Creating an importable Glossary in json format from an Excel Glossary of Defnitions

[chrisortega]

As of the writing of this post, the only formats for import in the Qlik Cloud Glossary are JSON formats (Qlik, Atlas, and Atlan).  There are many companies who have lots of business terms and definitions that are maintained in alternate formats, most commonly Excel, who would like to make these available in Qlik Cloud and are unsure of how to get started without re-entering everything by hand.

Until Qlik implements an xls/csv glossary import, you can use this workaround to get those Excel glossaries into Qlik Cloud.  Here's how.

So, you've got a glossary of terms and definitions.  It may look something like this.  In fact, it is probably way more voluminous than this.  That's ok.

The important thing is that there is a term and a definition.  It is important to rename the column headers to name and description before the next step in the process.

Next you will want to take this list of terms and convert it to a json format.  There are plenty of free utilities online to do so.  A popular one is https://excel2json.io/ .  The result of this conversion can be seen below.  While this example file only has rows that have been turned into these json key:value pairs, it works with any number.

[

{

"name": "Glossary",

"description": "A glossary, also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a book and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with non-fiction books, in some cases, fiction novels sometimes include a glossary for unfamiliar terms."

},

{

"name": "Glossary Definition",

"description": "A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term"

},

{

"name": "Qlik",

"description": "We’re obsessed with data. To help you make data-driven business decisions. Refine operations. Elevate KPIs. Increase market share. Increase revenue. Our enterprise-grade solutions across data integration, data quality, analytics, and AI/ML work no matter where or how you process data. However you need it, want it, or present it. Because we make sure of it."

}

]

Next, download the file "Glossary Import Qlik Format Template.json" from this article.  You are going to replace the text below that is in red (starting and ending at the square brackets after terms:) with the output of the conversion process described above, including its square brackets.  You can update your glossary name and its description and save the file.  (A copy with this example is in "Importable Glossary Qlik Format from Template.json" for your reference.

{
"name": "Glossary Name goes here",
"description": "Glossary description goes here.",
"terms": [
{
"name": "Term 1 name goes here",
"description": "Term 1 description goes here"
},
{
"name": "Keep adding terms",
"description": "Make sure the last term has no comma after the bracket below."
}
]
}

Next, import your file as a Qlik Cloud Glossary.

After reviewing the import results, you should have a working glossary filled with all of the terms from your spreadsheet.

Qlik Catalog 

[keasrij3]

It should be pretty simple, I'd honestly just try to match existing documents if there's a unified style. If not, just pick the one you like the most, and if you have access to a cheap resource that can, have someone unify the styles.