Deleting Unused applications and tasks

[GOKULAKANNAN]

Hi Team,

A common issue which every organization is facing is applications which are holding memory which are unused and unpublished in the work stream, and also the task which user is creating and not deleting once the work is completed, could you please suggest how to delete these.

I should delete the unused apps which is not modified in the last 30 days and not published, and also the task, which is pointing to that application, And the QVD's related to that application.

I think it would be really useful to those who are all managing QMC and every time ask the user to delete those, instead is it possible to create an application which runs on a particular period, and it automatically detects apps and delete it.

[Or]

You can do that using the API...

I'd strongly advise against any sort of automatic deletion, though.

[GOKULAKANNAN]

Hi ,

Thank you

Do you have any documents or videos to refer?

[Or]

https://help.qlik.com/en-US/sense-developer/November2023/Subsystems/EngineAPI/Content/Sense_EngineAP...

You would need to access the logs to see when an app was last used. You should be able to pick up the code for that from the bundled Session Monitor.

Again, I strongly advise against automatic deletion of apps. You could automate the process of requesting users review apps for deletion, but automatically deleting apps means any time someone is out of the office for an extended period - sick leave, vacation, etc. - their apps would be at risk.

[rwunderlich]

Contact Motio about their Analytics Asset Management solution.  AAM inventories all your Qlik & other BI resources and provides a management dashboard that lets you manage rules for automatic archiving and recovery of assets. 

-Rob

[EdwinvM]

I would like to share my perspective on larger implementations.

My preference is to automate as much as possible and auto-delete apps, but only when certain conditions are met.

Firstly, it is crucial to have zero-touch version control, such as tools like Soterre, before deleting. This allows you to roll back individual apps, including private content, when necessary.

Secondly, it is essential to understand the lineage between objects. If an app is not being used and loads from a QVD that is only created for this app, then that QVD should also be deleted. You don't want ending up with orphaned objects.

Thirdly, managing a more extensive implementation requires a broader perspective. Apps are valuable assets for an organization but have a limited life span. Instead of looking at a reduction as a task, I recommend managing the life cycle of apps. This perspective has been well-received by many BI leaders I've spoken to. For instance, companies in the UK have built many Brexit apps that are now barely used and often worthless. It's time to archive them!

This topic becomes even more critical if you are on Qlik's capacity license plan.

We will discuss the topics of Archiving, Analytics Asset Management, and DevOps at length at our next event. Find more info here.

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Edwin