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Your Secret Sauce
"Let's make it simple" - one recipe at a time
Just like real chefs each of you has your own secret ingredients that make your Qlik work delicious and that people can recognize. Your secret sauce goes beyond just throwing random objects on the screen. It goes beyond just slapping a Select * of tables into your load script and data model. It goes beyond making up new expressions in charts.
But your secret sauce takes time to prepare.
I know mine sure does.
Because it's manual. If I want things to be a certain way, or look a certain way I have to spend the time. This post and the video are to encourage you that when you enter the Claude chat sessions, you don't have to go alone.
You can predefine your secret sauce so that's always at the ready. Taking the great meal you have in your head, that Chef Claude helps you prepare, and have your secret sauce added to it.
Your secret sauce prevents Claude from doing what you just asked because you were in a hurry.
Your secret sauce provides the boundaries in which Claude will work, and ensure that what you generate will follow your approved standard.
While you don't want Claude to follow a "just sling it on the screen" methodology, you also don't want to have to do this each and every time:
Like any new person that might join your team ... you want to have Claude follow your 99 explicit - gold standard guidelines, without having to type them in. That means taking them to teach him the skills needed to ensure your standard is followed. Just as you would teach Fred, Sally, Suzie or Bob.
Each of the following skills represents a critical ingredient in the art of making complex analytics deliciously simple. No matter how much of a rush is on you.
Master Items
Building reusable, governed analytics components
This skill governs how master dimensions and master measures are created, documented, and maintained in Qlik applications. It establishes a governance framework that treats master items as reusable, governed analytics building blocks that must be thoroughly documented with descriptions, tags, business context, and calculation logic. The skill defines when to create master items versus ad-hoc fields, emphasizes rich metadata that helps users understand what they're using, and establishes naming conventions that make items discoverable. It covers expression patterns for measures including proper aggregation contexts, handles dimension creation with drill-down hierarchies, and ensures that master items follow the same field naming standards as the load script. The skill transforms master items from simple field lists into a governed analytics vocabulary that enforces consistency across all sheets and visualizations while making it easier for users to self-serve.
🎯 Chef's Philosophy: Master items are your mise en place - prepare once, use everywhere. Good governance starts with well-documented, consistently named building blocks that anyone can understand and reuse. 📊
Sheet Creation
Audience-driven dashboard design methodology
This skill implements Qlik Dork's audience-driven workflow methodology for building Qlik sheets and dashboards. It starts by identifying the audience type (Financial, Clinical, Operations, or other domain-specific roles) and transforms metrics to match that audience's motivation and mental model. The skill follows a structured workflow: audience identification → metric transformation → context parameter collection → template selection → sheet building using a Story→Data→Visuals approach. It emphasizes that different audiences need the same data presented differently based on their decision-making context and priorities. The skill includes template selectors for common use cases, design patterns for effective visualizations, and ensures that dashboards tell a clear story rather than just dumping data on the screen. It transforms sheet creation from "what charts should I add?" into a strategic design process that starts with understanding who needs to make what decisions and works backward from there.
Load Script
Standardized data loading patterns
This skill establishes the foundational rules for generating Qlik load scripts that connect to Snowflake and transform data correctly. It mandates a critical "stop and ask first" workflow - you must gather information about the audience, data grain, required fields, and business context before writing any code. The skill defines specific syntax patterns including the Snowflake connection format using LIB CONNECT, the preceding LOAD pattern for transformations, and strict field naming conventions using table prefixes (like fct_adm_admission_id). It covers date handling standards using Floor() for clean date fields, calendar key creation as integers, and proper table aliasing with square brackets. The skill also includes YAML-based code generation patterns, validation workflows using qlik_create_data_object to verify field existence, and emphasizes the "one wrong decimal = lost trust" philosophy where accuracy always trumps speed.
Validation
Quality control before deployment
This skill provides a secondary validation process to verify calculations are correct before declaring work complete. It acts as a quality control checkpoint that prevents common mistakes like Sum() versus Count() errors from reaching end users. The skill defines specific validation workflows to check measure calculations, dimension values, filter logic, and data model relationships. It establishes a systematic review process that catches errors before they erode trust, reinforcing the "one wrong decimal = lost trust" philosophy. The skill triggers after creating any calculated measures, KPIs, or complex expressions, serving as the final quality gate before presenting work to users. It's essentially a "trust but verify" framework that ensures analytical accuracy through structured verification steps rather than hoping you got it right the first time.
Questions About Data
Critical thinking framework as Chief Question Officer
This skill establishes rules for how to answer data analysis questions in a way that promotes critical thinking and data literacy. It requires transparency about assumptions, defaults, and data interpretation choices rather than just providing answers. The skill mandates explaining the "why" behind analytical decisions - why certain filters were applied, why specific aggregations were chosen, why particular time periods were used. It transforms simple question-answering into an educational process where users learn to think more critically about their own data queries. The skill prevents the "black box" problem where users get answers without understanding the logic behind them, and instead builds their analytical capabilities by making the reasoning transparent. It's designed to teach users to ask better questions rather than just accepting whatever answer comes back.
Presentation
Professional branding and delivery standards
A simple, straightforward skill that ensures Claude uses official Qlik brand colors when creating PowerPoint presentations. This skill provides the exact RGB and hex values for all six Qlik brand colors (Green, Blue, Aqua, Blended Green, Fuscia, and Deep Purple) along with ready-to-use Python code snippets for python-pptx implementation.
Perfect for anyone who needs to create Qlik-branded presentations and wants consistent, accurate color usage every time. Just upload this skill to Claude, and it will automatically reference these colors when building your decks.
What's included:
- All 6 official Qlik brand colors with RGB and hex values
- Python code snippets for easy implementation
- Quick reference table for manual use
No fluff, no complicated guidelines - just the colors you need to stay on-brand.
Seeing is Understanding
In this video I demonstrate how these skills turn the bland, into the sublime each and every time. Not only does the agentic nature of Claude working with Qlik MCP save you time, as you will see it can ensure that your gold standard is followed every single time.
Even though we both know there are occasions you don't follow your rules yourself due to time.
