STT - Migrating QlikView to Qlik Cloud

[Troy_Raney]

Environment

• Qlik Cloud
• Qlik Sense Client Managed
• Qlik Sense Desktop
• QlikView

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to the November edition of Techspert Talks. I'm Troy Raney and I'll be your host for today's session. Today's presentation is Migrating QlikView to Qlik Cloud with Johnny Poole. Johnny why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
 
Sure. My name - I go by Johnny, but my full name's Jonathan Poole and I'm based in Toronto, Canada, and I've been with Qlik 11 years serving mostly in a Pre-Sales capacity for all this time.
 
Today we're going to be talking about migrating QlikView apps. Migrating QlikView to Qlik Cloud’s a whole process, but we're going to focus today on app conversion, and could you tell us from a high-level process of migrating QlikView documents to Qlik Sense Cloud, what does that look like?
 
Sure. Migrating QlikView to Qlik Cloud is a project. So, you sort of divvy up the work into three general areas.
Okay. So, the three steps overall would be to Assessment. And once you've figured out which applications are complex, which ones are relatively straightforward; then we move on to the Conversion step. And for both of these we'll have some semi-automated tools that help accelerate and allow you to move through these steps a bit faster; and we'll go through those tools today. And then finally once you have a basically converted QlikView app in Qlik Sense; we'll need to repoint and Refactor that application in Qlik Cloud. And what that means is reconnecting with the data sources in Qlik Cloud, and also designing and updating the sheets from QlikView to Qlik Sense.
Okay. I would love to first be able to walk through an example document and take a look at each of those assessment tools in each phase. Shall we dive in the Assessment phase? And what are the tools that are involved with that?
 
Sure. What I decided to use Troy is the QlikView sample that comes with the product, the Data Visualization sample.
 
Great it's got all the visualizations in it. So, it's a perfect example I think.
 
It literally does. I mean QlikView can do so many things, but it does have a lot of objects, and it's got all the charts like different Shares and Trends; different properties; quite a bunch of features that have been deployed in Tables, fancy sparklines that we do. So, they're all in here.
 
Okay. So, which tool do you start with?
 
One of my favorites to start is the QlikView Governance dashboard. And if you're on the latest version when you open it up and reload it, you'll see something like this, but there's also a Sense Profile Score in here.
 
All right.
 
So, since profile score is going to list out each one of your QlikView applications on the left, and then it's going to come up with a Complexity Score: how difficult is it going to be to move this into a Qlik Sense app. And it goes from -100 to +100. And today we're looking at the Data Visualization one. And you can see it's got a score of 44. But if you look to the right, we still have our work cut out, because we've got 62 objects to convert, an average of 16 objects per sheet. We see that there's some incompatibility: the Line/Arrow object, the Mekko chart. This is a basic evaluator. It at least gives you a first pass.
 
So, what should we focus on with this Sense scoring?
 
A way to use this tool is to rely on the number of objects. If you have a lot of sheets and you have a lot of objects, it stands to reason that it could take longer to convert that. One thing very important thing Troy to mention is: that there's actually no need to convert historical applications that are no longer being reloaded; because you can import a QlikView app directly into Qlik Cloud.
 
That's right. Qlik Cloud can host QlikView documents.
 
Yeah. That's kind of an important point here. For folks looking to import a QlikView app into Qlik Cloud, you can do that. You just can't develop or reload it. If you don't need to develop anymore, and you don't need to reload it anymore, forget the conversion and just import it as is.
 
That's a great point. And I wanted to point out: I noticed that it's saying there isn't a Mekko chart in Qlik Sense, but my understanding is the latest release does have a Mekko chart. So, is this up to date?
 
It is not up to date; a couple years old when it comes to compatibility.
Okay.
 
But I'm very happy to report that Qlik Sense has come a long way. A lot of the objects are there. So, you're right on that, and I'll we'll show that a bit later too.
 
Right, okay. So, what's the next assessment tool you would move to?
 
Yeah. So, I wanted to point out this fancy application which is available not for download, but if you contact your sales rep, we can run what we call SaaS Readiness. And that's going to be focused not on all the incompatibilities or the object density; but it's focused on a sizing exercise. So, let's look at how large your applications are and what tier do they fit in.
 
