We are currently using QlikView installed windows clients to access our applications. We are going to upgrade from QV 8.5 to QV 9.
As part of the upgrade project, I am investigating the pros and cons of web based access using an IE Plug-in vs. our current method of installed clients.
Any feedback on the pros and cons of either method would be appreciated.
If anyone has switched from installed clients to web based access and can share their experiences, that would also be very helpful.
Another feature that we have made use of within the server/publisher/ browser user experience is that (correct publisher licence permitted) we can tailor which applications users can see based on there login credentials.
Personally I prefer the IE Plug-in route as users are familiar with internet browsers and are far less inclined to poke around in different menu options and through the browser its easier to control security permission. The browser route also allows you to provide clients with an off site BI tool where you host the server/publisher and just sell licences for external clients (from where you extract the data)
I believe you are correct. Currently, we are on v8.5 and our users access the applications through Analyzer. Therefore, they do not reload the documents. Only the developers can reload the documents using QlikView Developer. Our production documents are refreshed via Publisher.
When we go to v9, if we go the plug-in route, the same rules will basically apply - users will access the applications via the plug-in with no update capabilities. The developers will have the developer client installed with full update capabilities.
If we decide to continue with client installs (ie. no plug-in) in v9, we will have to determine the best method of preventing users from having update capabilities as all clients will have developer privileges. From what I have read in the v9 reference manual, user functionality can be controlled by registry settings. This is not really my area.
Here's another question - With v9 client installs, what methods (registry settings, security) have been used to limit user functionality?
I thought it was quite easy to set User security permissions - in the Document Properties? Have never needed to use it.
I'm actually coming from the opposite angle on this one - I want to allow reload of some documents via AccessPoint / IE Plugin. I don't have a publisher licence so looks like it can't be done. Will need to do some reading online - I'm sure a command line macro would do the trick.
The command line re-load would be something like the following
"C:\Program Files\QlikView\QV.exe" /r "C:\[PATH TO YOU QVW]\[APPLICATION NAME].qvw"
You can incorporate this into a batch file (or i imaging a macro although i've not done it - and i'm not sure if you could reload data to an application that you are currently viewing through the Access Portal - if you figure it out i would be interested to know how) and then just get that to run. I've done something similar where i have the command in a batch file which is just set up as a scheduled task.
This is a copy of one of my batch files. As it runs it updates a relaod.log file with the times the schedule started and ended so i can keep tabs on hos long its taking to run. It also looks for any errors contained within the generated log file that the application creates when it performs the re-load. I can then just look in the error log to see if everything has run successfully. The one that i have running on clients sites then has a command to ZIP the generated QVD data files up before then FTP'ing them back from our clients sites into our data center
echo off
echo.
cd\
echo Initialize the log file with Command Line reload...
echo %date% %time% "inforM Command Line Reload Start" >> "C:\inforM Data Collector\Apps\inforM_Reload.log"
echo Run QlikView and Reload Data...
"C:\Program Files\QlikView\QV.exe" /r "C:\inforM Data Collector\Apps\inforM Data Collector.qvw"
echo Look through the log file for Errors...
echo Create Log File for MTS if a Data Load error is found...
Find /i "Error:" < "C:\inforM Data Collector\Apps\inforM Data Collector.qvw.log" >> "C:\inforM Data Collector\Apps\MTS_error.log"
echo %date% %time% "inforM Command Line Reload Finished" >> "C:\inforM Data Collector\Apps\inforM_Reload.log"
The only thing I have found when running the task via a scheduled task is that the server/PC needs to have someone logged into it. If you try to run the task in unattended mode it won't like it. So for our clients we use what we call a data collector, we build the collector and then schedule the tasks. Once done we then just lock the pc/server and leave it like that
