Skills for a successful Qlikview Developer

[#1]

Hello Friends,

I really need some advise from you all experts.

I am a die hard fan of QV. It has an amazing UI and adds freshness to any BI project and hence I got attracted towards this tool. I have even learnt this tool and am quite liking it.

I am in my mid 30s and looking for a stable career which will help me, stay employed for a good 8 to 10 years. I however do not possess technical skills like SQL Server, Oracle DB etc. I have seen some posting on local job sites where along with QV knowledge you are expected to have the above technical skills. I have worked with BPOs and KPOs in the past and have worked extensively on .xls and created a lot of  MIS reports and that could be the reason why I like QV the most.

My question is, (now having known about my past work experience and my skills), do you think I can make it big in QV? I have an offer but since I am new to this industry they are really not paying good. Will my deficient knowledge in SQL and other DBs be a big hurdle? I need some advise before I make this decision.

Moderators- Please accept my apologies, if this is not the right place to post this questions,

[paul_scotchford]

Hey Rahul

My advice, if you have an offer then take it!

So what if the pay is not so good! by your own admission you lack SQL and Oracle skills, so go get them fella

In the meantime you would have a paid position busily soaking up knowledge and skills and in 3-5 years if

you have what the market wants then you can command more money. BI is a growing business, be part of it,

you are still young so do it.

Also, its not just Techie skills you need, you need business skills , i.e. get to know the business/industry your job is domained in, this will help you in the long run. If you can get on courses (OnLine, Uni etc) go for it.

You have to earn your pay here, no free rides in Business, high skillset and knowledge will bring the $$$'s, but you gotta work hard to get there.

Hope this helps.

Paul

[tresesco]

Rahul,

Bad news first : If you don't have a technical degree(it's not only about SQL/DB), you might face some difficulties down the line of your career here. Usually, recuiters would prefer person with a technical background.

Some rays of hope: There are people who might more be interested in what you know/ can do, raher than just sticking to traditional way of looking for technical people. Therefore, if you learn it in-depth and show case that, never know that unconventional thinking person may cross your road.

Here, above all these, some suggestions from side would be: Buy a basic book of DB and learn first few chapters and then try to understand the concept of JOINs, primary key, foreign key, normalization and finally some SQL commands. Then try to understand the basics of For..Next, If....Then...Else , Do..While structure from any programming language (like C, BASIC). Once you are armed with these basics, you would see the way forward much smoother.

All the best.

[ngulliver]

Hi, Rahul.

I think tresesco has given you a good overview of expectations. Depending on your age and experience you can get away without having a technical degree. Being a developer is not just about coding new solutions. You need to understand the business you are in and to be able to communicate - asking the right questions, being able to tell people, tactifully, that their data may be wrong etc.

Have a look at Steve Dark's blog on the subject.

http://www.quickintelligence.co.uk/what-makes-a-qlikview-developer/

Regards,

Neil

[#5]

Thanks a lot for your advise, this is helping me make a decision.

I have started learning SQL and understand some basic queries. Also I do understand the concepts of JOINS, keys etc as these are important while creating scripts in QV. But as you know books teach you very basic and they always have a good scenario, whereas realtime scenarios are very complex. You really know how much deep in water are you, when you start working on live project.

Anyone who has more advice? please....

[ngulliver]

Hi, Rahul.

Download the free personal edition of QlikView if you have no other way of getting QlikView.

Do the free online training.

http://www.qlik.com/us/services/training/recommended-courses/courses/qlikview-end-users

Try answering questions on this forum for practice. It may take you a while to figure out a solution but it will help your learning, raise your profile and help other people at the same time.

Even if you don't want to answer anything youself, follow the answers of other people to see how they would s

Regards,

Neil

p.s. Also, don't forget to close a discussion by marking it as answered otherwise you could get overloaded with replies

🙂

[jagan]

Hi Rahul,

For successful Qlikview developer the following are the must

- SQL Queries (Joins, Group, where etc.)

- DataWarehouse concepts (for developing good Data models, this is purely theoritical concepts)

- Knowledge about the charts (Which chart is used in which scenario/representation)

- Analytical skills

- Basic programming skills (As tresesco mentioned, C/C++/Javascript etc, which helps in qlikview scripting)

- Business terms (Inventory, Sales, Revenue, Profit, YTD etc.)

- Qlikview (Functions, keywords, joins, various loads, set analysis(highly important)

Hope this helps you.

Regards,

Jagan.

[#8]

Alright, it seems technical knowledge would be required if not on an expert level then on an intermediate level atleast. Thanks everyone for your help! I am still thinking and will update as to what course of career I choose.