STT - Exploring Data Essentials with Qlik Cloud

[Troy_Raney]

Environment

• Qlik Cloud

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to the December edition of Techspert Talks. I'm Troy Raney and I'll be your host for today's session. Today's presentation is Exploring Data Essentials with Qlik Cloud with our own Umberto de Domenico. Umberto why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hello everybody. Hello Troy. My name is Umberto; I'm a Technical Adoption Specialist. I've been working for Qlik for about 6 years now and I'm based in Barcelona.
Great. That's a beautiful picture there. Today we're going to be talking about how to navigate the Qlik Cloud Hub; Umberto is going to talk a lot about how to analyze data inside a dashboard; we're definitely going to be leveraging the collaboration tools that are available in Qlik Cloud; and looking at some best practices for how to actually find insights in your data. Now Umberto, how should we be getting started with Qlik Cloud?
Yeah.
So, this looks like your tenant.
We are in the hub; and we do have some apps located in different spaces, but the most important thing right now is left-hand side where we have the Home section, the Favorites, Catalogs, Collections, Alerts and Subscriptions.
Okay.
The catalog which is a more refined way of filtering.
I see we've got 3 different types of spaces there. Could you quickly explain the difference between them?
Personal space is the area where people work on their own apps.
All right. It's like your own little playground.
Yeah, exactly. The Shared space is usually where people co-develop apps together.
Okay. So, you that's where you get to collaborate with other people on the Hub?
Right. The Managed space is for consumption; to explore data; run investigation; and get results.
That makes sense. So, that's where you actually consume and start analyzing all the data that's in the apps that have already been developed. Okay.
Correct. Yeah. We also have another pull down menu which allows us to filter through the different type of objects.
That's nice; especially if there's a lot of content in here. Could you tell us about those other options?
Yeah. The Collections: you can actually add these objects to a collection, and put them all together, and you'll be able to see them in here. You could have other objects inside the collection as well.
That's cool; it's just like a way of tagging things and grouping them and keeping them organized?
Correct.
And then how does favorites work? You mark it as a star; then you now have a favorite app; and you'll see it displayed in the Favorites section.
Obviously, you’ve got a favorite app already. Can you tell me about this Sales Analysis app?
Okay. This app is of the fictitious company which sells clothes.
All right; well, let's open it up.
Okay. When we get into this app, we usually have different public sheets.
So, what's best practice for organizing an app like this?
Okay. We start with an overview of the app. We have the basic information; about KPIs; overall business…
Sure. Okay. So, we've got this app with sales data for a fake clothing company, but basically we've got a lot of sales data for clothing and this is our main dashboard can we quickly kind of thumb through the different sheets to get an idea what's available yes we can move through the pull down menu on the right-hand side, or we can also use the arrows here. I'm using the mouse, but with the tablet you will be using the finger to move around.
Okay. So, each of these sheets dive into different aspects of the data: customers, products, sales data…
Exactly, and then rather than graphs, charts; we see tables: quantitative information.
This looks like a great demo app; but let's assume we've got this business user. Let's just take a scenario where we try and answer a question about which products have the better margin. How can we try and answer that question with this app?
Since your question relates to Products; what I would do is to go to a sheet where the products are more displayed.
Okay. We're trying to answer the question about product margin; and then I see Margin in the title of two of these charts. How about if we start with the one on the left?
Right. Let me maximize it, so we can see it better.
Okay.
This Bar chart has the products on the X-Axis.
Okay. So, we've got the cheapest products on the left, and the most expensive on the right; and what is the dots at the top?
The dots as you can see from the Legend; it represents a margin percentage.
So, this chart doesn't quite answer our question, even though it's talking around the same subject. Can we take a look at the chart you had on the right?
Okay. The chart on the right is a scatter plot. Let me maximize it again so we can see it better.
Okay. What are we looking at here?