Oh cool.
 
Yeah. So, scrolling over to the right there's a file size and there's a base RAM footprint. These are key metrics, especially the Base RAM. So, if you're above 5 GB, you're going to need an elevated tier, and we've got 3. So, there's the largest is Dedicated which is 10 GB of RAM and above, and then the elastic Standard tier is below 5 GBs.
 
That's really great that it highlights all those details of demand to host those individual documents.
 
100% agree. We use this all the time. I also like to point out that we can also do a quick scan of data sources. It's using a bunch of QVDs, but I've also a SQL Server Connection.
 
Okay.
 
This is important because when you go to Qlik Cloud, you want to make sure you know how you're going to connect. Is your SQL Server now moved to the cloud? Or is it - does it remain on-premises behind a firewall? And we have solutions for both.
 
Okay. And this tool you said is available from your account manager? Or where did you say we can get this tool?
 
That's right, Troy. So, once a customer is interested in a movement from QlikView to Qlik Cloud, they can contact their account manager.
 
Okay. Are there any other tools that are useful in this process for the assessment?
 
Well there sure is. Because our Consulting Group and our partners do have additional tools. So, I was just going to show one more application that is available through Qlik Consulting: The Hybrid Readiness Application. This it’s picking up what tier you're going to need to do. But it's picked up that this has a macro in it. Qlik Sense does not have macros. It has other things that may replace macros, but it doesn't convert them. This is flagging features like that. So, macros; it'll also flag things like QlikView Reports; QlikView Alerts; it'll flag the use of Input Fields, which aren't supported in Qlik Sense. It'll flag Direct Discovery; bundle loads; there's a list.
 
Right. So, it's actually looking at the Shared file for those individual QlikView documents?
 
Yeah. Looks at the Shared file, exactly right. It's looking at the QMC settings. It's also unravelled the QlikView applications into their base XML structure and it's read all the XML details. If you have a particularly large or complex project, it can be good to add not only manpower or expertise, but add additional tooling so that the project can be better managed overall.
 
Sure. Okay. So, once we get through the assessment phase; we have a good grasp of the apps and all the things that are involved in those apps; where do we start with the conversion phase?
 
Okay. Well, very good questions. Well, we start with our app. This application being loaded by both a SQL server connection, but also a group of QVDs. The first option that's available to us would be just a manual effort.
 
Just straight from QlikView to Qlik Cloud?
 
That's right. I'll just I'll go through that in a second, but then semi-automated way which allows us to use a couple of handy tools is to bounce through Qlik Sense. So, if you if you happen to have Qlik Sense already, you can use the QlikView Converter .
 
Okay. Well let's start with option one first. So, this is your tenant, and I see you've already created a space for QlikView apps.
 
That's right. I'm going to use a shared space for this. It's the ‘QlikView Apps for Refactoring’ shared space. I've actually shared this out with a few other members. So, if we could work together as a project. And this is great, because we didn't have this centralized facility and QlikView.
 
That seems very smart.
 
Yeah. So, as I said, we could upload that QVW and have people just consume it as a QlikView app, (you know) not reloading, or we could do sort of a new analytics app. So, that's what I'm going to do now. So, create the application. Go straight to the Data Load Editor. So, here's my Data Load Editor in Qlik Sense. Got a few more variables in here, but it looks a lot like my QlikView script. Now for anybody who wasn't aware of this, Qlik Sense shares the same engine, the same expression library, and the same list of functions. So, I'm just going to copy up my script here; and you know paste it in as is straight up here in my in my load script.
 
Okay.
 
We do have this SQL Server. Let's say my SQL server has been migrated to the cloud. I'm just going to go off and pull a connection that I already have set up.
 
Okay. So, in this example, the database has already been moved Azure?
 
That's right. Here it is. You know, I've got my server details, and my credentials have already been saved. So, I'm just going to import that statement as is. Then I'm going to go back to my QVDs. For QVDs, what I can do is: I'm just going to come back out into my space and I'm going to go up to the data source section; and I can add files. I'm going to browse out to where I've got those on my Windows folder system; and I'm just going to do a batch upload.
 
It's nice being able to do them all at once.
 
