Clarification on maximum number of measures in a pivot table (Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows)

[korsikov]

Environment: Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows (client‑managed), May 2025 release. The issue occurs in the standard Pivot Table object on a Windows installation. When designing the app we work in the hub under the standard edit view. The problem is reproducible with different apps/users, and appears specific to the pivot table object.

Issue description:

Our customer needs to build a pivot table that contains a very large number of measures. Using the May 2025 release of Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows we repeatedly added measures to the pivot table. After the 1,000th measure, the “Add measure” button in the properties panel becomes inactive and we cannot add a 1,001st measure. There is no error message; the user simply cannot click Add measure any more. Because there are no button. Also Copy + Paste not works. 

To confirm whether this is a product limitation, we inspected the Qlik Sense source files on the server. In the obfuscated code for the pivot table object we found that the measures property is defined as follows:

measures: {
  min: e => e > 0 ? 0 : 1,
  max: 1e3,
  description: () => s.Ay.get('…')
}

The max: 1e3 line appears to hard‑code a maximum of 1,000 measures for this visualization component. We also checked the official documentation for pivot tables and the P&L pivot chart. The P&L pivot chart documentation mentions a data‑transfer limit of 10 000 cells per request (for example, 1 000 rows × 10 columns) with pagination help.qlik.com, but there is no mention of a maximum number of measures.  Despite this, in our environment we hit a hard stop after 1 000 measures.

Steps to reproduce:

1. In Qlik Sense May 2025 (client‑managed) create or open an app and go to a sheet in edit mode.

2. Add a Pivot table from the asset panel.

3. Using the properties panel, click Add measure and add simple measures (e.g., Sum(Sales)) repeatedly.

4. After the 1 000th measure has been added, the Add measure button becomes disabled. No error message is displayed and the user cannot add more measures.

Expected result:

There is no documented maximum number of measures for a pivot table, so we expected to be able to continue adding measures or at least receive a warning when the limit is reached.

Actual result:

The pivot table stops accepting additional measures after exactly 1 000 measures. The Add measure button is disabled with no warning. Inspection of the code suggests a hard‑coded limit of 1 000 measures.

Question to Qlik Team:

1. Does the Pivot Table object in Qlik Sense Enterprise (May 2025) have a hard‑coded maximum number of measures? If so, is the limit 1 000 measures as suggested by the max: 1e3 definition in the source code?

2. Is this limitation documented anywhere? We have been unable to find it in the official help or release notes. Knowing the official limit will help us plan our data model appropriately.

3. Is the limit configurable or different in other versions of Qlik Sense (e.g., SaaS vs. client‑managed releases)?

4. What are the recommended best practices for scenarios requiring very many measures in a pivot table? Should we consider restructuring the app (for example, grouping measures using alternate dimensions or using calculated measures in a different way) to avoid hitting this limit?

[korsikov]

During further investigation we noticed that the pivot table’s implementation also defines a similar max property for dimensions. In the obfuscated script that defines the pivot table, the dimensions property includes a max parameter (for example, max: …) in the same way that the measures property uses max: 1e3. This suggests that there is a hard‑coded limit not only on the number of measures but also on the number of dimensions that can be added to a pivot table.

For clarity, here is a simplified version of the relevant section of the code we examined, which shows that both dimensions and measures have a max parameter set to 1e3 (1 000):

data:{dimensions:{min:e=>e>0?0:1,max:1e3,description:

This structure indicates that the pivot table appears to allow up to 1 000 dimensions as well as 1 000 measures.

[marcus_sommer]

I could imagine that they implemented a hard limit to the number of possible measures/dimensions like in earlier days of max. 99 nested if-loops (no idea if it's further the case).

IMO that are very sensible restrictions but of course it should be officially documented. I suggest to re-design the data-model and transferring the information into n hierarchically structured dimensional layers with as less measure-fields as possible - maybe just two with KPI as description and Value for the amounts.

It would end with a quite long but small fact-table with slightly disadvantages in regard to the storage/RAM sizing against a shorter and wider fact-table but with a lot of benefits in regard to develop/maintaining efforts and the usability.

[korsikov]

Thank you for your feedback and the detailed explanation.
I completely agree that a pivot table with this number of measures and dimensions goes far beyond analytical use cases and turns into a massive reporting structure.

However, we would still appreciate having an official confirmation or notification from Qlik regarding these limits — just to be able to communicate this clearly to our customer and reference it in project documentation.
That confirmation alone would be fully sufficient for us.