For this scatter plot, we have Products plotted against Margin in percentage. We also have the Cost of Goods sold, in other words: how much the product cost to us; in terms of coloring, each bubble is a product; the size of the bubble is a number of orders.
All right, all the products are kind of thrown up there as a dot; and they're from left to right according to the number of sales, but the color of the dot is the Cost of Goods; and the height of the dot is the sales margin?
Yeah.
Okay. It's a lot of information, but it's pretty well visualized. Yeah. Can you walk us through those data points?
This product has got the Cost of Goods colored blue, the margin on the Y-Axis; and then X-axis which shows the sales; whereas the number of orders is the size of the bubble.
Okay. How can we do some further exploration?
Yes, we can click on the chart, and then enable the Lasso Tool; you see on the right-hand side. In this case, I'm interested in exploring this data, because have a very high margin and very little sales.
Yeah.
Confirm my selection; and now I minimize this chart; and all the remaining charts reflecting the selection I've just made inside…
Oh, right everything adjusts to your selection?
Yes. In Qlik Sense, everything is associated according to the selection made by the user. Now...
Yeah, let's take a closer look again; because the question again was to answer which products have the better margin, and I can see at the top of the chart that would be Shagall Socks.
Shagall Socks for instance has got a very high margin, right. Yeah.
45.8% that would be the highest. Okay.
It would be interesting to know which customer purchase this product. All right. So, if I click on it, I can further explore in the Customer sheet.
Okay, so this sheet is looking at all the customers that have purchased that product Shagall Socks.
Yeah.
And I guess the size of the circle is the number of sales?
Is a number of sales, yes. So, we can select the biggest because we're interested in that; now we can check the…
The details…Okay.
Now, the last one this missing opportunity the corner store gave us a good margin, but he has not purchased anything since last year. It will be a good opportunity to chase him up.
Oh right; now that we've answered the initial question; what would be a good way to save and share this Insight?
Yes, we can go right away in the bookmark; in here, and create a new bookmark. Say that now I clean up the selections; next time I get into this app, I can just go Shagall Socks Customers and that will take me straight to the selections.
Awesome! How about another question: how can we discover who are the salesmen in both Germany and Austria?
Let me show you. If I go to Regional Sales for instance; you start from Germany for instance. Those are the sales reps who sold in Germany; but then if you go here and say Austria. Here you still have 6. The question was who have sold both in Germany AND in Austria. Instead, it's Germany OR Austria. What we should be doing is: we first select the Germany only; then we go to Sales person; select All the Possible reps; then we go and select Austria. Now we have all users who have sold both in Germany AND in Austria. And the one which have the tick here were selected before in Germany but are the excluded now.
Ah, that's an important distinction and an easy mistake to make: using OR logic instead of AND logic.
Yeah. Totally different logic.
And again you made that selection by selecting one country first, then in a three dot menu selecting All Possible; clearing the first country; selecting a second country: Austria; and what does Select Alternative do?
Well, let me go back to the Germany one. Now we have say Germany.
Uh-huh.
In here, we have All Possible: the white ones, and then we have Select Excluded: the excluded(grey) one; the Select Alternative happens when you have values which are associated to the second selection. Since we only have one selection it’s great out.
So, what selection would you make to demonstrate that?
Stefan Lind, just this user. Then if I go to Country in here…
So, what is this telling us?
That the second selection we made: Stefan Lind is associated to Germany, but…
He's also made sales in Austria, France, Italy, Portugal, and the dark gray is saying he has NOT made sales in Afghanistan and Aland Islands and such?
Right.
Okay, that's the power of Qlik, I love that.
This is one cool aspect of Qlik. Yeah. Definitely.
Okay. Well, let's assume that this user has another question he needs answered about the discount. Is it possible to see if the Discount is affecting the Sales Margin? How can we take a look at that?
Okay. Let let's clear up our selections; and let's look if there is any sheet which…
Yeah, let's go back to that product sheet. Uh, nothing really here talks about discounts.
No. I don't see it here. Nor here. Since we don't have an object already, we can create a new one.