Okay. So, now I've got all 19 QVDs are loaded in here; and there they all are. And just show the apps. I'm going to come back in. So, go back into the Load Editor. It's stored my new Azure SQL connection. So, here for example, I'm pulling in the ‘AccountMaster’ QVD from Windows. So, let's go out to my local space data files; pull the same QVD that's now there, and see how it's referenced. Points to my space here; this is the space; and it's using the data files library. That's in this space; and it's ‘AccountMaster.’ So, all I'm going to do is just take this; and I'm going to use the replace to replace basically the folder structure that I was using before. And then I can get rid of what was already in here. Replace All in the section. And if I scroll down, everything should be updated.
 
That's a great tip.
 
Yeah, it's manual, but it's not as manual as it needs to be.
 
Yeah.
 
Then when I load the data, I should be able to connect to SQL; pull those records; and pull other QVD records. Now I promise to mention that connecting to on-prem data sources; we can do that. Like if I create a new connection in here; I can connect to SQL server using the data access Gateway. When you create your connection (in my case, I was using Microsoft SQL Server), I just need to use this connection.
 
Okay.
 
It's using this architecture. So, I installed the Qlik Data Gateway component behind the firewall on the VM. That component is going to connect to the data source.
 
So, Qlik Cloud can still connect to on-premise data, you just need to select one of those connectors based on where the data is?
 
Yeah, exactly right Troy. What it's doing is that the Data Gateway pings upwards. It only goes outbound to check for that.
 
Okay.
 
So, a bit of architecture. This load script is basically complete. Other things you might have to do is: update section access; and then we'd have to move on to the sheet which has both a new simple editor here, or I'm going to use the more advanced technique which might be a bit more familiar to QlikView developers, which only had sort of the more advanced method anyways. I've got all my tables loaded in here. I can see all the fields; the chart library, or chart types that are all listed here as well. But what I don't have Troy is: I don't have my variables in yet.
 
So, this manual process pretty much just gave you your data and your data connections, but there's still a lot left to be done. Let’s say I am a Qlik Sense customer, and I'm excited about using some of the conversion tools available. So, what would be the process to move through one of those to simplify this a little bit? Especially if there's more than one app?
 
Right. If you do have Qlik Sense or you're willing to install Qlik Sense Desktop; then there are a couple of tools that will help us with sort of a semi-automated conversion. First one is the QlikView Converter.  
 
Okay.
 
That's going to create Qlik Sense apps for us; and it's going to move our load scripts; it's actually going to move the variables which is great. And it's also going to recognize certain number of the objects that are on the QlikView sheets; like the bar charts, the tables, and so forth. And it's going to create a library, a Master Item library of those visualizations.
 
That's great.
 
There's still refactoring to be done, but it we're going to start at a different spot.
 
Okay.
 
If you have Qlik Sense Client-Managed (so this is not available for Desktop) you do have published Qlik Sense migration tools. And what those help us with - we can go to our Migration Center, and see that there's a set of scripts and tools that allow us to sort of batch-move Qlik Sense applications that are on Windows or on the Windows server and move those all up to SaaS. And it's not just applications. This can move users; it can move your security rules; it can move streams and spaces.
 
Oh wow.
 
This is more of a deployment tool which we're not covering today.
 
So, there definitely are some advantages with having Qlik Client-Managed?
 
Correct.
 
So, you're going to start with the QlikView Converter?
 
Yeah, and I'll just focus on (let's say) a customer who doesn't have Qlik Sense Client-Managed. Such a customer can download Qlik Sense Desktop and run it on their workstation.
 
Okay.
 
They'll need a Cloud ID to log-in, but once they've logged in, we can come up here and go to the Dev Hub. So, the QlikView Converter is actually hosted through the Dev Hub. And it's the application on the bottom left here, a tool on the bottom left. So, I click that.
 
All right.
 
Lo and behold, it says: drop the QVW in here. Not the largest application; it's only about 12 MBs so it doesn't take long. If your application is over 500 MBs, the converter doesn't like that. What you'll need to do is: reduce the data. So, maybe, maybe not remove all the values, but make a selection; say that it would Keep Possible Values; and that will reduce the file size.
 
Good tip. There it is.
 
