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original_url: "https://jace.pro/blog/reading-flows-encrypted-and-compressed-values/"
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Reading flows encrypted and compressed values- # Reading flows encrypted and compressed values

March 25, 2025 [servicenow ](/tags/servicenow/)[gliderecord ](/tags/gliderecord/)[flow-designer](/tags/flow-designer/)

  Enable AI AnimationThe other day, I was on the community slack, and a question popped up about reading the values for flows (flow designer, subflows, etc).

I was under the impression that the data was all still in the giant sys_variable_value table.

This has changed. Now it’s in the sys_hub_action_instance_v2 table. The baffling part about this table is the data on it is compressed and in base 64.

Anders Figenschow shared a colleague’s solution to decompress and convert form base64 is as follows.

`var sys_id = ''; // just put your sys_hub_action_instance_v2 sys_id here
var gr = new GlideRecord('sys_hub_action_instance_v2');
gr.setLimit(1);
gr.addQuery('sys_id', sys_id);
gr.query();
if (gr.next()) {
    var compressedData = gr.getValue('values');
    gs.info("Retrieved base64 encoded data from field.");
    var cs = GlideStringUtil.base64DecodeAsBytes(compressedData);
    var dec = String(GlideCompressionUtil.expandToString(cs));
    gs.info(dec);
}`Now a few notes here.

What is GlideCompressionUtil? I’ve not heard of this before.

- Morten from Norway, wrote [this post about doing this same thing](https://www.servicenow.com/community/workflow-automation-forum/viewing-the-quot-values-quot-field-of-sys-hub-action-instance-v2/td-p/3149163?utm_source=jace.pro&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=reading-flow-s-encrypted-and-compressed-values).

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[View this page on GitHub](https://github.com/jacebenson/jace.pro/tree/main/./src/posts/2025/2025-03-25-flow-designer-encrypted-compressed-values.md).

[Reading flows encrypted and compressed values](https://jace.pro/blog/reading-flows-encrypted-and-compressed-values/) [Jace Benson](https://jace.pro) ![Jace Benson](https://jace.pro/icon-512x512.png)

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*This content is from Jace Benson's ServiceNow and tech blog at jace.pro*
*Original post: https://jace.pro/blog/reading-flows-encrypted-and-compressed-values/*