STT - Top 5 Things to Know About Qlik Reporting Service

[Troy_Raney]

Environment

• Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to the February edition of Techspert Talks. I’m Troy Raney and I’ll be your host for today's session. Today's presentation is Top 5 Things to Know about Qlik Reporting Service with Ayaka Hanazono. Ayaka, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hi everyone, I’m Ayaka. I’ve been with Qlik for 10 years now. My focus area is QDA Connectivity and Qlik Cloud. I’m a Team Lead for Sydney and Tokyo Support Team.

Okay, great. Today we're going to be talking about what the Reporting Service is and what it does; how to get started (especially understanding the requirements, limitations), and Ayaka is going to go through a demonstration of how to configure the Reporting Service; show us how to actually make some reports; and especially demonstrate how to troubleshoot any common issues that someone might run into when getting started. Ayaka, for those of us who are kind of new to Reporting Service, what is the Qlik Reporting Service?

Okay. Qlik Reporting Service is a new report distribution capability in Qlik Cloud. It generates multi-reports in PDF format okay Qlik Reporting Service is also available as public APIs; having said that Qlik Cloud already has other Reporting or sharing features such as subscriptions to charts and sheets or even manual download. But with Qlik Reporting Service, now you can automate the report distribution process.

Very cool. And what's the difference between the Reporting Service and NPrinting?

Okay. NPrinting is on premise product, while Qlik Reporting Service is a Qlik Cloud feature. You need to have Qlik NPrinting as a separate product besides Qlik Sense or QlikView.

All right. And the Reporting Service, is this a part of Application Automation?

Yes. Qlik Reporting Service is one of the API connectors in the Qlik Application Automation platform.

Okay.

Also a recent addition to Qlik Cloud, and it provides an interface where you can build automated workflows. No coding is required. You can build Automations by building blocks.

Ayaka, how should one get started?

As I mentioned earlier, Qlik Reporting Service is a Cloud feature. Qlik Cloud has two offerings: Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS and Qlik Sense Business.

Okay.

And Qlik Application Automation and Qlik Reporting Services are only available in Qlik Sense Enterprise SaaS. So, if you are on a free trial, I’m afraid that you don't get to try this capability.

Okay, so is the Reporting Service free?

You don't need an additional license. And you can create up to 5 000 runs per month.

Okay.

But of course, if you require more runs, the number can be increased with a additional license.

And a run is the run of an Automation?

Yes, correct.

And what's different about Qlik Reporting Service?

The biggest difference of Qlik Reporting Service is that you can send reports to users who are not Qlik Cloud users.

That's cool.

Yeah, you can even reach out to people outside of your organization. So, you can share your Qlik experiences with partners and customers.

So, does that mean you send it to a user's email address?

You can certainly send to a user's email address, but also Qlik Reporting Service will store a copy of the reports in one of your favorite public cloud storage, such as Dropbox.

Okay.

Please keep in mind that once the reports are generated, you can share it with anyone. Make sure those recipients have permission to view the content.

So, because you can send those reports to anyone, you need to make sure that person you're sending it to is allowed to see the report?

Yes, that's correct.

That makes sense. Can you show us how it works?

Sure. Let's move to a demonstration.

Okay. So, we're looking at your Qlik Sense SaaS hub. Now, I know all reports come from Apps and information they show. So, inside this app, where should we start?

First thing you want to check: the sheet size.

Okay.

So, go to the sheet and Edit Sheet.

Okay, so I see we're 1024 by 1280. What's important to note here? Like, that it's landscape versus portrait? Or is there a certain size that's best practice?

Yes, and this size is for 8.5 by 11 (letter size) and converted in pixels.

Okay.

You can easily check the outcome by using Download Sheet as PDF.

All right. Ah, since that generates a preview for you.

Exactly, in paper size. You're going to use a letter size and orientation: it'll be portrait.

Okay.

So, you can verify before running through all the automation.

Okay. And so, reports are basically a print of what you see on a sheet?

Exactly, yes.

Okay. What else on the sheet can affect reports?

Another thing: the reports are generated based on your public sheets. So, you need to make sure you make a public.

Ah, that's an important detail, because all the other sheets you had there were just private?

Right, report won't be generated based on your personal sheets. So, make sure your reports are on the public sheet section.

Okay. If someone tried to create a report on a private sheet, would it let you and generate an error or it just wouldn't let you at all?

If you don't have any public sheets, it will generate error.

Okay.

So, you’d get to know.

So, is this app ready to make a report?

Yes. It's now app is ready so you can start to make an automation.

Okay.

So, you can go back to Qlik Sense Hub, and go Add New; and click New Automation.

Okay. I see there's a lot of templates there. Is there a template for reports?

Yes, there are. Scroll down to the bottom, you see several reports-related templates.

Okay.

And if you click Details, you see a pre-configured workflow.