Yeah. So, this has done an assessment; it's read the load script; and it's also read the variables. I'll jump there right away. So, this list of variables is exactly what we had back here when we were doing the variable overview. We've got this full list of variables. Now move into our new Qlik Sense app. It's also scanned all the sheets. As I expand these, I can see that there were different objects. So, it's picked up a subset of the objects.
 
Nice.
 
It's picked up list boxes, which Qlik Sense calls Filter Panes. It's saying: you don't have to include these if you don't want. By default, they're deselected.
 
Okay.
 
Some of the objects at the time of the QlikView Converter creation weren't in Qlik Sense. So, it hasn't done anything with a Grid Chart, the Mekko Chart, and the Radar Chart.
 
Okay.
 
But these still will be available to us to assemble but.
 
So, basically it's taking a look at all the sheets, and all the objects on those sheets; identified them; and it's even brought over the dimension settings; the measurement settings; the variables; and it's kind of prepped all that to be able to drop it into a Qlik Sense app?
 
That's right.
 
That's cool.
 
So, Troy, it took these dimensions and measures. So, each one of these objects. So, if I went in here, this Dimension ‘Year’ is now going to be imported as a dimension because it's in an object that was converted; and it's going to be thrown in as a Master Item dimension. And this expression, these 2: Sales and Budget have also been brought into the Master Item Library. This is actually - can be quite a benefit for our customers. The expression logic that they put on each one of their objects is going to be available in Qlik Sense; provided the object was automatically converted, it's going to do it for all the objects. So, if you have multiple objects that have the same expression; or it's actually going to duplicate. If I have ‘Sales’ here and ‘Sales’ in another one, it's going to duplicate it.
 
Okay.
 
Yeah. There is a resolution in Qlik Sense where you just delete the duplicates. When you refactor your sheet to Qlik Sense, use the Master Item, because that's going to allow you to use the same expression moving forward rather than have duplicate expressions. That actually make your maintenance easier in the long terms. It will set you up for best practice; because the Master Items are going to help us along the way.
 
And what are Master Items for those who aren't familiar?
 
The Master Items are an intermediary metadata layer for the user interface. Tt stores three things: Dimensions, Measures, and Visualization. So, this creates a metadata library inside an application; and you can reuse these throughout. So, if you have a banner or filter pane that you want to reuse; you make it a Master Item. And just drag and drop it onto multiple sheets.
 
Okay. And we can include links for people who want to learn more about the options and features that are available in Qlik Sense for those who aren't familiar.
 
Absolutely.
 
All right. So, I see that magic button ‘Create App’ over there, that is just looking very attractive.
 
It is. And I'm gonna say one more thing Troy; because I know I'm talking a lot. But here this is a fan favorite is the Cycle Groups. Be aware: Cycle Groups are not automatically converted, but the Drill Downs are.
 
Okay uh. So, here I have a drill that - this will be converted. There is good features to replace the Cycle. Just be aware that they're not automatically converted. Now we create the application. What's going on is: a Qlik Sense application is literally being formed right now. It's created. So, if I go back to my Desktop Hub, here it is. And as we open up the application, I can take a look at the Load Editor, it's copied it in for me.
 
Right. So,
 
It hasn't changed things. And then on the object side, there's a big difference here. Here's all the dimensions that have been brought in.
 
Okay. So, that Master Item library has been populated with everything from that QlikView document?
 
That's right. And these are working; because, if you take a look at what's in here; they're using variables. And the variables are in here. If you go down here, I've got my full list of variables. They're now in here. There's 22. If you've got 100s or 1000s of variables, you're going to be very happy to get those all sort of imported as is. The data's in here. You can do some changes, but Troy, there's one important thing here. I wouldn't recommend refactoring just yet.
 
Okay.
 
Because we're still in the Windows environment, I would wait. I would just move this as is to Qlik Cloud; and complete the refactoring in Qlik Cloud.
 
Yeah, that makes sense.
 
This will be in the end of step 2. But we would go to step 3 for refactoring at this point.
 
Okay.
 
If you have Qlik Sense Client-Managed, it's the same process. You can get to the Dev Hub as well; and there's the QlikView Converter. So, it has its own methodology. If you're if you're using Qlik Sense Client-Managed, which is the server version.
 
