QlikView for Developers Cookbook

QlikView for Developers Cookbook

By : Stephen Redmond

Buy this Book

QlikView for Developers Cookbook

By: Stephen Redmond

Buy this Book

Overview of this book

QlikView has been around since 1993, but has only really taken off in recent years as a leader in the in-memory BI space and, more recently, in the data discovery area. QlikView features the ability to consolidate relevant data from multiple sources into a single application, as well as an associative data model to allow you to explore the data to a way your brain works, state-of-the-art visualizations, dashboard, analysis and reports, and mobile data access. QlikView for Developers Cookbook builds on your initial training and experiences with QlikView to help you become a better developer. This book features plenty of hands-on examples of many challenging functions. Assuming a basic understanding of QlikView development, this book provides a range of step-by-step exercises to teach you different subjects to help build your QlikView developer expertise. From advanced charting and layout to set analysis; from advanced aggregations through to scripting, performance, and security, this book will cover all the areas that you need to know about. The recipes in this book will give you a lot of the information that you need to become an excellent QlikView developer.

QlikView for Developers Cookbook

Credits

Foreword

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Preface

Free Chapter

Charts

Introduction

Creating custom pop-up labels on a bar chart

Creating a box plot chart for a simple data set

Using the wizard to create a box plot chart

Creating a "Stephen Few" bullet chart

Creating a modified bullet chart in a straight table

Creating a bar chart in a straight table

Creating a Redmond Aged Debt Profile chart

Creating a waterfall chart

Replacing the legend in a line chart with labels on each line

Creating a secondary dimension in a bar chart

Creating a line chart with variable width lines

Brushing parallel coordinates

Using redundant encoding with a scatter chart

Staggering labels in a pie chart

Creating dynamic ad hoc analysis in QlikView

Layout

Introduction

Changing the default object layout options

Changing the default selection color scheme

Modifying the green, white, and gray selection color schemes

Modifying the green, white, and gray selection color schemes in QlikView Server

Using containers as an alternative to multiboxes

Using the design menus to custom format a cell

Set Analysis

Introduction

Using dollar expansion in Set Analysis to enable from-date and to-date selection

Using alternate states with Set Analysis

Using Set operators to exclude values from results

Using Set Analysis with a Date Island

Using Sets to avoid key tables

Advanced Aggregations

Introduction

Using TOTAL to calculate the percentage of total and subtotal

Using AGGR to calculate the percentage of the maximum value

Using AGGR to resolve a "Sum of Rows" issue

Creating a dynamic AGGR expression for a Group dimension using Dollar Expansion

Using RangeMax to return only positive numbers

Creating a dynamic Part-to-Whole pie chart

Creating a colored treemap using colormix

Using RangeSum to calculate a rolling total in a multidimension table

Showing only the top 3 values in a pivot table

Creating a Statistical Control Chart using Standard Deviation

Creating a Moving Range chart

Creating a control chart using Moving Range

Advanced Coding

Introduction

Extracting QlikView data to a Word report

Printing reports to PDF using PDFCreator

Creating a chart using a macro

Using VBS functions in charts

Data Modeling

Introduction

Concatenation of fact tables to avoid loops and synthetic keys

Creating a Key/Link table in QlikView

Extensions

Introduction

Creating a simple HTML extension

Creating a simple HTML table

Creating an interactive extension

Using external libraries with extensions

Useful Functions

Introduction

Handling null in numeric fields or calculations

Using Dual to handle period name sorting

Parsing text to numbers and dates

Calculating Year To Date dynamically

Labeling a pie chart to replace the legend

Calculating the lowest or highest value in a range

Consolidating a date-time value into quarter hourly segments

Dynamically filtering by From/To dates

Script

Introduction

Creating flags in the script

Replacing IsNull

Storing and dropping using a subroutine

Keeping a trace on things

Using the AND mode in listboxes

Using Exists and Keep to limit the data load

Setting the default display format

Setting the default sort order

Matching financial periods to dates

Handling partial reload in the script

Using Peek and Previous to calculate against loaded records

Creating a simple Gantt for a dashboard using Interval Match

Reading users from Active Directory

Getting a sub-URL using the Table wizard

Using parameters in Dollar Sign Expansion

Removing fields with a wildcard

Handling multiple subfolders in a script

Improving Performance

Introduction

Reducing the number of distinct values

Creating counter fields to avoid Count Distinct

Creating flag fields to avoid Sum of If and other inefficient expressions

Denormalizing for performance

Security

Introduction

Section Access gotchas

Blocking user access to a field using OMIT

Making all values available to Admins and Managers

Index

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

Foreword

"If you can't explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough."

This quote, often attributed to Albert Einstein, very nicely sums up my thoughts on how to best test and improve your (QlikView) skills and knowledge. Starting out as a hands-on practitioner, this lead to me teaching QlikView and writing a blog about it, and culminated in 2012 when Miguel García and I wrote the book QlikView 11 for Developers.

When we finished writing the first draft of the book back in June 2012, our editor asked us to recommend people for technical review. Stephen Redmond was one of the first persons to come to my mind. Anyone who has read his blog or interacted with him can see that he knows QlikView. More importantly though, as I know from experience, he also has no problem voicing a strong opinion. Since we intended for QlikView 11 for Developers to compete on quality and depth of subject, Stephen was an ideal technical reviewer to challenge us. Along with that of the other technical reviewers, Stephen's expert feedback helped ensure that our book achieved the quality and depth that we strived for.

After being published in November 2012, QlikView 11 for Developers quickly became the best rated and best-selling book on QlikView, and has continued to do very well. It has helped novices take their first steps in QlikView, as well as help more experienced developers prepare for their certifications.

Given the success of QlikView 11 for Developers, you can imagine that I was initially skeptical when I learned that our publisher wanted to release another book about QlikView. Why would you need another book?

I was reassured, however, when I learned that Stephen would be taking on the job. Not only because his involvement in our book would ensure minimal overlap between the two titles, but also because I was (and am) confident that he would deliver quality material that appeals to anyone who is looking to further enhance his or her QlikView skills and knowledge. The man who brought us the "Redmond Debt Profile Chart" was bound to have many more interesting and innovative recipes up his sleeve.

As a technical reviewer for this book, I got a first-hand look at the materials Stephen was producing and I can tell you that this is quite a different book that will be a valuable addition to your library. Stephen's cookbook allows for casual, bite-sized reads by offering self-contained recipes. It is as if you've just discovered a completely new QlikView blog with dozens of tips and tricks. The recipes will take you from simple-but-effective tricks to sophisticated solutions. Even I have found a few recipes that I cannot wait to serve my clients. Best of all, they are all explained in a simple, straightforward manner, demonstrating that Stephen absolutely understands QlikView very well.

Barry Harmsen

Independent Business Intelligence Consultant, Co-author of QlikView 11 for Developers, and blogger at www.qlikfix.com.

QlikView for Developers Cookbook

By : Stephen Redmond

QlikView for Developers Cookbook

By: Stephen Redmond

Overview of this book

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QlikView for Developers Cookbook

Foreword