A common desire from Qlik customers over the years has been the ability to interactively edit data on a QV sheet and persist the changes in Qlik or maybe write back to another system. As Martin Mahler of VizLib describes it “turning a one-way data street into a two-way street”.
Sometimes the term “writeback” is used to describe the idea of inputting data in a Qlik app and persisting that data — writing back the data — to some other system. The new data is saved and shared with other users of the app. Importantly, in a form/writeback application, the added data is associated with some row of the data model. For example, in a warranty claims app we may have a dropdown that allows the user to categorize each claim. The assigned category is used in further analysis.
I think of “commenting” as making annotations on a chart, or chart data point, and a given set of selections. Ideally, comments may turn into a discussion and use some sort of notification mechanism.
These are not pure terms. There are overlaps to be sure.
I’ve seen some interesting bespoke implementations by partners. There is also a growing list of off the shelf products that enable writeback and or commentary within Qlik Sense or QlikView.
Some products are Qlik Sense only, some work with both QlikView and Qlik Sense.
Most products allow you to create table sheet objects that mix Qlik DImensions and Expressions with additional input fields such as freeform text, dropdowns or checkboxes. They all persist the data to some type of backend store such as a database.
When evaluating a product for your requirements, here are some items to consider:
- Do you have requirements for read-only and update users?
- Are you looking to add additional data in a single chart or do you need to reference the new data from multiple charts?
- Are you looking to add one to one new data or build complex workflow apps?
- Does your business objective require structured form data, free-form commentary or both?
There are an interesting range of products and capabilities out there. Klikins and Emark Forms for example let you add new fields to a straight table. One of the more interesting approaches is K4 Analytics, which embeds Excel into Qlik. This provides the full range of Excel formula and formatting functions. You can build some pretty powerful aps this way.
There are products that focus on finance reports. TrueChart creates a set of functional and beautiful IBCS compliant reports along with a nice navigation interface that can be reused throughout the Qlik app.
Both TrueChart and Climber Finance Report support the type of commenting and annotations user require in finance reporting. I’m excited that the Climber commenting is being expanded and released as a generic commenting & collaboration product by VizLib. Qommentary is another global commenting solution.
Here in no particular order are some Writeback / Commenting products I’m aware of. The headings are links to the vendor site.
I’m sure I’ve missed some products. Feel free to leave me a comment if you have something to share. It would also be good to hear about use cases where you have found value in implementing an input/writeback solution.
Inform Write
QlikView and Qlik Sense
K4 Analytics
QlikView and Qlik Sense
TrueChart
Qlik Sense
Emark Forms
Qlik Sense
Klikins
QlikView and Qlik Sense
Pomerol Writeback
Qlik Sense
Qommentary
Qlik Sense
VizLib
Qlik Sense
Komment
Qlik Sense