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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
Patric_Nordstrom
Employee
Employee

Thanks for your feedback on ways to improve our product. While this is something we understand would be useful, this is not in our short-term roadmap. Please show your support for this idea by clicking on the "like" button.

Please note that Cyclic groups behavior can be achieved by using a variable, the button and getobjectfield()

For an example see sheet "Cyclic groups" in https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-Sense-Documents-Videos/Top-10-Viz-tricks-Qonnections-2019/ta-p/15...

Credit Juraj Misina, article: GetObjectField() function and Alternate Dimensions

Thanks,

Patric

Status changed to: Open - Not Planned
Henri_Rufin
Luminary
Luminary

Hi @Patric_Nordstrom ,

Yes the workaround suggestion you made works but requires two objects on the sheet (one button and on variable input) which can be confusing for end users. Also it doesn't work with hierarchy dimensions which is a bummer. Cycle dimension are a very cool feature and I really think as a customer it would improve the overall navigation experience and therefore should be on the roadmap. 

juraj_misina
Luminary Alumni
Luminary Alumni

Agreed, I would also prefer to have this out of the box instead of coming up with workaorounds.

Jeff_Koch
Employee
Employee

Hi  @Patric_Nordstrom ,

Alternate dimensions and measures do not take into account the true dimensional value of drill down groups and cycle groups as implemented in QlikView.  Alternate Measures and Alternate Dimensions have their place but they are not a replacement for drill down and cycle groups.   

If I have twenty charts with 10 identical alternate dimension sets, the time it takes to add all of those dimensions to every chart is very high.  Edits are time consuming increasing cost of ownership and increases time-to-market.

Once your twenty charts are setup, if I want a consistent view I have to go each chart (which may be on the same sheet or spread across several sheets) and click multiple times in each chart to set them to the same field.  Yuk!!! 40 clicks (or more if charts are spread across several sheets) instead of one!

Workarounds are a lot of work.  Var creation, data islands, etc.   While they work; they break when you get to self-service.  Users, especially end-users can get to the data model.  It increases the complexity for expression development requiring a more intimate knowledge of the data model, vars and their use.

Data islands impose addition performance overhead and can negatively affect the end user experience.  While some of this overhead can be minor, it adds up and gets worse as data model size and complexity increases couple with an increase in use of the server for multiple users and multiple documents.

GetObjectField() does NOT work with Drill Down Groups so I lose the dimensional advantage of drill down groups and still have no dimensional cycle group. 

This really is a serious feature gap.   Give me a call and I'll give you a QlikView demo 🙂

Carl_Hunter
Partner Ambassador
Partner Ambassador

+1 to all the comments here. The workaround for cyclic groups works "okay" but is complicated and unnecessary when QlikView supported natively.

@Patric_Nordstrom can this be re-evaluated?

Patric_Nordstrom
Employee
Employee
 
Status changed to: Open - Collecting Feedback
Carl_Hunter
Partner Ambassador
Partner Ambassador

Power BI are close to implementing something similar. Looks like they had this in SASS tabular, and has been ported to Power BI Desktop via an external tool:

https://www.sqlbi.com/articles/introducing-calculation-groups/

msan
Partner - Contributor III
Partner - Contributor III
Cyclic dimension is also important for getting more out of a simple table...
Henri_Rufin
Luminary
Luminary

I found a way to do this using the new button object Qlik released this year. In the example below I created a cycle dimension with calendar dimensions (Year, Year-Semester, Year-Quarter, Year-Month). This will work with any dimension ( except calculated dimensions and hierachies)

1) Create a variable vDimension 

2) Drap the button object onto your sheet and set up an Action as "Define a variable value"

3) Set up the possible values for your variable as following :

=if('$(vDimension)'='Year','YearSemester',
if('$(vDimension)'='YearSemester','YearQuarter',
if('$(vDimension)'='YearQuarter','YearMonth','Year')))

4) In general settings change the title of the object as following :

='$(vDimension)'

devan9876
Creator
Creator

Yes, please add cycle groups!
I have found cycle groups in Qlikview to be far more useful than the drill groups so the fact drill groups were ported to Qliksense instead of cycles was pretty disappointing to me. I would have thought that they'd both be included but if I could have only chosen one I would have preferred cycle groups.