article CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github in Official Support Articles

CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

NikoNelissen-Qlik — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:15:27 GMT

Automations allow you to set up CI/CD pipelines for your Qlik Sense apps, using the Github connector. Below we showcase various components of a CI/CD pipeline, that can be combined and extended based on your own needs.

Commit Qlik Sense app to Github

You can commit a Qlik Sense app to Github to perform versioning - allowing you to rollback to a previous version if needed - or simply to have a backup of your apps.

The following automation commits the QVF file to Github which can be used to restore the app or to recreate it in a different space, tenant or environment:

We can also commit human readable files to Github that contain all the artefacts of the app (sheets, measures, load script etc.) to allow users to compare versions (doing a "diff") in Github. Here is an example where we loop over all sheets, for each sheet we loop over all objects and we add the json representation to a variable of type "String" (text):

Note that we apply the formula "json" to each object, this will convert the actual object to a json text representation. We are also adding a line break and then we append this text to our variable. Here is the raw view that shows the formula:

Finally we are using the variable to write to a text file on Github:

Note that we have to convert the text of the variable to base64 encoding using the base64 formula. The raw view of the above field mapping is: { base64encode: { $.ObjectString } }

In a similar manner we can commit the load script in a text file on Github:

Same as before, we apply the base64 encode formula on the load script. Here is the raw view of the above field mapping: {base64encode: {$.GetLoadScript.qScript}}

See attached for a full template that commits a wide range of artefacts from a Qlik Sense app to Github.

Restore or (re)create a Qlik Sense App from Github

Here is an example that retrieves a QVF file from Github and uses that to create a Qlik Sense App in your tenant:

You can extend this automation to also update the load script if the imported Qlik Sense App. This is useful e.g. when people collaborated on the load script and merged their changes in Github:

Run tests on a Qlik Sense App on new Pull Request (PR) in Github

A common CI/CD pipeline practice is to run tests when a new pull request (PR) is opened. Here is a simple example of an automation that is triggered when a new PR is created in Github:

Note that we added a Condition block to the automation. This is needed because Github will emit an event when the PR is opened, but also e.g. when it is closed:

The automation runs a few tests on a Qlik Sense App. In our example we perform following tests:

Reload the app and see if that succeeds
Get a measure value from the app and check if it has the correct value

Finally, the automation adds a comment to the PR with the test results, or it can set the PR to "Approved" using the Github block "Add Pull Request Review":

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

FranciscoQ — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 14:41:43 GMT

Hi !

I am curious about the "Restore or re create a QlikSense App from Github".

Do you think is possible to restore a specific version of an app that is in a repository ?

Let's say I have an automation that export apps to Github when they are published. And I published the app sales twice, one in December, but then I made some changes in the script so I published it again in January.

I have the app stored in my GitHub repo, with all the commits. And I want an automation to restore the app that was published in December, not the last version. So to be able to restore versions of a certain app based on a date, month, etc.

Thanks!

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

NikoNelissen-Qlik — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:31:32 GMT

Hi, the block "get repository content" which is used to read the app (or any other file) from Github has an optional input called "ref" that can be used to select a certain commit to read the data from. By default this input is empty and the latest version of the file is used. Hope this helps !

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

LDR — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 07:21:09 GMT

Hi @NikoNelissen-Qlik

The solution you shared is also available for Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows? or only for Cloud?

Regards

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

Sonja_Bauernfeind — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 07:24:07 GMT

Hello @LDR

Qlik Application Automation is only available on Qlik Cloud.

All the best,
Sonja

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

LDR — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 07:43:52 GMT

Hi @NikoNelissen-Qlik , hi @Sonja_Bauernfeind

Which can provide Qlik for implementing CI/CD in Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows? Is there any solution?

Regards

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

Sonja_Bauernfeind — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 08:08:57 GMT

Hello @LDR

Please post your query directly in the appropriate forum. I believe in your case, the query is best suited for the Integration, Extension & API forum. Be as detailed as you can in your description (your use case, how you wish to achieve it, etc), which will help our users and support agents review your request more effectively.

All the best,
Sonja

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

TcnCunha_M — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 15:37:48 GMT

can i use this for connect o bitbucket?

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

retretrt — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 10:49:57 GMT

how do i restore/re-import the dimensions, variables, measures and fields into qlik sense again? Say i have restored the app and also the load script which you have given examples of, but there is no example of how to import the other artefacts using qlik automations

@NikoNelissen-Qlik @Sonja_Bauernfeind

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

Sonja_Bauernfeind — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 14:47:42 GMT

Hello @retretrt

Please post about your query in detail in the Qlik Application Automation forum, where our active users and support agents can better assist you.

All the best,
Sonja

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

Danica-Cortez — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:08:49 GMT

Has anyone found a solution for QVF files that are too large to be uploaded onto GitHub?

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

LDR — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 06:19:48 GMT

Hi @Danica-Cortez

I'm guessing so maybe what I'm going to say is wrong. Maybe, there's a way to export the app without data. Could it be?

Regards

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

Danica-Cortez — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 17:24:45 GMT

hey @LDR thanks for responding, actually my error was not due to the size of the file in the end, but that the repository "doesn't exist". That is why the API call was returning a 404. The private repository belongs to an organization I am part of. It appears Qlik only allows you to access your personal repos. I posted a new question about it here.

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

LDR — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 09:02:41 GMT

Hi @Danica-Cortez

I don't have had yet the chance to work with the SaaS solution but I think I can shortly so how to say it, I can't wait more for getting hands on Automation and Git.😅

Thanks for your feedback

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

OdieW — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 16:16:40 GMT

I have been testing the export to github automation and its been working great. Recently another team member published an app and that worked great as well. Today another team member published and app and I got an error in the automation. It did commit the qvf to github but failed on getting the load script. I received 2 different errors as shown below:

Cannot encode a non-string value. This error was in the failed automation email as well as well as in the errors section of the automation.

Additionally when looking at the per block or chronologically sections I see an error like this:
code: -32601

parameter: GetScript

message: Method not found.

From my understanding base64 encoding shouldn't care what type of characters its encoding, its only cares about the characters when decoding the file, so I am not sure why its erroring on a non-string value and also not sure what/where in the load script that non string value is.

Re: CI/CD pipelines for Qlik Sense apps with automations and Github

bjoern — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:22:11 GMT

Hi there,
has anyone stumbled upon the error that the get File content block cannot parse the path correctly?

In my case the repository path is Manages/SpaceName/AppName/Appname.qvf
For some reason, when I run the automation, the slashes "/" are converted to %2F
Does anybody know why that happens?
I use the same path variable in the automation for create or update file content to github, and there it is working fine.