Selections Tool and Publication Threshold

[alearoyd]

Hi all! 

I am using Qlik Sense to visualise survey data. Our survey has a publication threshold (in this case, 5). We cannot show data from smaller groups to protect respondents' anonymity.  

We would like to be able to filter the results by various respondent organisational and demographic categories, so these fields are in the data model and responses are associated with tables that contain these fields.

Combining selections on these fields could result in displaying results for a group smaller than 5 (e.g. respondents in a particular department, of a particular gender, etc.).

On the sheets, I have applied the threshold using

• filter panes with aggr dimensions (aggr(if(sum([Respondent])>4, [Category]), [Category]) to prevent users selecting groups <5, 
• calculation conditions to hide visuals where sum([Respondent])<5.

This works well; in internal testing users cannot see results that do not meet the threshold.

However, by going to the Selections Tool, testers appear able to circumvent this publication threshold, as it is pulling the data from the fields in the data model,without any of the visualisation-level conditions applied.

Hiding fields (using the data manager, tags, or set HidePrefix) does prevent these fields being viewed in the Selections Tool. I can keep these in the sheets' charts/filter panes using master visualisations/dimensions.

However, this means that users cannot see what categories have been selected when they click on these visuals/filter panes. This is not ideal either, as it will be confusing to users.

So, there appears to be a trade-off: either users can circumvent publication thresholds via the Selections Tool, or they receive limited information as to their current selections in the app. Is there a way to avoid this? Potentially either by:

1. Disabling access to the Selections Tool, and allowing selections to only be made via sheet objects or,

2. Forcing the 'Show fields' box to always be off? (I haven't been able to do this, though I do only have a developer license and not access to publication tools, which may contain this option?)

Thanks!