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Sense Task parameter passing

AndrewMcIlwrick — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 06:54:34 GMT

QlikView QMC allows you to create tasks with parameters that are passed into script variables - this should also be possible in Qlik Sense task.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

sergio_loza — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 23:26:50 GMT

I second this. It apparently was available in Qlik View. It would make things so much better

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 14:12:42 GMT

Totally agree! Just for those who don't remember QlikView - here's how this feature looks like:

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

mountaindude — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 13:39:36 GMT

Yeah I totally agree.

I would think this will arrive sooner or later in the core Qlik Sense Enterprise product, but not wanting to wait I created an alternate solution for this.
It solves my needs in this space but there are of course room for improvement too.

The solution is built around a generic key-value store, which is included in recent versions of the open source Butler service (butler.ptarmiganlabs.com).

The idea is pretty simple:

You first insert into the key-value store whatever parameters you want to pass to a an app's load script. This is done by calling Butler's REST API, either using some 3rd party tool outside of Sense (database, upstream data source, Powershell etc) or from another Sense app using a "Call AddKeyValue()" call.
The second app then reads the keys where parameters are stored, and voila - we have parameter passing between apps as well as from outside world into an app.

Like this:

True, you will have to set up and run Butler for this to work. But it's open source (free) and runs nicely even on the existing Sense servers. You also need to add some script lines for inserting the parameters, but it's literally just a few lines of script:

Write values to key-value store from the first app...

// Create key-value pair in Butler's key-value store. 

Call NiceTrace('---------------------------')
Call NiceTrace('Writing parameter to Butler key-value store. No time-to-live (ttl).')
Call AddKeyValue('Reload chain parameter demo', 'Parameter 1', 'a1 abc 123', 0)

Call NiceTrace('Written parameter to key-value store: ')
Call NiceTrace('Namespace="Reload chain parameter demo", Key="Parameter 1", Value="a1 abc 123"')

...then read them back from the second app

// Define variable to store the retrieved parameter in
let vParam1='';

Call NiceTrace('---------------------------')
Call NiceTrace('Loading parameter from Butler key-value store.')
Call GetKeyValue('Reload chain parameter demo', 'Parameter 1', 'vParam1')

Call NiceTrace('Retrieved parameter value:')
Call NiceTrace('Namespace="Reload chain parameter demo", Key="Parameter 1", Value="$(vParam1)"')
set vParam1=;

Works quite well.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

jonas_viklund — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 10:47:20 GMT

yes, this would be a great feature.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

kuba_michalik1 — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 14:28:33 GMT

Yeah, this is needed.

Every single workaround I saw so far (including the suggestion for Butler above) has one fatal flaw: they are scoped to the app, not to the task. There is just no way to have 1 app

So if previously you had 1 app and a task that was spitting out 10 versions based on a parameter with 10 values, or 1 app with multiple tasks specified and parametrized differently, suddenly you need 10 apps. If all the app was doing was data processing, then it's not so bad, you can minimize repetition of script via includes. If the app had actual visualizations in it... ouch.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

AndrewMcIlwrick — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:23:51 GMT

You can use tags as a workaround to pass parameters.

Tags can be accessed in QS script using the JSON object the monitor app data connection provides.

Still not perfect 😉

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

DavidFosterVF — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 09:24:33 GMT

This has been a gap since Qlik Sense went live.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

JonasValleskog — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 10:02:59 GMT

Yes please, this is such a useful feature for reload workflow flexibility.

My current use case: designing a workflow for daily extracts and weekly extracts behaving differently. I'd like to "flip a variable switch" to force different processing behavior on the weekend.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing - Status changed to: Open - Collecting Feedback

Ian_Crosland — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:13:20 GMT

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

Stoyan_Terziev — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 10:08:14 GMT

4 years later and this idea hasn't yet been implemented...

I see this as a mandatory feature if we are to use QS QMC as a true dataflow management orchestrator.

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

sogloqlik — Tue, 09 May 2023 14:23:53 GMT

Once again QLIK are failing in the basics which were inplemented in so many other products (BI and Non BI systems)

Re: Sense Task parameter passing

Liz1 — Thu, 25 May 2023 14:26:19 GMT

This is essential for anyone migrating from QlikView QMC.

From now on, please track this idea from the Ideation por...

Meghann_MacDonald — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 16:27:43 GMT

From now on, please track this idea from the Ideation portal.

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Meghann

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Re: Sense Task parameter passing - Status changed to: Closed - Archived

Ideation — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 16:27:45 GMT