on the caption of the Product list box and start typing jacket.
b. Click the chevron (>>) in the right corner of the search box to display associated results.
c. Click on Dressy Jacket in the associated results area (see Figure 2-8) and press Enter. Notice that this did not explicitly select Dressy Jacket in the Style field, but instead limited the results in the Product field to those that also have the Style attribute “Dressy Jacket.”
Figure 2-8: Direct and associated search results
5. Based on QlikView’s green-white-gray display rules, what can you learn about the Season availability of the Dressy Jacket products? Which states do not have customers with Dressy Jacket sales?
While this exercise described the common text search feature, there are several other search features available, including numeric search, fuzzy search, and an advanced search dialog. For more information on these features, open Help ⇒ Contents from the menu and type search on the Index tab.
A Front End with No Queries
Using QlikView’s built-in ETL features, data from source systems are modeled, transformed, and loaded into memory. The resulting set of data, in memory, is the source of data for the front-end objects.
Qlik’s associative architecture maintains the relationships among all data points in memory, in real time. After each selection that a user makes, the associations in the data model are updated. What does this mean? It means that the front-end objects do no not require SQL-like queries to define the object. In traditional BI systems, a data query must be written for each chart to properly fetch data from the cube. In other words, the developer must define, with SQL code, how the data is related each time a chart is created. This makes it almost impossible for non-technical users to design their own applications. In QlikView, the difficult queries are written once, in the ETL layer. The resulting data set is then available to the front end with all of the associations intact. With the data loaded into memory, charts do not require supporting queries – they only need to be configured with a dimension and a measure. With minimal training, non-technical users can create their own dashboard objects without knowing how to write SQL queries.
Right-Sized Analytics
With several deployment options, QlikView offers a right-sized solution for any analytics or data discovery project. The desktop QlikView client allows you to quickly load data and create visualizations, all from your personal computer. Anyone who’s ever used Excel to extract data from an external source can easily learn to do the same in QlikView. Analysts can use QlikView to build their own applications to answer ad hoc business questions or create compelling visuals to use in presentations. Try doing that with traditional BI platforms!
On the other end of the scale, QlikView’s server platform provides for sharing QlikView applications among teams, or thousands of users within a global organization. With the option of clustering QlikView servers, users can have highly reliable access to applications in a distributed enterprise environment.
Qlik Sense Overview
Introduced in mid-2014, Qlik Sense offers an intuitive development interface and next-generation visualizations to facilitate true self-service business intelligence. Built on the second generation of Qlik’s associative data engine, the QIX (Qlik Index) engine delivers powerful data discovery features to a new front-end and ETL interface. This section briefly describes the user interface improvements.
New, Intelligent Visualizations
Built from the ground up with HTML5, Qlik Sense’s responsive design offers modern, touch-sensitive visualizations. Whether consuming the app on a laptop, large screen, or mobile device, intelligent visualization objects dynamically adapt themselves to optimize the display based on the available screen size. Figure 2-9 shows the new GUI presentation format of Qlik Sense, using Qlik Sense Desktop.
Figure 2-9: Smart visualizations automatically adapt to screen size
When a chart has focus (the bar chart in the upper left of Figure 2-9), an icon appears to allow drawing or lassoing to make selections. After lassoing, the other charts dynamically update to reflect the temporary selections, and the user can then choose to cancel or accept the temporary selections.
Exercise 2.3 walks you through opening an app in Qlik Sense, and demonstrates the responsive design of the interface.
Exercise 2.3: Experience the Intelligent Visualizations in Qlik Sense
1. Open Qlik Sense Desktop.
2. Next, open Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder containing the electronic materials for this book, and open the subfolder \Solutions Sense.
3. Drag the file Example Sales Analysis.qvf and drop it onto the window displaying the Qlik Sense hub.
4. Click on the Sales Analysis sheet.
5. Experience the auto-sizing features of the new visualizations.
a. Reduce the size of the display window until you see the mini-chart displayed beneath the bar chart in the upper left.
b. Click and drag the mini-chart lens to the right or use the scroll button on your mouse to scroll through the data.
6. Experience the new touch-sensitive features.
a. Click on any chart visualization.
b. Click the lasso icon.
c. Draw a loop around a few values in the chart.
d. Notice that the other charts temporarily show the results of the selection.
e. Click the red X to cancel or the green checkmark to accept.
f. Your selection appears in the dark gray selections bar at the top.
New Data Stories Add Context to Analytics
Qlik Sense includes a new built-in collaboration feature for telling “data stories.” Similar to other presentation tools, users can add text and graphics to slides that add a narrative context to the data. Figure 2-10 shows a slide from a story with that includes a visualization snapshot.
Figure 2-10: Editing a data story
Multiple stories can be created to facilitate different analyses or audiences.
Qlik Sense Desktop is a stand-alone Windows application that is free for personal and business use. An unlimited number of full-featured applications can be shared with other Qlik Sense Desktop users. An enterprise platform is also available, providing access for mobile devices as well as an all-new Qlik Management Console for security and governance.
User-Driven Development Means Self-Serve BI
With Qlik Sense, users of all skill levels