So, how do you like to do that?
Let's go to the Insight Advisor. That gives us the option to explore the data through our Cognitive Engine based on AI.
All right. Can you quickly highlight what those 3 different options are?
For Explore Your Data, as you can see, highlight the left-hand side.
All right. So, that's just kind of manually going through all the different fields you have in your data model for this app?
Right. Ask a Wuestion uses the input box right on top which is also used with a microphone and enable the Natural Language.
Oh, that's nice.
And then we have the option to scroll down and pick whatever we want. We have many great possibilities here.
All right, well I like the idea of just using Natural Language to answer the questions.
Let's use Natural Language. Does Discount affect margin in percentage by product?
Okay. Wow. So, it's already kind of thrown together a chart suggestion for us?
Yes. Here we see different objects. We also have existing charts, but we already explored those. So, those are brand new and we can pick up the first one.
Yeah. Let's do it. Maybe we should create a new sheet?
Yes, and then we can go to My New Sheet.
So, this looks close but not perfect. Can we add something that takes the time frame into account?
Yes. What we can do is to start from the existing sheet we just created with Insight Advisor and modify it. So, I click on Edit Sheet, and here I get the Authoring Tool. In here I can pick up for instance this Line Chart.
Oh, I love that you can quickly change the chart type and try out different looks for a visualization.
Yeah, exactly.
We still got Product down there on the axis. Can we swap that out for a time-based axis? Absolutely. Yeah. We can just remove this one: Delete; and drag and drop the Month here.
All right, that looks pretty cool.
Yeah. This is quite clear now.
I'm happy with that. All right. So, what do we have in this chart?
The Margin in Blue Line, and the Discount in Yellow. From this chart, we understand that Discount is not really a good idea. Margin gets down when Discount gets bigger.
Yeah. They have - you can see very clearly they have a direct correlation.
Yeah, inverse correlation, yeah.
So, we've created a new chart; answered a new question; discovered some insights in our data; I feel like the next thing this user want to do is share this. So, how can we start collaborating with some of our colleagues?
Yes, first of all we have to Publish this, because remember this chart has been created in a Private sheet.
Oh right.
But I can right-click (provided I have the rights to do so) and Publish it.
And then anybody that has access to this app would be able to see that?
Correct, that's the point.
Okay.
So now the previously Private sheet is now Published by me.
So, what would be a good way to start collaborating with colleagues about this sheet?
We can further invite collaboration by using the Notes section. In here, I can create a new note; for instance I can say… Once I have created the note, I can go to the name of the user I added; I can Make Viewer or Make Editor.
What if you wanted to share it with everybody?
I can also share in here; for instance: add users in here. Any member of the space where the app is published, without mentioning inside the note; and I can also copy a link and send it by email or whatever. One thing I can also do is Create Snapshot.
All right. So, you've just taken a storytelling snapshot and added that to the note so it makes a little more visual. Great.
Yeah.
Okay. What are some ways to keep track of this?
There are two ways of doing it. The first one is to right-click, Monitor the specific object in the hub.
Okay.
And what does that do?
This is going to add the chart in the hub right away without having to access the app and exploring the correct sheet; and I can go in here and view the chart or I can open the app.
Okay, that's a way to monitor this specific app with this specific chart without having to actually open the whole app?
That's correct. Another way is to Subscribe to this object. I can right-click on it: Subscribe. I can select PDF or PowerPoint format.
Oh.
And say: a daily update or a weekly or a monthly one.
Nice. So, this would send you an email with this specific chart?
Yes.
So, you can stay updated with what's happening with Discounts and Margins?
Exactly. If I click on Subscribe now, I have create a Subscription to this object. And when I go to the Hub in the Subscription section, I can see the Subscription I've just created.
Very cool. Great. What if you wanted to set something up that would let you to know if anything happened to change with the data?
Oh, in this case we can go to the object and set up an Alert rather than a Subscription.
Okay.
