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Implement TRUE cycle groups that work like QlikView

Jeff_Koch
Employee
Employee

Implement TRUE cycle groups that work like QlikView

Qlik Sense done NOT support cycle groups today.  At best it supports alternate dimensions.

This is one of the features that is a show stopper for customers to move from QlikView to Qlik Sense.

The strength and value of QlikView-like Cycle Groups is that they are dimensional and global. When you change a Cycle Group is works like any other field used as dimension. The value applies to every chart where it is used.

For example, if you have 20 charts spread across multiple sheets and you change a cycle group to a new dimension, then ALL 20 charts reflect that new dimension. The charts stay synced together. The charts are 'Product' charts …cycle... now they are all about 'Store' …cycle… now they all show 'Product Category' as the dimension.

It is a very powerful way of looking at a group of visualizations because you see a collective story across the charts.

Plus it helps solve the expression problems associated with the way Qlik Sense does things today with alternate dimensions and drill down groups. Without the getCurrentField(groupname) function we cannot support complex aggr expressions without creating a lot of different charts that cannot use drill down group or alternate dimensions.

Because of the lack of cycle group support, to implement a set of 6 charts in Qlik Sense that exists in QlikView means replacing 6 QlikView charts with 1,296 Qlik Sense charts. That doesn't scale well.

Along with the implementation of Cycle Groups means bringing back the getCurrentField(groupname) function that returns the currently selected dimension for the group: Cycle Groups and Drill Down Groups.

32 Comments
devan9876
Creator
Creator

@Carl_Hunter 

What you linked in regards to powerbi looks more like cycle MEASURES than cycle dimensions but now that you mention it master measure groups would actually be really cool/useful to have in addition to dimension groups.

devan9876
Creator
Creator

Just wanted to add that the # of votes for cycle groups is technically in the 70s rather than just the 31 you see here.

There was a another post requesting cycle groups back in 2018 that was 'closed' and has 48 likes/votes.

So if you add the 48 from that one to the 31 likes on this post that brings the total votes to for cycle groups to 79. Not sure if everyone was already aware of that or if it even sways the needle towards getting cycle groups added but I thought I'd mention just in case.

Henri_Rufin
Luminary
Luminary

An addition feature to the button object would be great. 

devan9876
Creator
Creator

@Patric_Nordstrom 

Is there a specific threshold of votes it needs to reach in order to be added to the roadmap?

There was another request for cycle groups that had 48 votes that you closed and marked as already available. If you combine votes on this and the votes from the previous post that was closed the # of votes is over 80 which I think puts this in the top 10 most requested.

Also from a technical perspective do you know if there are any reasons why drill groups were added but not cycle groups?

For example is there some sort of limitation or obstacle that prevents or makes it difficult to add cycle groups compared to drill groups?

Patric_Nordstrom
Employee
Employee

@devan9876 There is no specific threshold, the community is one important source but there are also other channels for feedback that we consider. 

When deciding what to implement a number of factors matter. We do a cost versus benefit analysis of new ideas. Cost in this case mean the complexity to implement, time to build, amount of developers, designers, testers, tech writers as well as the impact on architecture, maintenance and performance. Benefit is the value to the end users and number of users affected, and also counting in the strategic value of the feature. And we also weigh in if there are alternative ways to solve the problem the feature addresses. To that there are also overall priorities, there are many other areas besides visualizations that we invest in.

The last year we added more than 80 new visualization features and I hope that we can continue in that pace going forward. Cyclic groups is, as you guess, an expensive feature and at this point there other features are more pressing to handle first.

Thanks,
Patric

devan9876
Creator
Creator

@Patric_Nordstrom 

Thank you for the detailed response/explanation.

I understand there is a lot more that goes into these decisions that we aren't privy too. I guess conceptually I just couldn't understand why drill groups were added and not cycle groups as in my head I imagined they would share a lot of core functionality/code under the hood and that one wouldn't be significantly more difficult than the other.

 

Are you aware of any apis available that would allow extension developers to add cycle group functionality themselves or would it necessitate getting very hacky to the point it wouldn't be worth it?

Patric_Nordstrom
Employee
Employee

@devan9876 note that the idea is still open, we might have more room for development during next year. 

Meanwhile, as workaround I recommend the approach using a variable and the button, see description and example here:

https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-Sense-Documents/Cyclic-Groups-in-Qlik-Sense/ta-p/1763172

Thanks,
Patric

hendrikgruss
Contributor II
Contributor II

This is the most important feature i would like to have implemented!

Workarounds can be used, but are really confusing for the user and not easy to use in self service.

It seems that this is a really highly requested feature, would be great to have. This is the first question our dashboard users ask when they move from a qlikview to qliksense application.

Looking forward for your re-evaluation of that feature

francesco_menin
Partner - Creator III
Partner - Creator III

Looking forward to see a simple solution without additional objects needed!
Many customers are surprised to see this feature has been overlooked.

viniciusoliveira
Contributor
Contributor

if there was only one feature/functionality that I could choose to implement in QlikSense it would definitely be the cyclic group.

In the migration of dashboards from Qlikview to Qliksense, the most constant report from our customers is about this ease of use of the cyclic group in their daily lives.