Can't load data from open file on Direct Access Gateway
I work in Qlik Cloud, but need to access local Excel-files. First I had an app on our local Data Transfer Server. This app can load from Excel files, even when they're opened by a user.
Since the new feature in Data Access Gateway, where you can load files in the Cloud app, using the local Data Access Gateway, I can load data from my local network-Excel files in the Cloud. That's great! But... not when the Excel files are open. This will return a 'cannot open file' error when reloading.
Is this something that will be fixed in the near-future? Or do I have to keep using the local Qlik-app on the local Data Transfer? Or is there some fix I can implement?
I think it's a technical limitation, the file must be locked for reading, and it cannot be done since it's open. With Data Transfer, the behavior is maybe different because the file is simply pushed.
Data Transfer will be deprecated soon, so I don't think it's ideal. You can contact Qlik Support team to confirm the behavior.
DataTransfer is not simply pushing files to the cloud. On the DataTransfer server is a Qlik Sense app running and the server has a Qlik Sense engine who does this. So I run a script on the Data Transfer server to reload the app on that server. The result (all tables) are then stored as a qvd-file in Qlik Cloud.
This reload on the Data Transfer server can read from open Excel-files. This is what we have been doing for the past year, without any problems. Now we are using the Direct Acces Gateway on that same server to reload directly from the cloud, reading files on our local network share. Works like a charm! But not when the Excel-file(s) are open/in use. So that is really different behavior. It seams to me Qlik has the technoligy to load from open files, but not in this new situation (file access through Data Acces Gateway).
It's quite more complex, the created QVD is stored in a temp folder of the QDT server (C:\ProgramData\Qlik\DataTransfer\DataUpload\qixdata), and then pushed in Qlik Cloud. So maybe no lock is needed.
For Qlik Data Gateway, I think the data is pulled from the Excel file directly by the Qlik Cloud app. Maybe this feature then need a lock ?
Best way to know is to contact the support team I think !
We have the same problem transitioning to QlikCloud. We have quite a lot of excel files we have to read and those files will be edited by users. So we always have the risk of an reload failure because the file might be locked...
