QlikView to Qlik Sense and beyond: A DevOps-Driven Approach
Posted on March 20, 2024 | By Admin
Migrating from QlikView (QV) to Qlik Sense (QS) is not just a platform shift. It is an opportunity to modernize analytics and leverage cloud capabilities. For teams managing this passage, implementing standard Qlik Sense DevOps practices ensures structured and efficient measures. Keep reading for more insights.
Introduction
Transitioning from QlikView to Qlik Sense is a strategic move toward advanced, cloud-ready analytics. This article aims to give a holistic view of the experience for teams migrating from QlikView to Qlik Sense, on both cloud and client-managed environments. It highlights triggers for modernization, key differentiators in Qlik Sense, and strategic recommendations for a smooth transition. Also traces the journey beyond migration and how Qlik Sense analytics can be enhanced for greater impact.
In This Article
- Introduction
- Why Migrate From QlikView To Qlik Sense?
- QlikView vs. Qlik Sense
- How To Ensure Seamless Qlik Sense Migration
- Preparing The Ground
- The Migration Process
- Troubleshooting
- The Journey Beyond Migration
- Conclusion
Why Migrate? Qlik Sense DevOps and Modernization Drivers
As teams plan this transition, they can right away draw comfort from the fact that the process can be incremental, without disrupting existing priorities or diluting all the benefits offered by Qlik Sense including unified licensing for products and reduced cost of platform ownership.
Let’s begin with a comparative look at differences that will come to the fore for users:
| Aspect | QlikView | Qlik Sense |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Desktop development client with managed analytic experience | Web-based self-service visual analytics powered by a cognitive engine with AL/ML/NLP |
| Usability | Pixel-perfectness, compact layouts and layering | Fluidic, responsive user interfaces with high interactivity |
| Customization | High degree of customization for guided analytics | High degree of customization available via mashups |
| Data | Advanced data preparation | Advanced data and visual data preparation |
| Availability | Standard mobile capabilities | Advanced mobile – online & offline |
| Extensibility | In- app extensibility through macros and integrations | Open APIs for custom applications and embedded analytics |
While these differences are also the advantages between the products, many other core aspects remain the same including Qlik’s associate experience, guided apps, data model, load scripts, expressions and syntax, data integration/ ETL and security.
Ensuring a Seamless Qlik Sense Ecosystem
A successful Qlik Sense journey requires both efficient migration from QlikView and continuous optimization through DevOps. Together, they create a scalable and high-performing analytics ecosystem.
Migration Best Practices
- Perform a strategic assessment by identifying app dependencies, data complexity, and resource needs before migration.
- Migrate in phases, starting with less complex apps to minimize disruption.
- Leverage QlikView Converter and Migration App for fast, optimized conversion and cloud compliance.
- Govern performance benchmarks, data integrity, and security compliance post-migration.
- gration.
Qlik Sense DevOps Best Practices
- Optimize Qlik Sense app deployments with CI/CD pipelines for faster, reliable updates.
- Ensure consistent environment management using Terraform and Ansible.
- Track performance and detect issues in real time with Qlik Monitoring Apps.
- Enforce role-based access control, encryption, and audit logging to secure data and ensure regulatory compliance.
By integrating these practices, organizations can make the most of Qlik Sense while ensuring smooth performance
Preparing the ground
Migrating the entire repository of resources from data, transformations, scripts, visuals to applications from QlikView to Qlik Sense can be an arduous exercise spanning months without the right assessment of risks or use of tools. Let’s explore them both:
Assessment
Before moving your data, reconfiguring data connections, or redesigning the user interface, it is important to assess:
- Total number of applications involved
- Total number of sheets and their interdependencies
- Complexity of visuals and variables
- Estimated time and effort against each
In cases involving complexities, one can lean on Qlik’s migration app, which helps assess existing servers, export users, roles, and authorization status once the to-be-migrated apps are tagged within the Qlik Management Console (QMC) for migration to the cloud. Read more about the migration app here.
Accelerated Approach
After assessment, all assets must be moved to the new server or cloud. For on-premise migration, Qlik Sense installation and data connections can be set up on the same server. Existing apps can be converted using the “Converter” in Dev Hub for Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows and Qlik Sense Desktop. This tool accelerates the migration by over 60% and offers a good head start. Read more about Qlik’s Converter here.
The migration process
1) QlikView to Qlik Cloud
In case of migration to the Cloud, both data and the applications need to be moved in entirety to the remote server maintained by Qlik. The migration app helps here by assessing your existing server, exporting users, their roles and monitoring the authorization involved for all.
