Export performance issues in Risksheet primarily stem from cell merging in hierarchical layouts. The export engine must calculate merge boundaries for every merged region in the grid, and this computation grows significantly with document size. Use this decision matrix to identify your specific bottleneck:
Factor
Impact
Mitigation
Cell merging (hierarchical view)
High — primary bottleneck for both Excel and PDF
Switch to Flat table view before exporting
Number of multiItemLink columns
High — each cell requires JSON array parsing and label resolution
Reduce visible link columns using saved views
Total row count (500+ rows)
Medium — linear scaling with row count
Split large sheets by FMEA type or component
Server-rendered columns
Medium — requires HTML-to-text conversion per cell
The most effective optimization is switching to Flat table view before exporting. This eliminates the merge calculation overhead entirely.
Open your Risksheet document
Switch to the Flat table view using the view selector in the toolbar
Trigger the export (Excel or PDF) — the progress toast appears: “Exporting to Excel” or “Exporting to PDF” with an animated progress indicator
Wait for the export to complete and the file to download
Switch back to your preferred hierarchical view after the export completes
Switching from hierarchical view to Flat table view reduced export time from approximately 3 hours to 3-7 minutes in real customer scenarios with large, heavily merged risksheets. Always use Flat table view for large document exports.
The masterMergeOnly property (labeled as flatTable in export diagnostic logs) controls whether the export uses a flat table structure or includes hierarchical merges. Both mergeCacheFlag and masterMergeOnly are logged during export for diagnostics.
Set moduleOnlyPermissions=true at the project level to speed up loading of large sheets. This parameter restricts permission checks to the document module level, avoiding per-item permission evaluation that can be very slow for documents with hundreds of work items.
Enabling moduleOnlyPermissions disables per-item permission checks. If your project relies on fine-grained per-work-item permissions, this optimization may allow users to see or edit items they should not have access to. Verify your permission requirements before enabling.
Set refreshOnSave to false in your risksheet.json to avoid a full page reload after each save operation:
{ "global": { "refreshOnSave": false }}
This prevents the grid from reloading all data after every save, which is particularly beneficial when editing large sheets with many linked items.
Setting refreshOnSave to false improves save performance but may cause stale link rendering in some scenarios. Links created or modified during the editing session may not reflect their latest state until the page is manually refreshed. Test with your specific configuration before applying broadly.
PDF export validates the sheet state before proceeding:
Validation
Behavior When Failed
Unsaved changes (isDirty())
Export is blocked. Save all changes first.
Comparison mode active
Export is blocked. Exit baseline comparison view before exporting.
If the export is blocked, Risksheet displays a validation message explaining which condition failed. Save your changes or exit comparison mode, then retry.
PDF export uses Velocity templates to generate the export layout. Review your custom pdfscript.js for potential inefficiencies:
Use the hideColumns parameter (comma-separated binding names) to exclude unnecessary columns from the exportMainSheet call. Hidden columns are temporarily removed during export and restored afterward.
Consider using exportSubTable or exportDownstreamTable for focused exports of specific data subsets rather than exporting the entire grid.
The emptyPlaceholder property controls what text appears for null or empty cells. Set this to null (default) to skip rendering empty cells entirely.
Available export scope variables in custom scripts:
Variable
Description
exporter
The export engine instance with all export methods
Cell height calculation may truncate text for linked elements (hazard, hazardous situation, harm)
Fix planned with highest priority
Text repetition on page breaks
When a risk item spans multiple pages, partial text is repeated on the next page for context
By design, but can confuse reviewers who interpret it as a new risk entry
Risk matrix calculation errors
Risk matrix totals in PDF may not correctly count risks across all severity categories
Under investigation
Table overflow for long text
Tables may not auto-extend for very long text content
Under investigation
PDF export cell height calculation has a known regression that can truncate text for linked elements. This is tracked as a high-priority issue. Check for updates in Risksheet version v25.2.0 and later, which includes optimizations for merged cell processing.
Excel export processes each cell type individually during the formatting callback. Understanding how each column type is exported helps you identify optimization opportunities:
Column Type
Export Behavior
Performance Notes
Plain text / string
Direct value copy
Fast
Boolean
Converts checkbox to true/false text
Fast
Item link
Strips HTML markup, outputs plain text
Moderate — HTML parsing per cell
Multi-item link
Parses JSON array of {id, label} objects, joins with newlines
Slow — JSON parsing per cell, items with IDs starting with * are prefixed
Multi-enum
Resolves enum IDs to display names from configuration, joins with commas
Moderate — lookup per value
Server-rendered
Strips HTML, preserves line breaks from list items
Moderate — HTML processing
The export always includes:
Column headers in bold font at the top of the sheet
Row headers showing system item IDs in bold font
Cell styles (background colors, text colors) preserved from the grid when includeStyles is active
During export, Risksheet displays a progress toast notification:
Title: “Exporting to Excel”
Message: “Please wait while the file is being generated…”
Behavior: The toast persists until the export completes, then automatically dismisses. A 100ms delay ensures the progress indicator renders before the export engine begins processing.
Faster loading for large sheets by reducing permission check overhead
v24.8.6
Faster merger for multiItemLink columns
Improved merge calculation for sheets with many multi-item link columns
v25.2.0
Optimized merged cell processing for exports
Reduced export time for hierarchically merged sheets
If you are experiencing export performance issues, ensure you are running Risksheet v25.2.0 or later, which includes cumulative performance optimizations for merged cell processing, permission checks, and multi-item link handling.
Switch to Flat table view in the Risksheet toolbar
Optionally, switch to an export-specific saved view to reduce visible columns
Trigger the export and observe the progress indicator (“Exporting to Excel” or “Exporting to PDF”)
Confirm the export completes within minutes, not hours
Open the exported file and verify that all expected data is present
You should now see the export complete significantly faster, with the progress toast displaying briefly before the file downloads. For very large documents (500+ rows with many link columns), expect export times of 3-7 minutes in Flat table view.
