Qlik on Stefan's Blog

Get app reload progress (enigma.js mixin)

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:00:39 +0000

When I was writing the code for qlBuilder reload command I knew I’ll have to come back to it, at some point, and refactor the part that is displaying the reload progress. The plan was to separate this functionality as a separate module or even a package so it can be used elsewhere as well.

Qlik Error/Messages Codes

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 13:40:36 +0000

While working with Qlik we can encouter errors or messages that can be a bit cryptic and contain just an error/message code.

Very often these codes are followed by a short description. But sometimes either the description is missing or its … to short :)

Finally found some free time to compile a list of the error/messages codes, their short and long description.

My data source is a few years old so most likely is not complete. But still there are 300+ codes there.

Automatiqal CLI Beta! (Cross-Post)

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 08:30:32 +0000

The original announcement can be found here

Automatiqal CLI is officially entering its Beta phase!

You might not be aware but Automatiqal CLI allows Qlik Sense (QSEoW) deployments/administration tasks to be described in YAML/JSON files.

Automatiqal CLI supports:

multiple authentication methods
multiple ways to define variables
define onError blocks
and a lot more!

Please have a look at the introduction video below. More videos will be added soon!

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Web app authentication with QSEoW (web ticket + session cookie)

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 11:50:00 +0000

In one of the previous post we saw how to use web ticket to establish connection with Qlik Sense Engine. And probably for most cases the approach there is enough.

But what if our web app have a requirement to communicate with other Qlik service(s) (in addition to the Engine)? For example, we want to list the reload tasks to which the user have access (this information is provided by Qlik Repository Service REST API)?

Meet Informatiqal

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 15:37:11 +0000

The initial idea was simple … on paper. Spend few days just to prove that its possible. And it was doable. But to achieve it I had to build solid foundation.

I’m not going to say what was the initial idea … yet. But will share where it’s “home” will be and will release all the components of the “foundation”.

Since there will be multiple components I’ve decided that it’s a good idea to separate them in their own space.

Export QMC tables

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Administrating Qlik Sense sometimes means spending a lot of the time in QMC.

And sometimes I need to export some of the tables there just to keep the info somewhere else while I’m on a different screen in QMC.

Finally sat down to solve this specific issue - Chrome/Edge extension that can export QMC tables to CSV file or copy the content to the clipboard.

UI

The extension layout is “separated” into two areas:

enigma.js - interceptors

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000

Another interesting feature of enigma.js are interceptors. Interceptors are similar to the mixins functions but they are executed on lower level - request/response level.

Request interceptors are invoked right before the request is send to the Engine and response interceptors are invoked right after the response from the Engine is received and before the data is send to the calling function.

You can think of the interceptors as “enigma.js middleware”.

Custom enigma.js mixins

Fri, 03 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000

In the previous post we saw what are enigma.js mixins. I’ve started an repo some time ago (and npm package) where I’ve been adding mixins that I’ve found useful (or mixins that I’ve found boring to write all the time). And want to introduce you to this list.

At the moment the repo contains only mixins that are relevant to application/document.

(to distinct the mixins methods from the default enigma.js ones all mixin methods, from this package, are having prefix m)

enigma.js - mixins

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 09:15:00 +0000

You know it already but enigma.js is the JavaScript wrapper around the Qlik’s Engine API.

If you are building a mashup/web app or some sort of automation that require Engine communication you’ll have to use Engine API and here enigma.js is your friend.

Just to mention that JavaScript is not the only “flavor” of Enigma. You can find enigma for Go and .NET

But in this post I want to introduce you to one very cool (but not very popular) functionality that Enigma provides - mixins.

Introducing qlbuilder

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 08:30:00 +0000

qlbuilder

In general qlbuilder is a tool that communicates with Qlik apps (using the Engine API) and set the script. The script is located on the local machine and can be “stitched” from multiple files.

Why?

