Best practice for publishing documents

[#1]

We are new to Qlikview and learning a lot of this on our own. I have read a ton of stuff as far as PDF to do with server/publisher, watched a bunch of youtube videos and attended webinars.

Here is where I am at. We have server/publisher installed on a server and a few of us have the desktop version we are working on. We have gotten our CAL's from the server but need some clarification and best practice tips on actually placing documents on the server for access from access point.

Do you normally work on server copies and don't keep things local? If so where is the best place to place documents on the server? If local what is best practice for placing them on the server?

Regarding once you have a document there I see in Management Console there is something called "Source Documents" and one called User Documents" which specify two different places on the server. How do you place a document so you can set it up to reload the data? The documents from Qlik are very good regarding explaining what "Source Documents" and "User Documents" are but not best practices for where to keep data.

Next I will be figuring out Security to only allow certain AD groups access on the access point.

Thanks.

[its_anandrjs]

Hi,

For best practice make a folder or keep your application there and mount this folder for reload of the application.The management console identifies and keep this folder as mounting point of the application.

Hope this helps

Thanks & Regards

[Colin-Albert]

I would suggest you have a look at the Server Publisher book by Stephen Redmond as this clearly explains the role of both server and publisher and best practices for implementation.

http://community.qlik.com/message/449853#449853

[#4]

Can you go into more detail about this? I see there are different "roots" for source documents and user documents. Are you talking about creating a folder for each document on the server?

[Anonymous]

It is a good idea to keep development separately from server.  If there are multiple developers, keep development versions on network so any developer can access them.

As for the locations on server, copy ready to use documents into the Source Documents folder.  Configure publisher tasks to distribute documents into the Documents folder, and show this folder content in Access Point.  If you need security, distribute to Named Users rather than to All Authenticated Users, so the users will see only the documents that are available for them.

Regards,

Michael

[#6]

As suggested refer to what QV offers in terms of guidance.

Security for the Access Point is handled as part of the Publisher. When you define a new publication for any of your "source documents" you can choose whether or not to distribute the document (publish it to the Documents directory) you'll be able to assign who to allow view it. You can choose to let everyone see it or you can assign to individual users based on their AD user id, or better yet you can create AD Security Groups in your Activie Directory for the application groups, or for the applications individually. Meaning you can assign to BSMITH and TJONES or you can assign to secFINANCE (all finance users) or secQVFinanceApplication1 (all users who are allowed to see the specific application. You also may wish to create at least 1 AD Security Group for your QV development/support team, secQVSupport for example, then simply add that group to any other group you create so that all of your team can view any application in the Access Point.

Also while you are publishing you can create Categories that your end users can choose from. At first you'll publish 1, 2, 3 applications. Eventually the end users will have swarms of applications available to them. Categories let you break things down so that they can choose what they are interested in. It could be categories like FINANCE, HUMAN RESOURCES etc. Then end users can simply click the category and see only those applications so they aren't overwhelmed.

[#7]

Sounds like you are saying keep versions anyone is working on on a central repository giving access to it with permissions to developers. Give same developers access to the "source documents" area on the server (default is C:\ProgramData\QlikTech\SourceDocuments). When the environment grows think about moving that repository off to a network location and set that up in management console.

Next a good best practice is to have all developers develop locally and upload to a folder in "source documents" that fits what they are doing. Then they notify the server admin what permissions so set and what parameters for reload.

Is the "user documents" section (default location C:\ProgramData\QlikTech\Documents) just a place they setup in case you want to use it? I put a document I created there the first time but is sounding like I need to delete that and the .meta and .shared it created and move it to "source documents" and setup some permissions. Or is there a better process for removing documents?

[Anonymous]

You don't need to move .meta and .shared files.  Move only the qvw file to the Source Documents.  BTW, when a document is distributed from the Source Documents to Documents by Publisher task, the distributed file has its script removed.

One essential note about the deleting the files from the Documents folder.  If you use document CALs, make sure to remove assigned CALs from the document before you delete it.  Otherwise your CALs stay assigned to a non-existing document .

[#9]

OK so when you place a doc in source then "publish" it the script is removed and it puts it in user documents?

[Anonymous]

Exactly.  Publisher task opens document from the source folder, reloads, removes script and saves into the documents folder.  So, if you allow users to download documents from the access point, your script secrets are safe.