So, let me view the object in the app with a right-click button; I can go to Alerts, create a new alert.
Okay.
And in here, the alert tells me: Okay, which measure will be included.
Um-hm.
And in the next section, I can see the condition which would trigger the Alert to be sent to me if I say; for instance: the margin is less than 0.35.
Yeah. I love the preview.
Yes, that's very important.
All right. So, that would - it's kind of previewing for you all the data points where the margin dropped below 35%?
Correct. Finally, we see when the Alert will be evaluated when the data is reloaded or maybe on a daily weekly or monthly basis.
Okay.
And we can share with other users (if we have the permission to do that). Once we are happy with it, we can Create. And similar to what we've seen for the Subscription; if you go to the Manage Alert section, you'll see the Alert.
And what would happen on the next reload if it did drop below 35% what would happen?
It will send me an email.
Okay. With the picture of the chart?
Yes. Yeah.
Ah, very cool.
The Alerts and Subscription can be done also through the Automations by going to the context area and set up an Automation.
Yeah. That's a little beyond the scope of this video, but we can definitely include a link with some more information about that. All right, well now I guess it's time for Q&A. Please submit your questions through the Q&A panel on the left side of your On24 console. We got a lot of questions coming in. I'll just read them from the top. All right, first question: is there a way I can limit the values shown in a pivot table to only those over a certain threshold? Yeah. We can do something. We need to understand a little bit what's the goal of the visualization; however, this sheet has to…
Yeah. It's got a pivot table. So, how would you limit the values shown in this?
Well first of all, let's duplicate this sheet.
Okay.
I'm going to remove this bar chart.
Okay.
The other thing I would like to do is remove the second measure.
Okay.
So, we'll just remove Margin for simplicity sake; and we are now in the pivot table with just one measure and we also have 3 dimensions. Let's focus on this: Sales.
Okay.
Currently we display all values, but we can modify the measure by breaking the link with the master visualization. In order to display only the values, as an example: above 100,000.
Okay.
We have a couple of ways of doing that. First one is: to say if (Sum(Sales)) is above 100,000, then show me Sum(Sales).
That seems simple enough.
This way we're going to have this behavior: it's not showing me anything. So, appears to be Null.
Do you have a good way of getting around that so it's less confusing?
Could be doing is: remove this: Include zero values. This is not a zero value, but it does show as it was kind of zero in this context.
Okay. So instead of just showing a line with nothing, it'll just skip that?
Yeah. Exactly. The other option is: to work on set expression. We could set up an expression like this: this one where we can actually say: give us the value of Sales, but search this(=) indicates the search in the set expression; where the value of Sales is above 100,000. So, in this case, we have the same behavior.
That's just a more efficient expression?
Correct.
Okay. Thank you for showing us that. The next question is: how do I add Dynamic Labels to my charts?
I think there is a tech talks where one of our great colleagues discussed about Dynamic, um, Troy?
Ah, yes. Visualization Tips for Qlik Sense. Now when it comes to visualizations, the same options work for Qlik Sense Enterprise as they do for Qlik Cloud, especially when it comes to Dynamic Labels. He demonstrates a good way to put some more information into those labels. I can definitely include the link to this. So, let's move on to the next question: what rights do I need to be able to share an app already in a shared space with different users?
Yes, what I think they are asking is: sharing the app only. You can share the app. The space role needed is the Can Manage space role.
Okay. So we're here in help.qlik.com…
And as you can see, the Can Manage allow the user to share an app.
Okay. So Can Manage is the rights level that's necessary?
Yes.
All right. So, moving on to the next question: is there a way I can copy a theme from one app and apply it or import it to another app? That's a good question.
Yes it is. We do have a way to import a theme. Themes are created from apps. So, you can import a theme and apply to different apps if you go to Management Console; in the Theme section, add a new one. It's a zip file; and once we've done that; in the app, I could set up a new theme.
Custom. Because it's in your added themes, it will show up here?
Right.
Very cool.
