diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/core/Const.java b/core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/core/Const.java
index 50921737901a..331ba348240f 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/core/Const.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/core/Const.java
@@ -1657,6 +1657,11 @@ public static String getShimDriverDeploymentLocation() {
    */
   public static final String COMPATIBILITY_SHOW_WARNINGS_EXECUTE_EVERY_INPUT_ROW = "COMPATIBILITY_SHOW_WARNINGS_EXECUTE_EVERY_INPUT_ROW";
 
+  /**
+   Value to Configure if we want to export only the used connections to the XML file
+   */
+  public static final String STRING_ONLY_USED_DB_TO_XML = "STRING_ONLY_USED_DB_TO_XML";
+
   /**
    * rounds double f to any number of places after decimal point Does arithmetic using BigDecimal class to avoid integer
    * overflow while rounding
diff --git a/engine/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/trans/TransMeta.java b/engine/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/trans/TransMeta.java
index 253b9af01f8d..8fc0ae7fb835 100644
--- a/engine/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/trans/TransMeta.java
+++ b/engine/src/main/java/org/pentaho/di/trans/TransMeta.java
@@ -2566,7 +2566,10 @@ public String getXML( boolean includeSteps, boolean includeDatabase, boolean inc
     if ( includeDatabase ) {
       for ( int i = 0; i < nrDatabases(); i++ ) {
         DatabaseMeta dbMeta = getDatabase( i );
-        if ( props != null && props.areOnlyUsedConnectionsSavedToXML() ) {
+        //PDI-20078 - If props == null, it means transformation is running on the slave server. For the
+        // method areOnlyUsedConnectionsSavedToXMLInServer to return false, the "STRING_ONLY_USED_DB_TO_XML"
+        // needs to have "N" in the server startup script file
+        if ( props != null && props.areOnlyUsedConnectionsSavedToXML() || props == null && areOnlyUsedConnectionsSavedToXMLInServer() ) {
           if ( isDatabaseConnectionUsed( dbMeta ) ) {
             retval.append( dbMeta.getXML() );
           }
@@ -2621,6 +2624,11 @@ public String getXML( boolean includeSteps, boolean includeDatabase, boolean inc
     return XMLFormatter.format( retval.toString() );
   }
 
+  public boolean areOnlyUsedConnectionsSavedToXMLInServer() {
+    String show = System.getProperty( Const.STRING_ONLY_USED_DB_TO_XML, "Y" );
+    return "Y".equalsIgnoreCase( show ); // Default: save only used connections
+  }
+
   /**
    * Parses a file containing the XML that describes the transformation. No default connections are loaded since no
    * repository is available at this time. Since the filename is set, internal variables are being set that relate to
diff --git a/engine/src/main/resources/kettle-variables.xml b/engine/src/main/resources/kettle-variables.xml
index 535ea84524ae..8509e86c4c21 100644
--- a/engine/src/main/resources/kettle-variables.xml
+++ b/engine/src/main/resources/kettle-variables.xml
@@ -663,5 +663,4 @@
     <variable>COMPATIBILITY_SHOW_WARNINGS_EXECUTE_EVERY_INPUT_ROW</variable>
     <default-value>Y</default-value>
   </kettle-variable>
-
 </kettle-variables>