What was a big advantage with Client-Managed again? All those additional Migration Tools, right?
 
That's right. We can get access to additional Migration Tools in Qlik Sense Client-Managed. So, let's say we have hundreds of applications that we've converted, or dozens, whatever you have. You can use the Qlik Sense Migration Tools online to do a batch migration.
 
Okay.
 
And once you've set it up, at the click of a button you can have them all pushed the Qlik Cloud.
 
Yeah, that's huge.
 
If you're doing a two-step, we can end up with this kind of situation. We've got QlikView here. We've got Qlik Sense Client-Managed here. First step is to use the QlikView Converter and populate a library of converted QlikView apps, and then we can use the Migration Tools to do a batch migration if we wish.
 
Okay. So, are we at the refactoring stage?
 
I think so. I'll come back into our Qlik Cloud experience, Instead of doing a new app (which is the manual method), I'm just going to upload the one that I created with Qlik Sense Desktop for my upload. And I'll upload that in.
 
All right. There it is.
 
I'll rename this as my Semi-Automated.
 
Okay.
 
Don't have any sheets yet. And the load script is in the same format as before.
 
Okay. But that's the same script as the manual one. So, should we just copy this script from the previous that you're already done?
 
Sure, we've already done that work. So, I'll just come back here, grab the manual script. Back to the Data Load Editor. That where we've already done our work, and I'll copy this entire thing. And then for where we were working with Semi-Automated; we would - we would repeat this. This is part of our refactoring, but having done this already. I can just copy and paste it in.
 
Okay.
 
And when I reload my Semi-Automated version, it's pulling all the data in and so, it's been it's been refactored; it's reconnected which is great. And then when we come back to the sheet; and I'll go back to my Advanced Editor. It once again - the Master Items are still there. So, nothing's been lost from the QlikView Converter. And my variables are still in here. So, I've got sort of my basic expression layer. I've got my connectivity. I've got my data model; and I've got my key expressions - most of them.
 
Okay.
 
Now I come back to my QlikView dashboard; and say “oh what do I want to bring back in?” Well, this is my bar chart ‘Time Dimension.’ Why don't I come back in, and find which one of these. There's bar chart ‘Amount Comparison,’ ‘Long Text,’ ‘Stacked Bars.’ Here's the - here's the Time Dimension.’ I'll just drag that in, and here we go.
 
Yeah.
 
That's my starting point. That's from my QlikView Converter. So, if I needed to do something different with colors; using the new features..
 
Okay, but then if it just becomes a little bit of fine tuning with the presentation. But it's copied over the basics; the dimensions; the measures; and variables.
 
Yeah.
 
Like you said, it kind of brought you halfway there. There's still a little bit left to do, but it's done a lot of the work for you.
 
Yeah. It truly is just majority refactoring. Whereas if you do it manually; you have to construct. And I would recommend constructing Master Items first, and then refactoring.
 
And it's kind of a nice opportunity to go through and reassess the app a bit; to see like if there's something that might be better, or if you really need all those charts; or maybe there's some containers and make it a little more different. It's kind of like moving a little bit. Like you get a chance to reassess all your things; and figure out what you might want to throw out.
 
And new features too.
 
Yeah.
 
You may need to recreate your alternate States, but now you've got Dynamic Views; you've got On-Demand App Generation; you've got other QlikView features. So, let's back out for a second here. One thing I would recommend this is that: once you've finished you know doing your refactoring; I would run a Performance Evaluation.
 
Okay. So, this is an app where you've already gone through and done all those steps of refactoring?
 
Exactly. So, here this is going to give me all sorts of calc time. So, this is for every sheet, I've got calculation times to see how it's performing.
 
Oh wow.
 
I've got objects as well that take a longer time to perform. So, both from a memory standpoint and a time perspective. You can run a Performance Evaluation and see how we're doing.
 
So, that's really cool. So, you can really kind of take a high-level look of how the app is performing and what might be slowing it down; if there's any heavy objects or charts?
 
That's right. A whole bunch of things we could do here now. I can run a Lineage and see that my Data Visualization application and all the fields that are in here were loaded from those 19 QVDs. Those are all visible to me now; and I can even see the fields that are in each one.
 