Okay. If they want to create a new theme, there is a cool Theme Creator.
Okay.
This is a simple tool; can allow you to create your own theme with your own color palette and so on and so forth.
That's fantastic. That is a cool tool. All right, well let's move on to the next question: is there a way to track the activity of current users on my tenant?
Well, there are many tools available in Qlik Cloud. In this article, you'll find many apps. Each of those has a specific goal.
That's great. I love that this article. We've got information and links to all the different monitoring apps are available. Is there a way to measure which app is consuming the most resources? Oh, perhaps one of these apps might help with that.
Indeed. Indeed. The App Analyzer is the one we should look at. The App Analyzer allows you to understand the threshold, for the CPU usage, memory footprint, anything relate to the way the apps are loaded into Qlik Cloud.
Great. Next question: where can I learn more about Section Access?
Ah that's a very good question.
I know there's a lot of resources out there.
And there are plenty of resources as you said Troy. However, there is a great tech talk about it.
Ah, yes. Troubleshooting Section Access. I remember this one. I love that you're plugging all these Techspert Talks. So, yeah. This was Mike Reese; and he had a great demo where he basically summarized the important things you need to know; how section access works; how it's applied; and all the little details. So, I definitely recommend you check this out.
Indeed.
And the section access rules haven't changed. They apply to both Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows and Qlik Cloud.
Yeah.
All right, moving on: is it possible to embed a video into a sheet in an app?
Yes, we do have an extension which allows us to do so. In the Custom Objects; I do have a video player which allows you to add an URL which points to whatever video you want.
All right. That's good to know. Moving on to the next question: does every role on the tenant have the ability to create apps in their personal space?
The answer yes, provided they have professional entitlement or…
Okay.
In the new model: Full User entitlement; because if they have an Analyzer entitlement or Basic User entitlement, the personal space will not be available.
Great, thanks for clarifying that. Okay. Next question: we're currently using Azure AD as an IDP (identity provider). If something bad happens like Azure going down, is there any emergency or backdoor access to my tenants so that I can create an alternative or change the settings after that goes down?
Yeah. Sometimes it's necessary to go back to our recovery link, as we say. It’s a way to access the tenant bypassing your authentication mechanism.
Okay.
The recovery link is available in here. I have the about section, and here you have the recovery address. This recovery address should have already been sent in the email to the Service Account Owner when the tenant was created.
Well, it's good to know where to find that in case they have misplace that email; they can find it up there in their user Profile information.
Right.
Perfect. Okay. Next question: are there any tools available to help migrating apps from on premise to Qlik Cloud?
Yes; there is indeed one app and more tools that Professional Services uses to address this kind of request. So, please reach out to Professional Services to find out more.
Okay. Good plug for them. And last question we have time for today: is it possible to set up my tenant to load users from multiple IdPs or identity providers?
It is possible to set up multiple IdPs, but only one IDP at the time can be active. If the customer wants to allow users accessing from different IdPs or organizations; because at the end of the day this is all about; then that means that you want to give access to your tenant to external users. And that can be done inside the IDP. For instance, in Azure you can set up external users authenticated by email rather than their usernames. And once you add those users in Azure, then they will be able to access Qlik Cloud easily.
That's a good tip: to instead of managing all the access through Qlik Cloud; just manage access from the identity provider to additional users.
Yes. That's the standard approach.
All right Umberto, that's all the time we have today, but thank you so much for going through all this for everybody. And I hope it'll be a useful resource for all of our Qlik customers going forward.
Well thank you Troy. And thank you all to join this. Many thanks also for the great questions you provided. Wish you good luck with your Qlik Sense implementation. We are always here to help you. Please refer to our Community, because you'll find many useful articles and professionals who are dedicated to the Qlik technology.
Great! Thank you everyone. We hope you enjoyed this session. And special thanks to Umberto for presenting. We always appreciate getting experts like Umberto to share with us. Here's our legal disclaimer. And thank you once again. Have a great rest of your day.