Category Archives: Tools

Productivity, Qlik Sense, QlikView, Scripting, Tools

Storing a Data Model in a Single QVD

Nov 8, 2016 Rob Wunderlich 18 Comments

Have you ever thought it might be interesting to store a Qlik data model into a single QVD? This can be useful in a number of cases such as:

Archiving (and retrieving) data models.
Overcoming the “single binary load” restriction.

QlikView Components (QVC) Version 11 introduced two new routines to do just that:

Qvc.ExportModel — Exports all tables of the current model into a single QVD.

Qvc.ImportModel — Import a data model created by Qvc.ExportModel.

Even if you don’t have QVC V11 installed, you can try Qvc.ExportModel right now using http include. Add these lines to any QlikView script (instructions for Qlik Sense further on down in this post).

$(Must_Include=https://github.com/RobWunderlich/Qlikview-Components/releases/download/v11.1/Qvc.qvs);
 CALL Qvc.ExportModel
 CALL Qvc.Cleanup

Mind the wrap. The Must_Include should be on one line. Using QVC requires the Qvc.qvs library be included (usually at the beginning of script), CALLing Qvc routines, and CALLing a Cleanup routine at the end of your script.

Assuming this script is included in “Sales Dash.qvw”, the default exported model QVD will be named “Sales Dash.qvd” in the same directory.

Now, to import this QVD model into another qvw, replace the CALL to ExportModel in the above sample with:

CALL Qvc.ImportModel('Sales Dash.qvd')

The original model will be reconstructed as individual tables.

Qvc.ExportModel has three optional parameters:

CALL Qvc.ExportModel(['qvddir'],['qvdname'],['addTimestamp']);

Parameter Number	Parameter Description
1	String. Optional. Relative or absolute directory where the model QVD will be stored. If relative, it follows the same rules as the STORE script statement for relative directory.
2	String, Optional. Name for the model QVD. If omitted, the name of the QVW will be used. For example, if QVW is “Sales.qvw”, then QVD will be “Sales.qvd”.
3	String, Optional. 1/0 True/False. If True, a timestamp of the form _YYYYMMDDhhmmss will be appended to the QVD name. Default if omitted is False.

Qlik Sense has no default path so parameter #1, a lib:// for the QVD should be specified. Alternatively, if a lib has been established with a DIRECTORY statement, parameter 1 can be omitted.

Qlik Sense will require a web file Connection for the http Must_Include.

After defining the web connection and having an appropriate folder connection to store the QVD in, Qlik Sense script would look like this:

$(Must_Include=lib://QvcWeb);
 Call Qvc.ExportModel('lib://QVData')
 CALL Qvc.Cleanup;

That’s all there is to it! If you are already using QVC, I hope you’ll find these routines a welcome addition to the library. If you are new to QC, explore more at QlikviewComponents.org.

-Rob

Thanks to Jörgen Peerik for raising the single-QVD export idea during a QVC class.

Productivity, QlikView, Scripting, Tools

Preparing your script for QV12

Jul 20, 2016 Rob Wunderlich 1 Comment

Summary: I provide a tool to check your script for compatibility with QlikView version 12.

I’ve blogged about a couple of script changes in QV12 here. Since then I’ve also noticed that the $(include) statement is also affected by the Directory statement. That is, if the script below works in QV11, it will not work in QV12:

DIRECTORY Data;
 $(Must_Include=config.txt);

This is because QV11 looks for the file in the working directory where the QVW is, whereas QV12 will respect the DIRECTORY statement and look in the Data directory.

To summarize compatabilty considerations for QV12:

QV12 changes the way script EXECUTE statement is authorized.
QVD*() functions respect the DIRECTORY statement.
$(include) and $(Must_include) respect the DIRECTORY statement.

How will you know if you have existing script that may be impacted by these changes in QV12? In an earlier post, I introduced the Script Repository tool which can be used to search script across QVWs.

You can use the tool to search for potential issues. But I thought I would make it a bit easier by adding a dedicated “Version 12 Upgrade Check” sheet that does the searching and highlighting for you.

