Troubleshooting spreadsheet analysis

Use this page when you get inaccurate or incomplete answers from Glean Assistant on spreadsheet files.

Prerequisites

Before you troubleshoot, make sure you have the following:

• A supported spreadsheet file. These steps apply to .xlsx files analyzed in Glean Assistant, whether referenced by URL or uploaded directly to chat.
• Read access to the spreadsheet file. Glean honors source-system permissions, so you need to be able to open the file yourself (for example, in SharePoint) for Glean to read it.
• The details of the problem. Note the exact question you asked, the mode you used (fast or thinking), whether you referenced the file by URL or uploaded it, and the answer you expected versus what you received.
• (Optional) Admin Console access. Some checks, such as verifying that Glean has indexed a file, require Glean Protect access in the Admin Console.

Frequently asked questions

Find your symptom below and follow the matching fix.

Possible cause: Very large spreadsheets can be truncated when indexed, so only part of the file is available for analysis when the file is referenced by URL.

Fix:

1. Upload the file directly to chat instead of referencing the URL. Direct uploads run Data Analysis over the full file contents.
2. Switch to thinking mode. Large-file analysis improvements apply in thinking mode. If you're in fast mode, switch and retry the same question.
3. Ask Glean to state how many rows it processed. If the number looks low, the file was likely truncated at indexing time.
4. Simplify the sheet: remove merged cells, nested tables, and embedded charts. Make sure there's a single clear header row with consistent columns.
5. Split the file into smaller sheets — for example, by region or time period — and analyze each one separately.

Possible cause: Glean can't read the SharePoint-hosted xlsx file because the file isn't accessible to the user, isn't indexed yet, or recent permission and location changes haven't propagated.

Fix:

1. Confirm you can open the file directly in SharePoint with your own account. Glean honors source-system permissions — if you don't have access in SharePoint, Glean can't read it for you.
2. Verify the file is indexed: in the Admin Console, go to Glean Protect → Access verification (or Document lookup) and enter the file URL.
3. Allow time for recent changes. If the file was recently created, renamed, or moved, permission and location updates from SharePoint propagate on the connector's crawl cadence. Wait for the next crawl cycle to complete.
4. Upload the file directly as a workaround. Download the file from SharePoint and upload it to chat.

Possible cause: Fast mode is optimized for speed, while thinking mode is better for multi-step reasoning over large or complex spreadsheets — such as counting rows that match a filter, or aggregating values across thousands of records.

Fix: If a spreadsheet answer looks incomplete or inaccurate in fast mode, retry the same question in thinking mode.

See also

• Data Analysis: Overview
• File Upload
• Crawler and indexing size limits