Wow.
 
And my in this case, my Azure SQL is being shown; and what tables were used there. And I can also prepare my reload schedule. So, I just add a schedule and pick you know time and day of when I want this reloaded. Made it a bit easier to do partial reloads for very quick reloads or very frequent reloads. And there's new elements. I'll just clik on this because I did take some time yesterday. And I gave myself a 20 minutes max to sort of redo all the objects. I was pretty successful with this, Troy.
 
Wow.
 
Now this is my first tab in the QlikView dashboard. And here's my Qlik Sense version. So –
 
So, you went through sheet for sheet and actually tried to refactor everything?
 
Yeah. And I'll show you where I got caught up or where things weren't as easy. But for the most part, I was able to sort of drag and drop the objects over, and make small changes. One thing I noticed I was changing a lot was the Number Expressions.
 
Okay.
 
They came over as percents. Then I'd have to reapply the percent. So, some of the numerical formatting properties, like when we come in here, and we take a look at - I think is the number tab. These kinds of settings where it's picking out like four decimals or money format, that kind of stuff didn't come over as well. So, I had to go through and make some changes there. But for the most part, things were looking pretty good. When it came to the Step Chart, I did reach out to my product manager. I said I - I wasn't able to do this in 20 minutes, but he literally showed me 3 methods for doing a Step Chart.
 
Okay. So, there's possibilities out there?
 
Yeah, there is. Like this Step Chart. This happens all the time, Troy. But there's all these properties in QlikView, like full accumulation; I do the plateau leading line chart. So, I didn't see exact properties in Qlik Sense for this. As it turns out, there are ways, there's literally 3 different ways to do this one. So, that was good. Usually where we get hung up; not so much the visualizations, but the tables. The tables came over pretty well. You know, even the Butterfly Chart; and then I was able to find you know our new Sparklines and Trend Lines to do even the more fancy tables. And I didn't see the Gauge Mini Chart, but I did - I did get the other charts. Set myself 20 minutes only. So,
 
Yeah.
 
I can do the URLs. I can also do images you know, link to images as well. I don't have to use a bundle load per se. One thing that always comes up, that I did want to mention is: I did get Cycle replacement here. Because I go through different dimensions here; you can see my table being replaced. This is sort of my quick version of a cycle chart being done in Qlik Sense.
 
Very cool. Well it's a pretty cool exercise. You know, this is not a light app. I mean, it's got multiple sheets, tons of objects, and it took you 20 minutes. And you got almost all the way through. It's pretty impressive. It's nice to gauge ballpark how long it might take.
 
Yeah. Yeah. I did, and we're not going to tell our customers exactly how many hours or you know minutes for sure. At least what we've done today is: we can do sort of a relative assessment. Like some things are going to be more complex; and others are going to be easy.
 
Exactly.
 
Again Troy; a lot of this stuff has been made you know, so much easier for someone coming over from QlikView. Like the sheets now have triggers; they have actions; I can also on any specific field, I can do the Always One Selected Value. I've got Containers available to me as well now; I've got all the different charts; all these different visualizations; some of these aren't in QlikView. So, obviously there's an advancement there; but yeah, the containers are in there; the hide/shows are in there; the calculation conditions are in there; a lot of the key QlikView stuff, both in terms of visualization, but also workflow. How a user interacts are available. And I'm not saying to copy your QlikView dashboard into Qlik Sense as is. I know our customers will be pushed to do that, as much in some regards. Definitely follow the best practices. We can do a lot in making this an easier project.
 
If someone gets stuck on a specific chart that they're trying to convert themselves; and they're not finding the solution; what would you recommend?
 
Well, part of my homework in preparing this - what was great in the Help, just to answer that exact question Troy; so, it's going to say: okay, what are you trying to do with this visualization? Right? Are you trying to compare something? Are you trying to look at something over time? What's the high level thing? If you can't find exactly what you're looking for, there's other bundles here; you can also do extensions if you like. Some of our partners create really nice extensions as well.
 
Okay. Yeah, and I know there's a lot out there. Our previous Techsperts Talk was with Patrick Nordstrom; all about the visualization possibilities. And there's definitely some options out there if people are getting stuck. I recommend reach out to Qlik Community. There might be somebody out there has a good idea. But let's go ahead and move on to Q&A. Please submit your questions through the Q&A panel on the left side of your On24 console. Johnny, why don't we just take him from the top?
 
