Preface

Qlik Sense is a powerful, self-servicing business intelligence (BI) tool for data discovery, analytics, and visualization. It allows you to create personalized BI solutions from raw data and get actionable insights from it.

This book is an excellent guide for all aspiring Qlik Sense® developers. It will take you from the basics, right through to the use of more advanced functions. With the recipes in this book, you will be empowered to create fully featured desktop applications in Qlik Sense®.

Starting with a quick refresher on obtaining data from data files and databases, this book moves on to the more refined features of Qlik Sense®, including visualization, scripting, set analysis, advanced aggregation, and useful extensions. The tips and tricks provided will help you to overcome challenging situations while developing your applications in Qlik Sense®. This and more will help you to deliver engaging dashboards and reports efficiently.

By the end of the book, you will be an expert user of Qlik Sense® and will be able to use its features effectively for business intelligence in an enterprise environment.

Who this book is for

The book is for anyone who has been exposed to Qlik Sense® and wants to start using it actively for BI. Anybody with prior knowledge of its sister product, QlikView, will also benefit from this book. Familiarity with the basics of BI is a prerequisite.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with the Data, introduces the reader to different methods of loading data into Qlik Sense from various sources, such as relational databases, data files, FTP server, and web services. We will also delve into the creation and usage of Master Library in Qlik Sense and Data Manager for data preparation without code.

Chapter 2, Visualizations, focuses on the best design practices in Qlik Sense in order to create engaging applications. It also looks at the concepts of snapshots and stories in Qlik Sense.

 

Chapter 3, Scripting, introduces the reader to the techniques of writing a well-structured script in Qlik Sense. It discusses and explains the benefits of concepts such as subroutines, script files, and loops in scripts, which all form a part of the arsenal of a good Qlik Sense developer.

Chapter 4, Managing Apps and the User Interface, introduces the reader to the concept of publishing the Qlik Sense apps on the server and Qlik Sense cloud. We will also look at certain key Qlik Sense objects and using them for the right purpose and to convey the right information.

Chapter 5, Useful Functions, deals with some very useful functions that are available in Qlik Sense. We present some challenging scenarios that a Qlik Sense developer faces and provide solutions for them.

Chapter 6, Set Analysis, is one of the most powerful concepts in Qlik Sense. This chapter explains the process of writing Set Analysis expressions from scratch. We will also look at some advanced variations in Set Analysis expressions, such as the introduction of flags, defining ranges using the Concat() function in Set Analysis expressions, using P() and E() for indirect selections, set operators, and alternative states.

Chapter 7, Using Extensions in Qlik Sense, focuses on managing and using the most useful extensions in your Qlik Sense apps, such as reload app, action buttons, variable input box, KPI visualization, and object containers, which conditionally show and hide objects.

Chapter 8, Advanced Aggregation with AGGR, discuss when and how to use AGGR with some useful recipes, such as Ranking and ABC Analysis.

Chapter 9, Tips and Tricks, contains recipes to improve your day-to-day productivity using Qlik Sense.

To get the most out of this book

Qlik Sense Cookbook requires you to have at least a basic understanding of Qlik Sense. You should have either already deployed a couple of Qlik Sense apps or have worked extensively with QlikView before if you are now looking to transition to Qlik Sense.

To make the most out of this book, you don't necessarily read it from the beginning until the end (although it's recommended), but you should feel encouraged to start a chapter you're interested in and follow all recipes until the end because some recipe depends on the previous ones. Cross-references between recipes are made to ensure you know where to continue your reading if you wish to deepen your knowledge.

 

 

To closely follow the practical examples and to make the most of the code snippets, please ensure you download the latest version of the Qlik Sense Desktop client from the official website, which can be found here  https://www.qlik.com/us/try-or-buy/download-qlik-sense.

In the time of writing the book, several versions of Qlik Sense were launched introducing new features but also changes to the UI. At the time of writing of the book, we were using Qlik Sense version February/2018. We carefully wrote the recipes to work correctly with the most recent versions, but the recipe about geo map will not work with the current steps presented because theMapobject was entirely updated in version April/2018 and June/2018.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Qlik-Sense-Cookbook-Second-Edition. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

 

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/QlikSenseCookbookSecondEdition_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Mount the downloaded WebStorm-10*.dmg disk image file as another disk in your system."

A block of code is set as follows:

EmployeeInt:
LOAD *,
if([EmployeeID]= previous([EmployeeID]),'No','Yes') AS
LatestRecordFlag
RESIDENT EmployeeIntTemp
ORDER BY [EmployeeID] ASC, PositionFrom DESC;
DROP TABLE EmployeeIntTemp;

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

EmployeeInt:
LOAD *,
if([EmployeeID]= previous([EmployeeID]),'No','Yes') AS
LatestRecordFlag
RESIDENT EmployeeIntTemp
ORDER BY [EmployeeID] ASC, PositionFrom DESC;
DROP TABLE EmployeeIntTemp;

 

 

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Under Sorting, make sure that PositionFromis promoted to the top."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Sections

In this book, you will find several headings that appear frequently (Getting ready, How to do it..., How it works..., There's more..., and See also).

To give clear instructions on how to complete a recipe, use these sections as follows:

Getting ready

This section tells you what to expect in the recipe and describes how to set up any software or any preliminary settings required for the recipe.

How to do it...

This section contains the steps required to follow the recipe.

How it works...

This section usually consists of a detailed explanation of what happened in the previous section.

There's more...

This section consists of additional information about the recipe in order to make you more knowledgeable about the recipe.

 

See also

This section provides helpful links to other useful information for the recipe.

 

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