9 Tips and Tricks for Qlik Sense

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I wanted to share with you 9 tips and tricks you can implement in your Qlik Sense applications.
The goal is to show you tips that can make your job easier and to highlight features that are not intuitive to find.

Here is the list of tips and tricks that we will discover:

  1. Different selections in two Qlik Sense sheets opened in the same browser
  2. Bookmark a sheet with selections
  3. Receive a snapshot of a sheet or application by email
  4. Find a field in the Data Model
  5. Get the name of the column in a Drill-down dimension
  6. Add a description to a chart
  7. Create hidden filters
  8. Scramble your sensitive data in Qlik Sense
  9. Customize a Qlik Sense object with CSS

1- Different selections in two Qlik Sense sheets opened in the same browser

I received a message on LinkedIn and was reminded of Qlik Sense’s option that is not used very much. The option is the IDENTITY parameter.

Qlik Sense has several APIs, and one of them is ‘Single Integration API.’ The Single Integration API provides parameters that can be used to create an URL that returns a complete HTML page containing, for example, an embedded Qlik Sense visualization.

Imagine you want to make different selections using the same Qlik Sense sheet (two different analysis scenarios)
You open the sheet in two different tabs. Problem! By default, the selections for sheet 1 are the same as for sheet 2

To avoid this, you can use identity parameter like this:

  • In tab 1, add at the end of the URL this: /identity/x
  • In tab 2, add at the end of the URL this: /identity/y

Now the selections in sheet 1 do not impact sheet 2 and vice versa.

2- Bookmark a sheet with selections

In some cases, users often view the same sheet with the same filters. Example: a salesperson who goes to see his sales results from the day before every morning. To access this information, the classic path would be:

  • Open Qlik Sense Hub
  • Select the sales application
  • Select the sheet that corresponds to the sales of the day before
  • Then make the selections or choose an existing bookmark

The easiest way would be to create a bookmark in the browser (not a Qlik Sense bookmark). Then every day, access the sheet with one click.

To create the bookmark link:

  • Open the Qlik Sense sheet
  • Make the selections of your choice
  • Go to the menu at the top left of the sheet and choose “Embed sheet.”
  • Click on open preview in the new tab
  • Add this URL as a favorite

The next time our salesperson wants to access her sales results from the day before, all he needs to do is click.

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3- Receive a snapshot of a sheet or application by email

Now, admitting that our salesperson wants to receive the results of the previous day’s sales in his inbox every morning in PDF or as an image in the email message.

This option is not available in Qlik Sense natively, but with an extension, it is possible.

Use the 100% free Qalyptus Notify extension. Qalyptus Notify allows you to subscribe to a single Qlik Sense sheet or an entire Qlik Sense app. By subscribing, you receive a snapshot of a sheet or application as an image or PDF by email at regular intervals without logging into Qlik Sense.

Download Qalyptus Notify

4- Find a field in the Data model

When you create a complex Qlik Sense application with many tables and fields, it is necessary to have a clear and optimized data model. Sometimes you want to locate a particular field in the model and, even if possible, see a preview of the data it contains.

This is easily done in the “Data Model” interface. At the top right, you can see a magnifying glass button. Click on it and enter the name of the field you are looking for. Qlik Sense displays the number 1 next to the table that contains it. By selecting it, you also have the possibility to preview its values ​​and several other information.

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5- Obtain the name of the column in a Drill-down dimension

For those who have worked with QlikView before, you may be familiar with the GetCurrentField (group_name) function. This function is used to display the name of the current field in a drill-down dimension.

In Qlik Sense, this function does not exist. To know the name of the current dimension, you would have to calculate it yourself. Here is an expression for a Hierarchical dimension containing 3 fields: Country, Region, City.

Expression: =if(count (distinct total Country)> 1, ‘Country’, if (count (distinct total Region)> 1, ‘Region’, ‘City’))

Depending on the number of fields your drill-down dimension contains, create nested if/else respecting the order of the dimensions.

6- Add a description to a chart

One of the best practices when creating a Qlik Sense application is to add a description to charts and tables to understand how the result was achieved and give a clear and detailed definition of the indicator.

For example, if you calculate the following indicator: Number of active customers. It is interesting to describe the notion of the active customer to avoid ambiguity.

In Qlik Sense, the easiest way to add a description to an object is to turn it into a Master Item and then add a description in the settings of the Master Item.

Once added, you will see an icon appear in the form of an “i” that displays the object’s description.

Here’s how to do it:

  • Edit the Master Item and add a description

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  • Use the master item in a sheet. Edit it and Switch On “Show details.”

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  • Now you can see the “Show details” button.

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7- Create hidden filters

In Qlik Sense, filters are often added to allow users to filter their data easily. However, for agronomic reasons, you cannot put many filters on one sheet.

If you want to allow users to access other filters without going through the “Selections” window, which contains all the fields (where the user may be lost), you can use this trick to hide and display additional filters.

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8- Scramble your sensitive data in Qlik Sense

Sometimes, you want to send a Qlik Sense app outside of your organization, and you don’t want others to access the information in the app.

In QlikView, there is a feature that allows you to choose which fields to scramble, and QlikView transforms the values ​​of these fields into text and numbers, which are random.

Unfortunately, data scrambling is not available as a feature in Qlik Sense at this time.

Here is a post that explains how to scramble fields using an Excel file to specify the fields to scramble and a Qlik script that will automatically scramble the fields.

9- Customize a Qlik Sense object with CSS

This tip is for the smartest developer. As you know, Qlik Sense is a full web tool, which says web means HTML / CSS. If you want to customize a Qlik Sense object and don’t have the necessary functionality in the object’s settings, you can embed CSS code in your sheet and change the style of the object.

To achieve this, you would have to go through the “Multi KPI” object in the built-in extensions of Qlik Sense. This object contains a text box where you can enter your CSS code.

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To see in detail how to do this, Christof Schwarz made a very good video where he explains how to change a simple table and a pivot table.

See the video: Styling Sense Tables with Properties and CSS

 

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