Sure.
 
Okay. So, the first question was something I think you mentioned, but how can we get a better understanding of what Solutions are available in Qlik Sense for a specific QlikView features, like cyclic groups? Can we take another look at that cyclic group you put together?
 
So, this is what I did. It's basically just a data island that stores five columns for the five dimensions I have in my cyclic group.
 
Okay.
 
If you want to look at what your cyclic groups are, you come to this tab. You've got your, in this case KPI cycle. We've got the five dimensions. So, I just copy those in. They're actually been loaded as a data island right here at the bottom of the load script: _dimension. Reason why I did ‘_dimension’ is: I'm taking advantage of the hide prefix, so that my selection here doesn't show up on my banner. So, I don't clutter up my interface. But I can just sort of Select which element I want to show and I just squeezed it in above the chart. Another solution that's available for some charts not the table or something called Alternate Dimensions. So, it is possible to right click and swap out dimensions and measures using Alternate Dimensions. Alternate Measures that could also be another way of doing it.
 
That's great. I love the fact that there's lots of options out there. There are ways to get these minor problem solved. All right, moving on to the next question: how to connect to on-prem data sources?
 
That's going to be very important for a lot of our customers. And to kind of reiterate, where we see our customers going with that; when it comes to connectivity, just use the Qlik Data Gateway. The Qlik Data Gateway gives you secure connectivity to a data source that's behind your firewall. This is a new feature that was - became available in August, 2022. It currently supports ODBC sources. So, that should help you; if you're using ODBC or even OLE DB to connect data source on-premises; but we're going to keep expanding on that. So, we'll be able to get to other commonly used data sets that are behind the firewall as well. So, look for frequent updates. I know there's commonly asked for the SAP connector; get the Windows folders. So, all of those are on our roadmap.
 
Okay, great. Next question: is there a way to get parameterized variables from QlikView into Qlik Sense?
 
I'm not a 100% sure on the on the definition of parameterized, but
 
Yeah.
 
I will say that if your variables are defined in your load scripts, they will automatically be created in Qlik Cloud as soon as you reload your app. Reload the app and then you'll have all your variables there; because the let statements; set statements do that for you. If you don't have them in your load script, you can still bring them over by using the QlikView Converter, which automatically does sort of a copy and paste of every variable that you have; and it throws it into your new Qlik Sense app. So, I would use those two methods.
 
Yeah, that one's great. Okay. Someone's asking if you could mention again where can we access the QlikView Converter tool?
 
The QlikView Converter tool ships with Qlik Sense Desktop; and it also ships with Qlik Sense Client-Managed. And you access it through the Dev Hub. So, just come to your Dev Hub either in the desktop or in Client-Managed, and you'll see it right at the bottom of the screen on the left-hand side.
 
Great. Next question: is there a tool for converting license allocation? That's a little bit outside the scope of this, but I'm sure people are curious.
Yeah, it's outside the scope. I do know that what can make things easy is if - there's a program at Qlik where you can get a cloud-enabled license that you can apply both in your QlikView environment and in your Qlik Cloud environment. So, as soon as you do that, you can have the users identified in both places. That is possible. As far as automated tools; I don't know of a of an automated tool that does that. There are APIs, but not sure about an automated tool today, Troy.
 
Okay. That's fair. Is there something similar to assist with converting existing NPrinting reports to Qlik Cloud? That's a whole other topic.
 
Yeah, that's very - that's a very good question. NPrinting as it as it exists today, it only connects to QlikView applications that are on-premises or Qlik Sense applications that are on-premises. Those are the only two data sources. That does not connect to either QlikView or Qlik Sense when they exist Qlik Cloud. It's a valid question. Our strategic approach for that is to use the Qlik Reporting Services that are available as part of Qlik Cloud.
 
Right.
 
They're not as mature when it comes to design and capabilities as NPrinting. There is support for PDF reports that are based off sheets today. So, if you're solely into doing PDF reporting there, there is a pathway forward; but for Excel reporting, you'll have to wait a bit longer.
 