Everyone have their own preferred IDE/text editor and we can write own Qlik Sense load scripts there and use include/must_include inside the app to “bring” the script inside the app.

But it will be nice if we can write the scrips locally and upload them directly to the app as it is.

Deploy Qlik extension/mashup with Qlik-CLI

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 08:15:00 +0000

Creating Qlik extensions/mashups is usually quite fun. But it will be better if you have a way to develop locally and deploy to Qlik.

Usually I’m using qExt or sense-go but in this specific case I didn’t had the chance to use either (enterprise restrictions)

Luckily for me Qlik-CLI was available. And Qlik-CLI is doing a great job dealing with Qlik Repository API.

I’ve decided to write a small PowerShell script that can be used to import the extension from my local PC to Qlik.

Global Environment Values Approach (Qlik Sense)

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 08:49:00 +0000

With multi-stage Qlik environment (DEV, TEST, PROD etc) the load scripts are usually including some kind of a check - “In which environment am I?”.

Based on the result different/additional actions might be performed. For example:

if the environment is not PROD then mask/scramble the client names
use different data connection names (providers) on each environment
…

It will be nice if there is something more centralised that can provide this information (and not only) to any app on the cluster. Something like a global meta-data “storage” that can be changed/updated (by the administrators)

Qlik Sense Mail Notifications

Sun, 24 Apr 2016 10:23:00 +0000

One feature that is missing in Qlik Sense is to send mail notifications when task is completed (fail or success). This feature is available in QlikView Server and I’m finding it very useful.

I’ve found 3 ways that this can be achieved in QS:

Log files scraping
QRS API
log4net

I’ll cover the third option in details

Log files

Every QS service have it’s own log folder where the activity is logged. Batch file can be written that monitor the Scheduler service log file and on change to scrap the content and mail the result.

Qlik Sense Console (Chrome extension)

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 20:52:41 +0000

In Qlikview if there is a need to test/debug something developers are just creating some textboxes or straight/pivot tables right next to the dashboard (or in another sheet). In Qlik Sense it’s bit more tricky because the free space is kinda limited and if the need to check is on top of already fixed dashboard then some free space need to be made which involve some re-arrangement which I’m not big fan of.

Styled listbox (Qlik Sense Extension) (Updated)

Sat, 29 Nov 2014 21:35:32 +0000

I’m missing the option to present Qlik Sense listboxes in a different ways (Not that I don’t like the default one I’m just missing it)

So I’ve made an extension that can represent field values as Checkboxes, Radio buttons or Buttons.

As you can see from the screenshots below few more options are available:

Orientation: display the list as single row or multiple rows
Toggle select: if “false” the behavior of the selection will be * more like “only one selected” option in Qlikview
Active style (css): style the selected value(s) with valid CSS
InActive style (css): style the non selected value(s) with valid CSS

You can find the source code and the zip file in the Github repo

QMC Viewer

Fri, 28 Nov 2014 04:50:07 +0000

If you manage multiple Qlik servers (Qlikview or Sense) and need to access the management consoles multiple times per day you usually keep a list of servers urls somewhere (at least this is what I have). In this case opening this list every time or try to remember server url might be a bit frustrating sometimes.

For this reason I’ve made a little Chrome packaged app that can help a little. The app itself is pretty simple. It is possible to add all the QMC urls and the app will display the selected server url in webview control The app will also generate shortcuts for all main QMC categories (like Source Documents, User Documents, Licenses etc.)

Develop Qlik Sene extension with Chromebook

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 12:13:34 +0000

I’ve started playing with Qlik Sense extensions these days and pretty much I’m happy with the process in overall.

You can develop extensions using Workbench (if you have Qlik Sense Desktop installed) or any text editor. But if you have Sense Server installed you need to develop directly on the server or upload your files every time a change is made.

From 7-8 months I’m a proud owner of Chromebook and I’m trying to use it as many as possible. At this point I can use it as my default laptop for work.