Cool.

This one has a Community Article link. You can have step-by-step instructions as well.

Yeah, that's great! A lot of additional detail on how to work through that template. That's very nice. All right, so, assuming that's the template that we're looking for; that's more or less we want to try to do, how do we get started using that template?

Yes. Once you decide which template you want to use, you just hit Use Template.

Okay.

And the workflow will appear on your canvas. All you need to do is fill all the empty fields.

So, you just sort of click through (from the top to the bottom) and work in the editor to add whatever details are missing?

Yes.

All right. If that's a little complicated or not quite what I’m looking to do, how can we start a Reporting Animation from scratch?

Okay. To start from scratch, go to Add New, New Automation.

Okay.

Here is a Blank Automation Template. Go ahead and use this.

All right.

And first, you're gonna name your automation, and hit Save.

Okay.

And this is a canvas at the center. On the left, you see Qlik Reporting and its connector block.

Oh, there it is.

Yes. Here's a Start block. This is a Create Reporting blocks.

Okay.

Click Create Report block, Add Sheet to Report, and Generate Report.

Okay. So, real basic.

Yes. And to store report, I’ll choose Dropbox and Copy File.

Okay.

Yes. To use a Dropbox connector, you need to configure the connection. On the right side, under the connection tab, you can set up your connection. You just need to add your credentials of your Dropbox account.

Okay, but you've already got one configured there?

Yes, and each block has fields that need to be filled.

Okay.

In here, I select Manual.

What are some options there? Can you have it run after a reload perhaps or something like that?

Yes. You have a Scheduled or Triggered and the Webhook.

Okay.

In the next block, a Create Report, you're going to add App ID. This has a Do Lookup function, so you don't have to type in your App ID.

Yeah, because nobody knows those well.

I’m just gonna click App Analyzer here.

All right. It's great how it has both the Titles and the App ID. All right, report name…

Right and next block, Add Sheet to Report: you need to add sheet as well, but this is the same. You just Do Lookup, and find the sheet you are looking for.

All right. So, that's looking in the app for all the sheets that are available, and it'll - will it show only the public sheets there?

Actually, it will shows other sheet as well.

So, you need to know the public sheet you're printing from. Okay.

And last, and Copy File on Dropbox, source file is the generated report block, and destination Dropbox, and destination path. I have a Dropbox folder name. Here, you can select a path name from the output. So, you can name report dynamically; so, you select path.

Cool. So, it's picking up the name of the report from the previous block?

Yes, correct.

And I noticed that it previewed the file size as well in the path; that's cool.

Yes. So, it's all set. So, you can hit the Run and run the automation.

Does that normally take a long time to generate reports?

It depends, but this one it's just a one sheet, so it won't take long.

And it's finished! 8 seconds; that wasn't long at all. So, now you're logging into your Dropbox to see if it's there.

And this is the one we just created.

Cool. So, it creates a PDF, and there it is. So, it's had everything - all the objects that are on that sheet in the app?

Yes.

If an automation fails or this report doesn't end up like we're expecting, it - what would you do?

Okay. Let's go back to the canvas.

Okay.

You can see the block is now highlighted in red: indicates this block has something missing or has some wrong configuration.

Okay.

And if you still try to run this automation without the block highlighted in red, you get this Invalid Block window pop-up and…

Cool.

Message saying that you need to fix in this block.

So, it won't even run it. It just stops and tells you right away that something's wrong?

Yes. That is very helpful.

Yeah, totally. I love how it intuitively just highlights it in red and lets you know where you need to go to fix the errors.

If you know the problem block, you can run the automation anyway. You can skip it.

Okay.

Right-click on the block, and then you can Disable Block.

Okay. So, it keeps it in the flow, but it just skips that block?

Yes.

It's very cool for troubleshooting purposes. And what was the problem that you created on the configuration for that block?

That was this one: Sheet Mode has to be Custom in order to use Add Sheet to Report.

Ah. And you'd set it to All?

Yes.

Okay. What are some other potential problems one could run into when running Reporting automations?

Okay. Once the automation is created, it will be saved on the Catalog.

Okay. So, here you can see all your automations?

Yes. I select Automation; so, all you can see is the automations

Okay.

You can open the created automation here. Under the History, you can see the status of past automation run. If it fails or goes something wrong, it generates an error or warning, so that you will be able to figure out how to fix the issue.

Okay. So, you've got one here that already had an error?

Yes, this one. If I click this error message, yes, this says that ‘This app does not have any public sheets.’ So, you know what's wrong, so you can quickly fix the issue.

That's amazingly helpful that there's an error message that actually makes sense. If you wanted to correct this issue directly, do you do that in settings?

You probably have to go back to Edit.

Oh, you can go straight to Edit from the catalog? That's great.

Right.