The chart at the top of the sheet will list any document that has script that should be examined further. Select a document, press the highlight button and the script of interest will be outlined in yellow.

My guess is that most customers will not have any compatibility issues. But why take chances? Be a hero and scan your script before upgrading.

-Rob

Join me at an upcoming Masters Summit for Qlik event in Johannesburg (6-8 Sept) or Austin (10-12 Oct). In my Advanced Scripting session, in addition to teaching important scripting techniques, we’ll look at methods and tools for managing your “script farm”.

General, Tools

Preparing for QlikView Version 12

Jan 14, 2016 Rob Wunderlich 1 Comment

There are a number of reasons you may want to upgrade to QV12, I’ll be posting about them in the next few weeks. Today’s post is specifically about what you must address to upgrade to QV12.

There are two items I’m aware of that you must be aware of and consider before upgrading.

QlikView version 12 Server changes the default permission for the EXECUTE script statement More details in this post.
In QlikView 12, QVD functions now respect the DIRECTORY statement. This is a breaking change that may cause some of your QV11 script to return incorrect results or take incorrect conditional actions. More information in a post here.

So again, I’ll be blogging about new features you may want to take advantage of, but above are the only two items I know of that you must consider before upgrading.

How do you know if you are using the impacted EXECUTE statement or QVD* functions? Perhaps you already have a tool in place to answer that question. But if you don’t, my colleagues at the Masters Summit for Qlik are making the Script Repository Tool (“ScriptRepo”) available for public download.

If you have attended a Masters Summit, then you already have a copy of ScriptRepo in your takeaways. if not, we would love to have you attend a Summit. But the Masters Summit Team understands the universal need for a tool like ScriptRepo whether you can attend the Summit or not.

The “ScriptRepo” tool extracts script from a directory of QVWs and then allows you to do a global search for script of interest such as “Execute”. Plug in the directory path that contains qvw files, and a temporary work directory to extract the script into:

Press the “Extract & Reload” button and each QVW file in the input directory will be opened and the script extracted. The open is done with “nodata”, so the extraction runs relatively fast — about one qvw per second.

After extraction, you can use your favorite search tool to scan the output directory, or use the builtin QlikView search & display from the “Script Search” sheet.

After searching for “customer” and selecting a candidate qvw:

I hope to see you at the Milan Summit in April 2016 or a USA location in Fall 2016. If you have questions about the Summit or using the ScriptRepo tool, let us know through the QlikView Cookbook Contact form or the Masters Summit Contact page.

-Rob

Tools

QVPR Analysis Tool Adds Task Visualization

Apr 20, 2015 Rob Wunderlich 3 Comments

Ralf Becher has created a nice Icon Graph extension and used it to visualize Reload task structure within my QVPR Analysis tool. I’ve integrated Ralf’s script into V2 of QVPR Analysis and all you need to do is download and install the Icon Graph extension from https://github.com/ralfbecher/QlikView_Extension_IconGraph. Links are also provided in the QVPR Analysis qvw. Select some Tasks or Documents and you’ll get a visualization like the following.

Ralf Becher has done some really interesting work with Graphs and Neo4J. Ralf is presenting a session (T56) at Qonnections on Wednesday afternoon if you want to learn more about using Graph models and visualizations in Qlik.

-Rob

Tools

Major Update to Document Analyzer

Jun 11, 2014 Rob Wunderlich 9 Comments

I’ve been publishing the free Qlikview “Document Analyzer” tool since 2009. I’ve just released a major update to DocAnalyzer. You can download Document Analyzer V2 from the Qlikview Cookbook website

DocAnalyzer is a tool to help tune the performance — response time and resource requirements — of a Qlikview QVW. DocAnalyzer can identify unused Fields and pinpoint slow charts.

How do you use DocAnalyzer? After identifying the QVW to be analyzed. press the “Extract Metadata” button to begin the analysis process. When the extract is complete, you’ll receive a popup message. The extract can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes for documents with many thousands of objects.