Key steps – Moving data to the cloud is the first step, helping reduce the infrastructure footprint in your QlikView environment. The process involves the following steps:
- Understanding data connections in QlikView and the connectivity method
- Gaining secure access to data residing behind a firewall using the Qlik Data Gateway, that provides a data connection type for Qlik Cloud applications
- Distributing the applications to Qlik cloud using the migration app
- Setting up new data connections in the cloud tenant and reloading the applications
- Alternatively, data movement can be also be enabled using the Data Transfer tool from Qlik
Review
Once data connections and files are successfully moved, the next step is migrating applications. It is crucial to rationalize application sizes in Qlik Cloud, ensuring compliance with the 5GB SaaS limit and involves provisioning additional storage for larger apps if need be.
Finally, a checklist to track and review extensions, themes, geo-analytics, functions, and statements supported in QlikView and not in Qlik Sense helps in firming it all up. This can vary from case to case. Read more about checklists here..
2) QlikView to Client-Managed Qlik Sense
For on-premise setups, the QV to QS Converter effectively translates most elements – variables, visuals, and expressions; while requiring some manual UI adjustments. The only limitation is a 500MB file size constraint. Reducing document data volume can help ensure a smoother conversion.
In the case of client-managed environments, the QlikView to Qlik Sense Converter effectively translates most elements including variables, visuals, and expressions, with only the user interface being left to be redesigned as per needs. The only constraint in the Converter is that the size of a document should be within 500MB. Reducing the document data volume can help ensure a smoother conversion. All said and done, teams need to be prepared to manually recreate a few visuals (~10 to 20%) when native conversions are not successful or fully translatable.
Troubleshooting & FAQs
Issue
Solution
Data connections failing in Qlik Sense
Reconfigure connections and validate access permissions
Performance issues post-migration
Implement caching and optimize load scripts
Large app size exceeding cloud limits
Optimize scripts, reduce unnecessary data, or provision additional storage
UI elements not converting properly
Manual recreation of 10-20% of visuals may be needed
In any migration, blind spots are not entirely avoidable. Analytics and business teams coping with the new experience will take some time to be fully hands-on. Involving them early on during the assessment phase and licensing discussions is key to success. There should also be caution while merging multiple applications into one and the overruns it can have on the timelines.
The Journey Beyond: Elevating Qlik Sense with Extensions
By now, it’s clear that Qlik Sense brings a fresh experience with its interfaces, colors, buttons, interactivity, and more for users. To simplify migration, the Converter automatically translates QlikView’s measures, variables, and visualizations into Qlik Sense formats. The next step is user adoption.
With the foundation in place, users now have the option to enhance dashboards with new visual elements, boosting adoption and collaboration. SenseOps’ no-code extensions offer the last mile experience to Qlik Sense users, giving them the flexibility to create powerful visualization that reflects their imagination or is in tune with their brand or design sensitivities, without requiring deep expertise, unlike the limitations in QlikView and Qlik Sense.
Case 1: Smart Tables
Take the case of modern Smart Tables, where cells can accommodate rich icons, tool-tips, images, ratings, mini-charts, advanced functions within the cells, CSS controls, and more to convey a more meaningful story of your data.
Case 2: Combo Charts
Or that of a combo chart with cyclic dimensions and measures in QlikView but gets difficult in Qlik Sense’s native chart to add more than one dimension. SenseOps Combo Charts Extensions allow adding multiple dimensions and measures within a Chart with many other visual elements including modern tool-tips, axis controls, reference lines, background shades, containers, and more. In a sense, changing the grammar of charts.
By integrating these extensions, users can transform Qlik Sense into a powerful analytics powerhouse beyond basic visualization in a matter of minutes.
Transforming Qlik Sense with DevOps and Extensions
Whether it is moving to Qlik Sense, inhabiting the power of the cloud, or changing your overall analytics experiences, fewer resources must yield exponential gains. This is precisely where the accelerated Converter (QlikView to Qlik Sense) and SenseOps (for Qlik Sense journeys) accelerate the path by leaps and bounds while adding new features to extend the power of analytics.
With the right approach, Qlik Sense becomes more than a reporting tool – it transforms into an interactive, scalable analytics powerhouse for better decision-making and a more connected data experience.
For more information about SenseOps partnership or upcoming releases, reach out to us or write to hello@senseops.com