Qlikview connection setup and TFS setup - Qlik Community

healthfirst001 · ‎2014-03-26

Our company is new to Qlikview, we are setting up development environment.

1. In Qlikview desktop, our script may connect to SQL server, Netezza, SAS data warehouse, DB2 database and Excel or other external files. What kinds of OLE DB Providers or ODBC Drivers should we install? Please advise.

We will set up QA and Production servers soon, we will not have Qlikview desktop in those servers, do we still need to install same OLE DB or ODBC?

2. We will use TFS as source control, we are going to create new project for Qlikview in TFS. Could you please give some suggestions for Qlikview project structures in TFS? Usually want kind of source code we need to put into Qlikview source control, for example qvw file and qvw file.which generating qvd, anything else?

3. Are there any standard migration steps from DEV to QA then to Prod? What admin needs to do to prompt code? Do we have any guide documents for these?

manojkvrajan · ‎2014-03-26

Hi Stephen. Welcome to QlikView world. I am sure you will love it. Please find below my responses..

1. In Qlikview desktop, our script may connect to SQL server, Netezza, SAS data warehouse, DB2 database and Excel or other external files. What kinds of OLE DB Providers or ODBC Drivers should we install? Please advise.

No connectors required for MS Excel however please find below the drivers for remaining data sources.

SQL Server – SQL Server Native Client 10.0 (Provided by Microsoft)

Netezza – Netezza Connector from IBM Website. It has configuration details as well (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24031109)

DB2 - IBM Data Server Client Packages (10.5.*, All platforms)

We will set up QA and Production servers soon, we will not have Qlikview desktop in those servers, do we still need to install same OLE DB or ODBC?

Yes. You should install all the required drivers. QlikView Publisher will continue to use the OLEDB / ODBC connection to extract the data from data sources.

2. We will use TFS as source control, we are going to create new project for Qlikview in TFS. Could you please give some suggestions for Qlikview project structures in TFS? Usually want kind of source code we need to put into Qlikview source control, for example qvw file and qvw file.which generating qvd, anything else?

Try to create a sub folder structure as mentioned below in your master folder and try to maintain the versions of everything excluding DATA (QVD). http://biventure.blogspot.com/2012/10/managing-qlikview-server-without.html (This link will give you some details about the basic folder structure)

APPLICATIONS – Save Source QVWs
DATA – Save QVDs of the extracted data from
CONFIG – XLS or Notepad with all Database connection string
LOOKUPS – XLS or any lookup file that are not available in the database (or data warehouse)
QVD_BUILDERS – QVWs with just extraction script that pulls the data from the database and lookups and save as QVDs in the datamart
SCRIPTS – This is optional. It is good to keep the script out of QVWs for version management of the scripts.

3. Are there any standard migration steps from DEV to QA then to Prod? What admin needs to do to prompt code? Do we have any guide documents for these?

Release process and Migration steps are the same like any other system. It is good to copy QVWs, Config, Lookup files. However do not migrate QVDs or data across the servers. Meaning, setup your environment in such away that DEV (Windows Server) extracts the data from DEV database (SQL Server / DB2 / Netezza), QA (Windows Server) extracts the data from QA database and PROD (Windows Server) extracts the data from PROD database. You have to setup your architecture so that all these environments correctly handshakes with the each other. It's just one time setup and will ease your migration process lot easier.

rwunderlich · ‎2014-03-26

1. You will need, on the Developer Desktops AND the Servers, whatever driver software is required to access your databases. Windows provides drivers for SQL Server, so there is nothing to install there. For the other databases, you will have to install and configure driver. If you have a choice between ODCB and OLEDB, I prefer OLEDB. I find it typically easier to configure and manage.

You may already have drivers for those databases, or you may need to purchase a driver from vendor.

-Rob

healthfirst001 · ‎2014-03-28

Hi Manoj

Thanks so much for your help.

I also want to know for SAS connection, if it should be from SAS institute site: SAS Providers 9.3 for OLE DB?

I am not sure about OLE DB or ODBC, or we do not have choice?

Since we only use TFS as source control, we do not need to check in DATA (QVD) as you suggested, is that OK?

healthfirst001 · ‎2014-03-28

Thank you so much Bob.

manojkvrajan · ‎2014-03-28

Hi Stephen,

Yes, go with SAS Providers 9.3 for OLEDB.

OLEDB is my preference. However, Please try both OLEDB and ODBC to have the empirical for comparison before you make a choice. It would be a good learning experience.

No, you don't have to check in QVD and maintain the versions. You will have to spend more for your server space if you maintain QVD versions. However, Please make sure you take up a Production QVDs before every Production Release. Sometimes, you may end up creating the QVDs again with additional fields for the App enhancements / changes and your Backup QVDs will help you restore to previous state in the event of any failure.