When the extract is complete, you must run a Reload of Document Analyzer. A button is provided for this or you can do Ctrl-R.

What can you discover in the analysis? Here are a few items.

– The Fields sheet will give you an overview of what fields are used and unused and where they are used — Dimensions, Expressions, Variables, etc.

A Listbox is provided with suggested DROP FIELD script statements for the unused fields.

Select $date and $timestamp in “Field Tag” listbox. Examine the “Symbols Size” column in the Field References chart. Dates and Timestamps can be stored in 8 bytes, but frequently get converted to longer string representations during loading. The impact is only significant if there are a large amount of Distinct Values.

– The Memory sheet provides an overview and detail of RAM requirements and estimates how much memory could be saved by dropping unused fields.

– The Object sheet lists all Objects along with their Calc Time and RAM Size.

Selecting a single object will enable a “Goto Object” that open the target document and Activate that object so you can examine it’s properties.

There are many other areas you can examine such as the use and performance of Calculated Dimensions, Groups, Expression contents and what properties use those expressions.

Document Analyzer is one of the Tools that Oleg Troyansky will present in his “Performance Tuning” session at the upcoming Masters Summit for Qlikview in Amsterdam Oct 1. I hope you can join us there for more performance tips and a chance to learn advanced Qlikview development skills.

-Rob

Tools

Analyzing Your QVPR

Jan 29, 2014 Rob Wunderlich 4 Comments

The Qlikview Management Console (QMC) is used to define Reload and Distribution tasks for your Qlikview documents. These definitions are stored in a set of XML files — the Qikview Repository (QVPR) — located in C:ProgramDataQlikTechManagementServiceQVPR on your server.

The QMC provides a good overview of scheduled tasks, but a better analysis is sometimes need to answer questions like:

What documents are being scheduled on a Monthly schedule? Weekly?
What documents are using Dynamic Distribution (reduction) and what field controls the distribution?
Which administrator modified this task and when?
What documents are being distributed to group Accounting?
How many documents are being distributed as PDF?
Do I have logical errors in my QVPR?
When was my server upgraded?

I’ve produced a “QVPR Analysis” tool that loads the QVPR XML files and makes them available for Qlikview analysis to answer the above questions and more. You can download the QVPR Analysis tool from the “Tools” menu of QlikviewCookbook.com.

The download link above contains some screenshots from the tool (names are scrambled in the images).

You can load directly from the server QVPR folder or an offline local copy obtained from the server. The offline capability makes the tool especially useful for remote consultants who can analyze a customer’s configuration without having QMC access.

This is the same tool provided to Masters Summit for Qlikview attendees last year. If you’ve already received a copy, no need to download again. I plan to continue enhancing the tool and will release further updates on QlikviewCookbook.com.

The analysis is pretty much text and tables which has suited my needs just fine. I’ve used the tool several times to solve some tricky customer problems or get someone out of a jam.

If you have Qlikview Publisher, you’ll get detailed information on Distribution tasks. If you don’t have Publisher, you won’t have distribution information but you’ll still get useful information on reload schedules and QVPR structure.

If you build some new analysis or find the tool useful, drop me a comment.

-Rob

General, Tools

Using Alerts to “Send the Numbers”

Jan 8, 2014 Rob Wunderlich 10 Comments

The Qlikview Document Alert feature is generally thought of as a way to notify users or administrators of exceptional conditions in the loaded data. But it may also be used for regular emailing of non-exception conditions, like daily sales figures. This can be very useful to inform mobile or travelling user of the status of Key Performance Indicators.

The Document Alert feature is part of basic Qlikview. No additional software or license is required. Please note that that Alerts can only send out text email. They cannot send graphical charts or attachments. If you want that functionality, look to third party addons such as NPrinting.

