How can we organize master items in Qlik Sense ?

[jfdierckx]

One of the great features of Qlik Sense is the ability to create master items to store dimensions and expressions to be used for the business user, without needing to have advanced knowledge of the underlying model.

However, if you build an application, this master item list can become very big.

Currently, in the Sense interface, the master item list is sorted alphabetically, wich means that the items about customers, about products, about sales, ... are all mixed together. Of course, if you are looking for a specific item, you can always use global search, but you don't see which items belong together.

Is there a way to "organize" the master item list in hierarchical folders, so that you can group the items that belong together, and allow the end user to find their way more easily in the master item list ?

[ogster1974]

Could you not tag your items e.g. all your KPIs under one tag  etc...

[hugo_andrade]

Andy, I like the Naming Convention approach. That's exactly what I have been using.

Jean-François, there isn't a way to organize the master item as you described (at least for now). Tagging and Naming convention would do it.

[#4]

I've been asking the folder feature since my day 1 in Qlik Sense.

And I've always been told to be the only one asking for it !!

Self-service on a complex data model is far easier for the business user when items are grouped in folders.

The common answer I got is "just tag your data" - why not have both tags AND a folder structure ?

BTW, this feature is available since Tableau 8.1 (released nov 2013), on top of data tagging !

Is this feature addressed in a future product roadmap ?

Tx,

Jean-Philippe

[rbartley]

Jean-Philippe,

You are certainly not alone here.  The folder approach has been available in Business Objects for decades and I see this as a major limitation in Qlik Sense. The only option that seems to be open to us is to prefix all names, which makes the dimension and measure names truncate on the screen (although the full name is displayed in the tooltip) and is not a very elegant solution.

Regards,

Richard

[jfdierckx · Accepted solution]

After some experience with the tool, I am convinced that the best solution is to use tags.

The natural way to navigate in Qlik Sense is through search and associations. This is why there are no hierarchical folder classifications, including for the master items.

The classification by tags instead of a hierarchical folder organization of objects has many advantages :

• The end user doesn’t need to know in which hierarchy he has to look for the master items. I know by experience that you can easily get lost in hierarchies.
• It encourages the search feature, which is used all over the Qlik Sense interface.
• You can classify master items with multiple tags. With a folder organization, you would need to duplicate the objects, which would make them more difficult to maintain.

[pstiglich]

Is there a way to delete all master items with a tag value?  We copied an app which inherited a bunch of master items which don't apply to the current app.  Is arduous to delete one by one. 

Pete