What are your go-to resources for Qlik scripting best practices and performance optimization in 2025/2026?
Hi everyone,
I've been working on improving the structure and performance of my Qlik load scripts and front-end apps, and I want to make sure I'm following the most current best practices... not just what was recommended 3 or 4 years ago.
I'm looking for resources that cover topics like:
Load script structure and organization
Data model optimization (star schema, avoiding synthetic keys, QVD layers)
It really helps build strong fundamentals for Qlik development. Topics like SCDs, AutoNumber, link tables, canonical calendars, and data modeling strategies are explained in depth and are still highly relevant today.
I also highly recommend Rob’s blog: QlikView Cookbook It’s the resource I appreciated the most when I first started using Qlik. Rob still publishes new blog posts from time to time.
Even though some of these resources were created years ago, a lot of the core Qlik optimization principles still apply today. Many of the day-to-day challenges I solve are based on knowledge shared in those materials.
For more up-to-date content, news, certification prep questions, and practical blogs, I often check Bitmetric
I’d also recommend keeping an eye on Qlik’s periodic webinars and live sessions. They often cover newer platform capabilities, optimization techniques, and best practices directly from Qlik experts.
And of course, the Qlik Community itself is extremely valuable as well, even though I assume you already check it regularly 🙂
Hope some of these resources are new to you and I hope they help!
That is the problem that there is no "current" version of best practices. Those really good ones and important are written by @rwunderlich@Oleg_Troyansky and can be still accessed by using their invaluable master summit class: https://masterssummit.com/ (I normally dont post links to other sites but this one has to be as there is no better one tbh). You also need to dig into how Qlik Engine works so following blog posts from @hic and case studies here on community by @johnw (who used to decipher and test everything can be really enlightening), and blogs such as:
https://qlikviewcookbook.com/ (Rob has done super job collecting and testing interesting cases + his QlikView components which are libraries of super useful tools and subroutines)
What I am trying to say - for Qlik development and script and app performance tuning do not-re-invent the wheel - it is already invented, it is done well and make sure you know how you use it well as devil sits in detail!!!
Current documentation covers everything what we have in our Qlik ecosystem and it is great, but it does not cover those important factors which need to be looked at when you try to load 1 billion of rows of data and you are surprised it takes 10 hours.
Summary:
you want good practices-go old school. I am not using current standards to guide my development process as the good ones were invented in the past and are still the best if you value structure and performance. Everything you mentioned in your bullet points is forgotten in current documents or is just briefed there without study and detail. Unless you worked on real retail data with 3 years of history down to single docket level of sales, daily inventory and purchase orders all in single app working still fast and reloading in minutes billions of records you wouldn't appreciate what good-old practices can do.
cheers
cheers Lech, When applicable please mark the correct/appropriate replies as "solution" (you can mark up to 3 "solutions". Please LIKE threads if the provided solution is helpful to the problem.
@alexquimu - I love it how you combined two book titles into one 😊
QlikView Your Business is my book. It was written a while ago, when Qlik Sense was very young and QlikView was still "the king". So, the tutorial is written for QlikView, however the core methodologies and concepts are 100% applicable to both. If you don't mind using QlikView for your exercises, you will learn a lot of advanced material that most other books don't cover.
Qlik according to HIC is Henric's book. It's also teaching a lot of great Qlik development concepts and methodologies for QlikView and Qlik Sense. It's an awesome book written by an awesome author!
I can honestly recommend both books to someone who wants to elevate their Qlik app development skills.
Allow me to add a few words about our Masters Summit for Qlik. We started teaching advanced Qlik methodologies almost 15 years ago. For many years, our agenda was fairly stable - Advanced Scripting Techniques, Advanced Data Modeling, Visualizations, Set Analysis and AGGR, and Performance Optimization.
With the increased focus on Qlik Sense Cloud edition, we made a significant change in our content a couple years ago, and the new format of the Masters Summit was primarily focused on the Qlik Cloud issues.
This year, for the first time, we are going to run two parallel tracks - the Cloud track and the "traditional app development" track. Our students will have a choice of two sessions for each time slot. This way, we can cover both the new material that pertains to the Qlik Sense Cloud, and the timeless development methodologies that every Qlik application developer needs to know.
I'm inviting all Qlik app developers that seek deep advanced knowledge about Qlik Sense, Qlik Sense Cloud, and the most recent AI topics, to our 2026 session of the Masters Summit for Qlik, which will take place in Porto, Portugal on November 2-4.
Sorry @Oleg_Troyansky , typo in the preview of the link. I just corrected my previous message... However, your book has been highly recommended to me, and it's definitely in scope for my upcoming readings.
I just want to chime in to agree with pretty much everyone and everything posted here, but highlight a few specific things. I am mostly repeating what others have already said, and adding my own highlight.
1) There is no single up-to-date resource, which means you'll typically be missing resources that pertain to new options. This can't really be helped, for obvious reasons, so staying on top of new releases and applying them to what you already know is recommended. They will eventually get covered by the Qlik greats - most of them have posted in this thread or have been mentioned - so anything you miss should still make its way to you eventually.
2) You can get surprisingly decent results asking your preferred LLM about this. With a grain of salt, of course, but the important part isn't the exact information it provides so much as the links it provides as sources.
3) I know the Qlik Learning team is working on new things that may help with this. As with #1 above, this will likely be a little limited insofar as applying to the newest content, but it could be quite helpful depending on what exactly they end up doing. Keep an eye out.
4) Don't worry too much about being perfect. Sometimes doing things "right" costs more than doing them the way you always have, for marginal gains. You obviously already know a ton about Qlik and its workings (yeesh, I sound like an AI, don't I?), so just take a minute to think through any changes you consider making and see if they're worth the effort for your use case.
I will finish with a recommendation to go over @johnw 's content as suggested by @Lech_Miszkiewicz above. John did a good job of challenging the "common knowledge" with empirical testing, and while best practice will often tell you to go with the common knowledge approach, I very much approve of understanding what it actually means in practice.