Alerts are configured in a QVW using the menu item: Tools, Alerts. The Alert Message may contain dynamic (calculated) content in the form of an expression like:

=’Sales YTD: ‘ & money(sum({<Year={$(=year(max(OrderDate)))}>}OrderAmount))

I won’t go deep into the configuration details here, because I’ve provided a downloadable annotated example at this link:
Qlikview Cookbook: Using Alerts To Send Numbers Via Email

The example will produce an email after reload that looks like this:

Alerts are a low cost and simple way to expand the reach and value of your QV applications. Users receiving emails do not require a Qlikview license.

-Rob

General, Tools

Quick Tip for Exploring Your Data Model

Aug 16, 2013 Rob Wunderlich 9 Comments

I picked up a great tip from QlikCommunity to view field values in your data model:
http://community.qlikview.com/thread/89396

I refined it a bit and am finding it very useful.

1. Create a listbox for field “$Field”.
2. Create a Straight Table Chart with:
a) Calculated Dimension: =$(='[‘ & only([$Field]) & ‘]’)
b) Expression: =sum({1}1)

Select a $Field in the listbox and the field values and frequencies will appear in the chart. Very handy for exploring data values in your model.

-Rob

Tools

QViewer – The Time Saving QVD Viewer

Feb 14, 2013 Rob Wunderlich 1 Comment

The QViewer utilility has quickly become one of my favorite can’t-live-without Qlikview development tools. QViewer is a fast viewer for QVD files. Written by Dmitry Gudkov, it’s available for download from http://easyqlik.com/. A free version, limited to 10,000 rows, and an unlimited paid version are available.

In addition to browsing QVD data, information on field values, simple queries, and metadata such as QVD source(s) are available. Double click a QVD and it opens in a second!

One of the interesting uses of QViewer is to examine the contents of a table mid-script, as blogged by Dmitry here . I’ve added a routine in the latest version (6.1) of Qlikview Components (QVC) to make this idea even simpler.

CALL Qvc.InspectTable(‘mytable’)
will save “mytable” to a temp QVD and open it in QViewer.

I’ll be showcasing a number of ways that QVC can facilitate script development and debugging at the Masters Summit for Qlikview April 16-18.

-Rob

Tools

First Look at Governance Dashboard

Oct 9, 2012 Rob Wunderlich 1 Comment

The Qlikview Governance Dashboard (“QGD”) is now available for download in QlikMarket. It’s marked as “beta” but it looks to be pretty close to complete.

QGD is a Qlikview app that scans files from your Qlikview deployment — QVW, QVD, log files — and builds a dashboard of metrics that can be utilized to understand and manage your deployment. There is a FAQ available here.

QGD replaces the MetaScanner sample that was available on the Community. QGD is a QT supported product, whereas MetaScanner was provided as a sample app.

QGD uses a Connector, an Expressor dataflow, and a hidden script to do the scanning. The dataflow cannot be modified by the customer. Not a problem as this is now supported by QT. The scanner tolerates older (pre V10) qvws without error.

The data model produced by QGD is pretty comprehensive, and in my limited review, accurate and useful. You can use the dashboard objects as delivered or binary load the model to create your own analysis.

The scanner reports on some attributes that were previously difficult to scan, such as the document “Generate Logfile” property. The dashboard presents some interesting displays. I like the idea of counting expression variations against a label. For example, we can see that something labeled “Proceeds” is associated with twelve different definitions Those variations may indicate a business difference or perhaps just different set modifiers — you have to look to see — but it can point to something worth reviewing.

For complete lineage results, you must run the scanner on the same machine where the reloads took place, using the same path mapping.

There are some improvements I’d like to see. The current notion of a database “source” is whatever appears after the FROM keyword in the SELECT. That works for a simple select but yields less useful and sometimes incorrect results for more complex SQL. In my QVD Dictionary app, I parse the DB table names out of the SQL statements. I’m sure a connector could do this much easier by leveraging a SQL parser.

I would also like to see the one QVW Field to many QVW Table relationship. Currently, a Field is reported as being in only one table. The complete association would allow us to analyze table associations, synthetic keys and even draw table models of a QVW.

All in all, a great move forward. I’m happy this is now available and will be testing it on different customer deployments.

Recipes for Qlikview Success