Only connect! Qlik and ODBC - Qlik Community

Jennell_McIntire · ‎2015-02-10

It’s a simple but profound statement to say that QlikView has worked with ODBC connectors for many years. Even our new product, Qlik Sense, has worked with ODBC connectors since its creation. But what are the implications of working with ODBC connectors?

ODBC was created to solve a simple problem: how to extract data from different databases in a fast and standardized way? Nowadays, most database vendors supply ODBC drivers or OLE DB providers and there’s even a thriving market of driver providers. If your application supports ODBC, you have a huge range of databases to connect to. This means that there are many, many databases you can connect QlikView and Qlik Sense to.

I got bored one day and started to list the ODBC databases QlikView and Qlik Sense connect to. You can see my list to the right, not including different versions of the same driver.

Now if you need something more, then you can always use an existing 3rd party custom connector or create one using the Qlik QVX SDK. So there are always options and ways that your data can be loaded into a QlikView or Qlik Sense application. The options are endless.

Do you know of more databases you can connect to with the Qlik ODBC connectors?

JonnyPoole · ‎2015-02-10

You may have it in there already but i loved using the Oracle OBIEE ODBC driver to access the logical data model of an Oracle OBIEE database. Loading 'clean' dimensions and facts from this layer is very straightforward and allows you to quickly turn the OBIEE managed data layer into an interactive and vibrant QlikView dashboard or Qlik Sense application.

mikkeltaylor · ‎2015-02-11

Great article , nice and timely for some things we're looking to work on.

Couple of questions about specific data sources:

1) We use Informatica Powercentre - Just wondering was the use case was for connecting to reading data from Informatica, rather than it inserting into tables or creating QVDs?

2) We've tried to read in SAS datasets (I think even Qlikview pre-sales team tried), but in the end had to convert to csv first. How do we read in SAS datasets?

Thanks,Mike.

blaise · ‎2015-02-11

2) You have to buy the SAS ODBC driver (cost quite a lot). The "uses SAS" clients i've worked with has loaded the SAS tables into a Oracle database.

Anonymous · ‎2015-02-11

I surely used FoxPro at least once.

stevedark · ‎2015-02-11

And for a whole host of other connectors there is the excellent QVSource from chrisbrain and co.. We use this to connect to Google Calendar, SMTP, ZenDesk and Google Analytics. There are loads of other connectors available QVSource also.

rwunderlich · ‎2015-02-11

I've used the SAS ODBC driver in the past. Never had to pay for it. Of course, the SAS Server you connect to has to have the correct components (varies by platform and bundle) to receive ODBC requests. That may incur some cost.

mikkeltaylor · ‎2015-02-12

Thanks Johan. We're just about to move to a new SAS infrastructure so I'll inquire about the ODBC driver. So far its not a data source I've had to connect to, but I can see projects around the corner that may look for it as a solution.

tseebach · ‎2015-02-13

It be great if you a column that states if the driver supports Direct Discovery.

jim_chan · ‎2016-07-12

Hello Rob,

I have tried to download the SAS odbc driver from this link, and it requires me to sign in.

SAS Downloads: SAS Drivers for ODBC

stevedark · ‎2016-07-12

Hi Jim,

You have to create a profile, but I don't recall that you have to have a licence or there is any additional cost to doing this.

Steve