QlikView and R Integration for Predictive Analytics Example

[Brian_Bauer]

If you have never thought about integrating predictive analytics and QlikView, may this article pique your interest on the topic.  If you have thought about the potential, but do not know how to get started, may this be the motivation to start your journey.

This demo example illustrates the art of the possible around the interoperability of the R statistics engine and QlikView 11 for enabling predictive algorithms within QlikView today.

R (http://www.r-project.org/) is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics, which supports predictive modeling and scoring.  The example also introduces Rattle (Rattle: A Graphical User Interface for Data Mining using R -- http://rattle.togaware.com/).  Rattle was used to create the predictive model and generate the R code implemented within the example QlikView application.  The use of Rattle is not detailed here.  It is left up to you to explore.

The example assumes you understand R and how to create predictive models in R and how scoring works in R.  If you understand how to do those things in R and you know how QlikView works, this example should give you an idea of how:

1. you could implement a compelling QlikView application for discovering trends in data as you have become used to with QlikView
2. while adding the ability to predict outcomes using a proven, trained scoring model you have built in R
3. and while showing actionable predicted outcomes at the point of decision

-- all without the end user having to leave QlikView.

As in the previous example posted by Elif Tutuk, "Integrating QV with R example kit.zip" (http://community.qlik.com/docs/DOC-2975), the example utilizes statconnDCOM.  A slightly different approach in this example overcomes a break in functionality introduced into that earlier example by the changing in the behavior of one of the COM API methods in the most recent releases of statconnDCOM.

The integration is done using QlikView's built-in VBScript support to interoperate with the DCOM-based API.  This is just one way to integrate with R.  With a little research you can discover other potential opportunities for R integration (e.g., OpenCPU).  Also, note that R is just one such example of a statistical engine being integrated with QlikView.  Other solutions, such as commercially available statistical engines or predictive scoring engines may also be integrated in similar ways.

To get started with this example, save the attached file, QlikView-R_Predictive_Demo.zip, to your system.  Open the zip file, and copy the enclosed folder (QlikView-R_Predictive_Demo) to a location of your choice.  The location is not important as the example is portable and has no dependency on being placed in a particular folder on your system. Now navigate into the folder you just extracted and find the document named “Qlikview-R Integration Demo 20170310.pdf”.  Open the document and follow the instructions step-by-step.

UPDATE (May 7, 2014):  I updated the installation document (Qlikview-R Integration Demo 20140421.pdf) to eliminate the RAndFriends installer as it has been unavailable for some time.  This edition of the document references R 3.1.0.  Hopefully the instructions will continue to be a good guide for subsequent versions as well.  I will continue to monitor for changes in R, statconnDCOM and other R components which could effect how the demo application works going forward.  The example QlikView application itself remains unchanged. It is a Personal Edition version, so you should be able to explore it with a licensed QlikView Desktop or the Personal Edition.  Thank you for your continued feedback on this demo.

UPDATE (September 21, 2015):  Everyone who has been seeing the message "The license that is embedded in this document is not valid":  I attached an updated version of QlikView-R_Predictive_Demo.zip‌.  Ensure you overwrite the old QVW with the new one in this package.  That is the only change.  Please forgive this looooong overdue update. 

UPDATE (October 9, 2016):  Updated the embedded license to work with QlikView Desktop Personal Edition.

UPDATE (February 2, 2017):  Updated the embedded license to work with QlikView Desktop Personal Edition.

UPDATE (March 10. 2017):  A dependency for this particular example is statconnDCOM from the team at autstat (http://www.autstat.com/).  If you wish to utilize statconnDCOM, you will need to contact autstat directly and purchase a license or request an evaluation license for testing.

[#2]

Was able to get rid of the message "Cannot open file C:/...../Qlikview-R_Predictive_Demo/data/ExportFile.csv for writing!" by selecting "macro override security" function in document settings, security tab. Now when I click the macro button the banner appears but does not seem to update the data.

[Michael_Reese]

I get an error on this line when I execute the macro:  Any idea what the cause is?  Macro just stops executing here.

R.EvaluateNoReturn "sdata <- subset(crs$testset[,], select=c('record', 'id'))"

I am using 3.1.1.  Do I need an older version?

[#4]

Hi Michael,

Have you tried changing the text format? I got an error on the same line, and it was due to the updates in R regarding the reading text format.

Try going to QlikView Settings -> Document Properties -> General and change the Default Export Encoding to 'UTF-8'.

I am pretty new to QlikView, so I am not sure if this is the solution, but it worked for me!

[#5]

It happened to me as well, when I had the ExportFile.csv file open in MS Excel. When I closed the Excel application, it worked.

Again, I am a newbie and just trying out various options to get rid of the errors! So excuse if it doesn't work for you.

[Michael_Reese]

I needed to change it to ANSI and it worked then.

[#7]

Brian,

I followed the old comments given by you ,

And I saw that when performing the basic test with statcon , it was negative ,

hence when I tried

install.packages(“rscproxy”)

it gave

Error: unexpected input in " install.packages(“"

and when I saw , rscproxy wasn't a folder in the library , and my library is not writeable ,

I tried installing R again but still library is not writeable.

How should i go about it now?

Please help

[#8]

Hola Brian, estoy trabajando con R realicé análisis de datos usando  regresión lineal múltiple, pero me surge el problema de que necesito poder visualizar la información a través de QlikView, descargué el conector atk pero no obtuve resultados exitosos. El conector del que comentas, es free???, se trabaja con macros???, me puedes orientar al respecto, por favor. Muchas gracias

[#9]

Haciendo Muchas Pruebas de configuration, efectivamente resulta, mi pregunta es necesito sacar correlación, matriz anova, regresión lineal, etc. ya lo tengo hecho en R  pero cómo obtengo dichos resultados desde Qlikview.

Atenta a sus comentarios, Gracias.

[#10]

I have been having trouble with the statconnDCOM client and im trying to find ways around it. The more I look at it the more I wonder if I need that API. Cant it just be done using an R-Script file that you call out in the macro? it could remove some barriers of use

[#11]

H Brian,

Thanks for the article. I have a small problem though; I get the following message when I try to open the QlikView-R_Predictive_Demo.qvw The license that is embedded in this document is not valid. I am on QlikView PE v11.2 64-bit. Any help or ideas are hugely appreciated.

Thanks

Pritam