Manage reload tasks on Qlik Cloud

[rubenmarin]

Hello all.

I'm in a migration project to SaaS of an implementation with hundreds of reload tasks, with many different chains, usually the chain is 1 app to extract, another to transform and the final user app. Business user files can be used in the transform or final app.

Right now they are a group of +- 5 admins that can relaunch an app when something fails (like a bad formatted bussines user xls) or because the user wants updated data at the moment and they need to relaunch the chain, sometimes just the final app or from the transform app.

The complications we have found are that you can mount the different automations, but they belong to the personal space, so if the task to reload belongs to other admin, the current admin has to go to the console, change the owner, and then they can execute the automation.

And the automations are executed from the beginning, they can't just launch from the transform or the final app, so it's better to go app by app and manually launch them, leaving the automation with the 'Error' state until the next schedule.

There is the option to set the intermediate and final apps as independet automations triggered when another app reloads but in this case they will go over the maximum automations by month.

With the OnPremise version any admin could go to the task view and easily execute the task, and from any point they want in the chain.

So, the question is: Is there a better way to manage reloads in SaaS?

[Daniele_Purrone]

Hi @rubenmarin ,
I'm afraid this is a current limitation.
As we have improvements coming in future versions, I am currently investigating whether there is anything already planned around this area.

[Daniele_Purrone]

@rubenmarin 
I got confirmation that we will introduce the chance to publish Automations to a shared space in the upcoming future. This is highly prioritized.

As a workaround for the time being, you could prepare a simple Qlik Sense application (shared between the admins) that contains buttons that execute triggered-based automations.

See https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-Application-Automation/Who-has-the-rights-to-start-an-automation-... (section 2) and https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/Triggering-an-automation-from-a-button-on-a-... 

[rubenmarin]

Hello @Daniele_Purrone, thanks for your time.

I read that option from this post (basically it says the same), I saw this as a good option, as I think that the parameters can be used as conditional to not execute the extraction or transform apps, but the customer didn't like it because there are a lot of apps and they told me "that would be a development to solve something that the product should have by default, and now they have it solved with the task management OnPremise".

Still, I Kept investigating that option to create an app, I couldn't find an option to set the automation with both starts (scheduled and triggered) so, if I didn't miss anything, it will need to have a duplicate of each automation, one for the triggered start and another to keep the scheduled execution, so around of a hundred of automations to reload has to growth to 200.

Anyway, If I find the time I'll continue creating that app, it would be nice to make it more dynamic connecting to the tenat to reload automations and their last state and creating the links to launch them, I'll need to investigate how to extract that data from the tenant. Do you have any hints on this?

As an idea and maybe easy to develop, they would see also helpfull to execute an automation from the console, so in the same view they can see all automations that failed, and execute from there (without having to go to the hub and search the automation), theirs or other user automations. (I created an idea few days ago: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Suggest-an-Idea/Execute-automations-from-the-console/idi-p/1994865)

[Daniele_Purrone · Accepted solution]

Hi @rubenmarin ,

yes... at the moment you would need to duplicate automations.
Not ideal, as it can be with workarounds. As said, the development for automation sharing is prioritized, so it's just to hold on until that moment.
I guess it's up to you to decide if it's worth to invest time in the development of the "trigger execution" app.
Another alternative is to write some qlik-cli scripts to simplify the process of moving automations to a different user and/or running them: https://qlik.dev/libraries-and-tools/qlik-cli/automation

[asAlmas]

1. In the hub, right-click the app with the reload task that you want to edit,https://wonapk.com/netherite-minecraft-the-best-level/  and then click Manage reload tasks.
2. In the Tasks list, under Actions, click. to open the task properties.
3. Edit the task properties. You can change the task name in the Name field. ...
4. Click Apply to save your changes.

[vlone999]

I got confirmation that we will introduce the chance to publish Automations to a shared space in the upcoming future. This is highly prioritized.

As a workaround for the time being, you could prepare a simple Qlik Sense application (shared between the admins) that contains buttons that execute triggered-based automations.