Qlik Sense Reviews

Two environments: one for ad hoc and discovery usage and the other for production (consumption). We use the product for ad hoc discovery work and exposing curating data sets/models to our business.

It has improved our organization by providing data to decision-makers in a safe visual environment.

The exposure of the OpenAPIs gives greater flexibility in how we implement across both environments.

• The management console appearance needs improvement to its look.
• The navigation is quite clunky and outdated.

The primary use case is creating dashboards for various departments throughout the company. We use data from VMware servers, SQL Server data, JD Edwards ERP data, text files from vendors, web-based data from IoT devices, and more.

Our users now have insight into their data, whereas before they only received reports and data from queries. They would then paste this information into Excel to create reports. Now, their reporting can be done in a more ad hoc fashion with almost instantaneous results. 

We realized our first success by looking at data for conveyors attached to harvest machines. We noticed that the conveyors were actually slowing down the process of packing the products in the field. After reviewing the data in Qlik, our harvest supervisors removed the conveyors and efficiency immediately improved.

The ability to access data from multiple sources in one application. This has been invaluable. Qlik makes this easy in the load script editor or in the data manager.  You can pick a data source from the wizard or create it yourself. It is very easy to use, and the Qlik data engine has been able to handle everything we have thrown at it.

The product is constantly being improved upon.

I would like to see more native features from QlikView integrated into Qlik Sense.

The possibility of generating in-memory insights using self-service data connections with any database. Also, creating beautiful dashboards and analysis to use in business presentations, gaining value with trusted and solid information generated by the ETL In-Memory tool.

It shows us our client’s profile, our best services and what areas are not satisfying the target. Also, it gives us a better sense of market needs, using non-structured data (like social media, government data).

It needs a more robust way to connect and share the "big-data" origin. It also needs an easy-to-develop interface for creating new charts and tools in business dashboards.

Version 1: 8 months, Version 2: 4 months.

I have not encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues.

Qlik has incredible consulting people and comprehensive support professionals, solving and clarifying any questions.

We used (and continue to use) SAP Business Objects 4.1 Edge (and all the embedded tools...). We acquired the SAP BO licenses to initialize our business intelligence project. But, our bigger problem is using lot-and-not-linked tools to generate insights. Some of our needs are only answered by Explorer, another only by Dashboard Design (Xcelsius – and it’s so old...), another only by Lumira (and can’t be viewed on LaunchPad – The Web-Portal of BO - forcing users to install the app on their machines without mobile support).

Qlik Sense is an easy-to-install tool, like Next-Next-Finish!

We installed it by ourselves, only viewing the vendor’s documentation to make sure we’re using the correct parameters. It is a good way to start; always see what the vendor’s site has in their documentation area.

Our employees no longer have to search for information in many systems and/or use a web search; they can just go to the BI platform and do a lot of analysis by just clicking. So, with this time savings, our ROI is more than 100% - a lucrative investment.

Before looking at the pricing/licensing, research all of the employees’ needs. Make a matrix with their needs and the available BI platforms on the market, checking which platform addresses the way your business way-to-do. Then, determine which users will use the platform to see information, to create information and to build information.

Just test before you buy. All BI platforms have a lot of functionalities and, also, a lot of needs.

I would say general business analytics is the primary use of this solution. Anything from Finance files, HR, Operations, Manufacturing, Mining, etc. It's not specific to any use case, but I would say it is used for general all-purpose business analytics.

The associative technology is the solution's most valuable aspect.

Qlik was the first company to implement an in-memory associative analytics engine. This basically means that all data is loaded into memory, but it also means that instead of joining data together, the data is associated together. From the front end, from the UI point of view, data can be joined or included or excluded on the fly. It can be drilled down and drilled through and users can slice and dice it and that type of thing can be done from anywhere in the data to any other place in the data. It doesn't have to be predefined. It doesn't have to have hierarchies or anything like that.

The real-time capabilities need to be improved.

