Purpose of shared space privilege 'Can consume data' ?

[JacobBrown]

I am trying to manage my shared spaces, and I can't seem to find a clear definition of 'Can consume data'. 

I have 2 guesses: 

1. It is referring to the datasets that has been uploaded to the Qlik shared space, so that the users would be able to view and use these. 
2. It is referring to some underlying data connection in the app , eg. the DB connection. 
   1. This would make less sense given the reloads seem to refresh the static state of the dataset. 

Does anyone know what 'Can consume data' is for? 

I'm just looking to allow my users to be able to view the apps! 

Cheers! 

[Levi_Turner · Accepted solution]

Both guesses hit on use cases where Can Consume Data makes sense.

Broadly users can be classified as consuming applications and building applications. For the consumption users, this role does not make much sense. But for the developers, it's very common to have a set of 1-4 data sources which are used in multiple apps. For sake of convenience, let's say it's an Azure SQL database and let's say that you have 3 "groupings" of your apps.

(1) Use of Can Consume Data:

• Create all spaces needed for apps (3)
• Create a space which houses the Azure SQL Data Connection

Result: 4 spaces, 1 data connection

(2) Without using Can Consume Data:

• Create all spaces needed for apps (3)
• Create data connections in each space

Result: 3 spaces, 3 data connections

Insofar as you aren't using separate access control to the data sources, then option (1) is slightly cleaner.

[JacobBrown]

Hi Levi,

This is interesting, option 1 is certainly cleaner. 

So in theory I could have a single space thought houses all of our data, then other spaces can consume data from it? 

I'll keep the can consume data for the devs! 

[Levi_Turner]

As long as you don't need to separate out access control to the data connections, sure! Can Consume Data is set at the space level, right? So it'd equally apply to all data connections.