read-only grid Export to excel

There is one thing you can do, instead of using a!recordActionField() in your first column you can use richtextIcon() and make it clickable by adding a startProcessLink which will start the same process triggered by Update related action.

Like this:

Now, the exported excel will have an empty column, which really do not looks weird at all.

Could you please if you have any sample code. Somehow my code is not working as expected.

a!gridField(
    label: "Read-only Grid",
    labelPosition: "ABOVE",
    data: 'recordType!{99b0bb09-e2c0-4f75-a70b-26f247e2d095}AA Vehicle',
    columns: {
      a!gridColumn(
        value: a!richTextDisplayField(
          value: a!richTextIcon(
            icon: "pencil",
            caption: "UPDATE",
            link: a!startProcessLink(
              processModel: cons!PA_PM_UPDATE_VEHICLE,
              /* Process model which is used in related action */
              processParameters: { vehicle: fv!row }
            ),
            linkStyle: "STANDALONE"
          )
        ),
        width: "ICON"
      ),
      a!gridColumn(
        value: fv!row['recordType!{99b0bb09-e2c0-4f75-a70b-26f247e2d095}AA Vehicle.fields.{41ba4a5a-f36f-474a-b17d-c12f6869260f}make']
      )
    },
    validations: {}
  )

a!gridField(
    label: "Read-only Grid",
    labelPosition: "ABOVE",
    data: 'recordType!{99b0bb09-e2c0-4f75-a70b-26f247e2d095}AA Vehicle',
    columns: {
      a!gridColumn(
        value: a!richTextDisplayField(
          value: a!richTextIcon(
            icon: "pencil",
            caption: "UPDATE",
            link: a!startProcessLink(
              processModel: cons!PA_PM_UPDATE_VEHICLE,
              /* Process model which is used in related action */
              processParameters: { vehicle: fv!row }
            ),
            linkStyle: "STANDALONE"
          )
        ),
        width: "ICON"
      ),
      a!gridColumn(
        value: fv!row['recordType!{99b0bb09-e2c0-4f75-a70b-26f247e2d095}AA Vehicle.fields.{41ba4a5a-f36f-474a-b17d-c12f6869260f}make']
      )
    },
    validations: {}
  )

 What happens when you change to action style to link?

It will create a column with record action name no matter which action style we use.

In excel?

Yup!

Thank you so much for sharing the sample code.

Is there a way we can open the edit/update screen in a pop-up window similar to recordActionField/recordActionItem/ openActionsIn: "DIALOG"

No, you cannot open any type of link in a Dialog box in Appian. Opening actions in Dialog box is OOTB Record feature.

I'll add - this is a long-requested (and for the most part, long-ignored) feature request for both the Start Process Link and Task Link features, which if provided, would add a lot of valuable flexibility.