original item.

Download CSV or Parquet

Download the current query from the explorer, or use the authenticated API for an exact saved revision:

POST /api/v1/projects/{project}/saved-explorations/{exploration}/export
If-Match: "<complete revision token>"
{"format":"csv"}

The URL-backed API accepts the canonical ExplorationSpec in POST /api/v1/projects/{project}/saved-explorations/url-export. Both paths execute through the current viewer's policy and serving lease. They do not accept a saved ID as a shortcut to another user's working copy.

Exports rerun the complete matching result from its first row, preserving the selected fields, filters, and sort order. The authored ExplorationSpec.limit bounds the interactive sample; it does not cap an export. The current table window and chart truncation do not disable downloads. This applies to both saved-revision and URL-backed exports.

Exports default to at most 10,000 rows and 32 MiB, with the same independent row and byte bounds applied during query retention and encoding. Requests may lower these export bounds with maxRows and maxBytes. Exceeding either bound returns HTTP 413 with no attachment; add filters to narrow the query and retry. CSV preserves typed scalar text and prefixes spreadsheet-formula values (including values beginning with tab, carriage return, or newline). Files are sent only after a complete, successful, bounded result is encoded.

Recover from a rejected export

  • A stale If-Match revision returns a precondition failure. Reload the saved exploration and use the returned complete ETag value as If-Match; never substitute a revision number alone.
  • A permission or private-resource failure is returned without source metadata. Ask an administrator for the appropriate viewer/model-use grant rather than forwarding the URL as authorization.
  • Oversized, partial, canceled, invalid-format, or unavailable exports return an error and no partial file. Narrow the query, choose a supported format, retry after cancellation, or resolve the runtime/audit availability issue.

Executed exports produce a governed query event plus an export-preparation outcome (format, status, bounded row/byte counts, and stable error class). Preparation success does not prove the client received the file. Terminal failures are audited when the recorder is available; parse/authentication failures before execution and an unavailable audit recorder cannot produce an event. The metadata does not record SQL, filters, plans, or result values.

Parquet preserves signed/unsigned integers, fixed-scale decimal128 values up to 38 digits, booleans, nulls, and strings. Decimal precision and scale are retained from the query result, including for all-null or empty decimal columns. Other all-null or empty columns without declared type metadata conservatively use nullable UTF-8; mixed or unsupported values are rejected rather than coerced lossily.

Verify the result

Open a shared link in a second account with the intended model permissions and confirm it reruns the query under that account's visible data. Download a small CSV and Parquet sample, then compare their column names and row counts with the query; a query whose complete result exceeds the export bounds should return HTTP 413 instead of a partial file.