If there's any issues that a user is unable to resolve or doesn't quite make sense, how could someone report an issue to Qlik Support?

In order to submit the case to Support, we ask to do basic troubleshooting to make sure if the issue is about the product. You can review one of our community articles.

Okay. So, here we've got an article specific to Qlik Application Automation.

Yes. To investigate each Automation run, we need Automation ID and Job ID to analyze further. You can find an Automation ID in the address bar of your browser.

Is that that long string?

Yes. This is Automation ID.

Okay.

And Job ID will be displayed here.

Okay. So, that link right there would have everything. It has the Job ID and the Automation ID? Okay.

Right.

Are there any limitations we should know about? There's some things that Qlik Reporting can't do?

Yes, there are some limitations around Qlik Reporting Service, such as: number of fields; sheets; or size of image.

Does anything stand out to you? Is there something people might run into or they need to understand?

So, the file size for email attachment is 40 megabytes. So, if you cannot send it to recipient, make sure it's under 40 megabytes.

Right. That's a good thing to be aware of. Okay! Now it's time for Q&A. Please submit your questions to the Q&A panel on the left side of your On24 console. Ayaka, which question would you like to address first?

Okay. Is it possible to see the file size of a report?

That's a good question. Actually you can see the file size in the json format (the API’s response).

Okay. So, from the editor, you're able to see that?

Yes. You hit the Dropbox block, and you can see the output… here. And then you can find the file size. This is bytes. So, this is approximately 620 kilobyte.

Cool. That's nice that it tells you that right there. What's the next question?

Okay. Is it possible to monitor how many times a report is downloaded?

I guess this would be up to the cloud storage, such as Dropbox, whether it has some kind of capability to track the number of downloaded.

Okay, that makes sense. Next question?

Okay. How does this compare to NPrinting?

So, NPrinting is it’s own product and very fully developed; but this Qlik Reporting Service is for Qlik Cloud. So, it's different on that point of view.

Right. They are very different, and NPrinting - like you can edit the reports; put very specific charts in there and objects; but this is pretty much printing a sheet.

Right. And then at the moment, it only generates PDF formats, while NPrinting has all other format variations.

That's right. Good point. Okay, next question?

Does this work with QlikView?

Not currently supported.

All right. What else do we got there?

Can any app be used to generate a report?

Yes.

Does it need to be in the - in a shared space or anything like that?

It doesn't limit it to a personal space.

Just a public sheet?

Just public sheets, yes.

Okay. Next question?

Can this be added to an in-app button, so that users can trigger the generation of a report for download themselves?

Oh, that would be cool.

Yes, you can trigger the automation by using a Button Object in the Qlik Sense app.

Okay, is there anywhere we can find some information about how to do that?

Yes. There should be a video online to show you how to implement the object.

Okay, cool. See if we can track that down and include that link with the recording. Next question?

Okay. How can you preview the report before it's generated?

In the Qlik Sense App, you can ‘Download in PDF format.’ So, from that you can see the preview of the outcome.

Did you need to be in Edit Sheet mode to be able to see that download option?

No. I think you can so, in the App, you can select Download Sheet as PDF. From here, you can see the preview of the report. Make sure you set the same paper size as a sheet so format will be the same.

That's a great tip.

What would you consider to best practices (performance-wise): sending to a shared Dropbox and then sending a notification email that the report is available; or sending the report to a large number of email addresses?

That's a very good question. The performance end of Qlik Sense Cloud is handled by Qlik. So, you don't need to worry about performance.

Yeah, that's a good reminder that this is all Qlik Cloud, back-end is taken care of.

Right.

Next question?

Is this available for Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows?

This is a Qlik Cloud offering. So, it is not available on-premise.

And that would include Qlik Application Automation as well, right?

Right. Qlik Application Automation and Qlik Reporting Service are only for Qlik Cloud offering.

Okay, next question?

How do I assign someone the right to generate reports?

Everyone who has access to tenant is able to create automations and generate reports.

Okay.

Is it possible to change the colors in charts on the report to be slightly different from what the display in the app?

No. The report is generated from the app. So, if you want to change the color, you have to change the app's charts.

That makes Sense. Okay Ayaka, we have time for one last question.

Okay. Is adjusting the font size or resolution of report possible?

At the moment it's on the roadmap. So, it's not possible, but font size would be different in each chart. So, you can take advantage of a current visual elements.

Right. So, whatever you can do in the app on the sheet will be reflected in a report?

Right.

That makes sense. Okay. Well, thank you very much Ayaka! This has been very helpful for people. Appreciate you coming on.

Yes, thank you for joining us today. Hope it helps and see you in the community!

Okay, great! Thank you everyone. We hope you enjoyed this session. Thank you to Ayaka for presenting. We appreciate getting experts like Ayaka to share with us. Here is our legal disclaimer, and thank you once again. Have a great rest of your day.