Okay, great. Next question is: what to do with heavy QVWs? Like higher, larger than 5 GB that runs smoothly on-premises environments? Is there any concern with how those might run in Qlik Cloud?
 
Well, for today's topic of converting, you just want to reduce it below 500 MG. So, you can use the QlikView Converter, but once you get it up, I would suggest to run the Performance Evaluator; or once you've refactored the app and make sure it's working well; if the app is still over 5 GB in RAM, the other Performance Tools that are available to you are the App Analyzer, which analyzes the RAM footprint of every table and field you have.
 
Right.
 
There's also a more detailed one called the Unused Field Automation, which allows us to pick up any fields that are in your data model that are not that are not actively being used. I would just check to make sure that your large app truly requires everything that's in it. Then you have a decision: you can either use the elevated tier which is the Expanded tier or the Dedicated tier. Those are going to be using better hardware behind the scenes to make things perform better. You know: more cores, more RAM, that kind of thing; or you can look at maybe adopting a different app architecture. So, the Cloud would support things like Loop and Reduce. It also supports Document Chaining, which in the Cloud we call App Chaining. So, you can actually split up your app into multiple apps. You'll have the user experience chain through them just like we do in QlikView. So, you could adopt a different app architecture.
 
That's a great idea.
 
Yeah, and you can also use some - a new app architecture, which isn't even in QlikView; like On-Demand App Generation or Dynamic Views. Either pick a different app architecture or size up. Before you scale; make sure that you reduce your footprint as much as you can.
 
Okay. We have time for just a couple more questions. Is Qlik Sense Desktop still available?
 
Qlik Sense desktop is still available. And you have to be a Qlik Cloud user to use it. If you have Qlik Sense Client-Managed, you can also authenticate against your Qlik Sense Client-Management environment. That's fine. But if you don't have that, you can authenticate against your Qlik Cloud with your Qlik Cloud ID. Definitely available to download. Converter comes with it. So, how have at it.
 
The next question is: is there a Governance Dashboard for a Qlik Cloud?
 
There's not something called a Governance dashboard for Qlik Cloud; but we do have the App Analyzer. We do have the Entitlement Analyzer, and we do have the Reload Analyzer. We don't need to analyze resource usage as much: how much RAM does publisher use, or how much CPU does the server use. We don't need to worry about that  so much. Qlik’s taking care of that. To sort of inventory your reloads; how well they're doing; to inventory your apps; and how large they are; and then to also look at your entitlements; those are the sort of our three main monitoring applications: Entitlement Analyzer app; Analyzer as well as well as the Reload Analyzer.
 
And last question: what Performance Evaluation tools are available for Qlik Cloud?
 
I would recommend the Performance Evaluation.
 
Okay.
 
So, we come in here to your base where your application is, under details is where I like to go. You can do a Performance Evaluation here or see past evaluations. You just have to hit the ellipsis here and run Evaluate Performance, and then it'll cue it.
 
Okay.
 
And then to sort of tune up your application, if you're hitting up against too large a size; before you sort of scale up or pay for more; definitely use the App Analyzer. This is available on Community. It's going to take a look at you every one of your tables; and your data model; will tell you how much memory they use; and then it also does it for the fields. So, it's going to tell you (you know) where you're really spending RAM on. And then there's also this Automation which is going to scan any particular Qlik Sense app you want it to scan; and it's going to find out if a data model field is actually being used. Because if it's not being used, then don't load it in; and it'll be less RAM. Definitely run these three performance runs. At that point, you can make any decisions.
 
Yeah, great tips.
 
Yeah.
 
We've even had a previous Techspert Talk about Optimizing Qlik Sense Apps with the App Analyzer. So, I'll include that link as well. Well Jonny, thank you so much for today. I think this would be really helpful for a lot of people; just to understand what's possible out there when it comes to migrating QlikView to Qlik Sense Cloud; and options are out there; what tools are out there. So, this has been really great.
 
Okay. Thanks very much Troy. Thanks for having me.
 
Thank you everyone. We hope you enjoyed this session. Thank you to Johnny for presenting. We appreciate getting experts like Johnny to share with us. Here is our legal disclaimer. And thank you once again. Have a great rest of your day.