What I mean is, the solution needs to have the ability to leave the data where it is. This is actually something that Qlik has been working to solve, however, traditionally, the way that 99% of Qlik customers use the product is in an offline data cache. This means data gets copied into Qlik, into this Associative In-Memory Engine and then the analysis can be done. 

Obviously, that means data is duplicated. It also requires a certain lead time, from the time the data is changed to when the data is available in Qlik. Traditionally, that was something that was a little bit of a hurdle for customers. 

My understanding is that Qlik is working on several features in this area. They acquired some new products. For example, they acquired a product called Utility in the last nine months or so, which has fixed the real-time data replication change, data capture, that type of thing.

I don't think I can think of any new features it needs right now.

The solution needs to make improvements to the licensing model. They need to make it more affordable at scale, and to make it more affordable for those companies at the low end of the market as well.

I've been using the solution for four or so years.

It's a very stable product. I haven't had any issues with it. I can't recall facing bugs or glitches. The solution hasn't crashed.

The solution does scale wonderfully.

From a technology point of view, the system is quite scalable, horizontally and vertically. You can add more nodes into the system, and you can load balance between nodes and you can of course scale in particular by increasing capacity on the nodes. 

I would say one of the things that hinders scalability a little bit is the licensing models, which is mainly per user, which at scale can become quite expensive.

Our team is extremely technically proficient because we've been around the Qlik product set for many years. It's not that common for us to need support from Qlik. If I have to be honest, in the last couple of years, their support has been okay when we needed it. I wouldn't say it's great. It's a little bit slow and unresponsive sometimes.

The last issue we had had to do with accessing the system via Apple devices with SSL certificates. The problem we had was that we implemented it for the customer with an additional security measure. It was a reverse proxy with its own SSL certificate and that used to work and then stopped working and Qlik hasn't been able to really help us to troubleshoot it properly. It was a nonstandard solution as far as they concerned.

They ended up responding and helping us within about 24 hours.

The initial setup is quite straightforward and happens quickly.

Deployment typically takes a couple of weeks. It could take longer in certain instances.

When I say deployment I'm not talking about installing the software. That's installing the software and developing the first solution.

Most of the time implementation is only done by one person. Obviously, on the larger projects, it can take a few more staff members. For the most part, it's a one-person project and the system is not too complex to configure and set up. Normally the BI Developer is also the BI Administrator and the BI Configurator.

Maintenance would not be a full-time job. One person can handle it part-time.

We help our clients implement and deploy the solution if they require our assistance.

My understanding is that there is just a license fee. I don't believe there are ancillary costs on top of that. It may not be an affordable option for smaller organizations, however, It's more suited to larger companies due to the costs involved.

We are a reseller. We do implementation and deployment as well. All types of businesses use the product, from small to large enterprises. Company sizes range from a few people to thousands of active employees.

Qlik Sense, of course, is a new product that sort-of replaces QlikView. A lot of our customers are still using QlikView. Therefore, we are still using the product, but we're not actively selling it anymore. We are supporting it because all new customers are Qlik Sense.

While we mostly deal with on-premises deployments, the cloud is quickly becoming more popular and has just become available for this solution recently.

The advice I would give to other organizations would be kind of general. For BI projects, the trick is to start with the business value and then find the data to support the business value. Don't try to start with the data and then try and find the business value for that data.

The tool really is a good tool and you can do almost anything with it, but just using the tool is not going to deliver value to your customers. You need to help your customer find business value in what they want to do and then deliver the solution for them.

I would probably give the solution a nine out of ten. The reason being that it is a product that offers real value to businesses and it offers it fast.

Qlik Sense visualizations are amazing. Training users on how to use Qlik Sense is a breeze as compared to some other BI tools, which require much more hand-holding.

• Data-driven decisions are now easier.
• The ease of use is tremendous. 
• Business users have been able to use the BI self-serve model.

Ease of use and visualizations are some of its key features. Data prep tools are also very helpful for our developers.

Integrated maps should become part of the Qlik Sense, as opposed to buying an additional module just to power the BI, which has it built-in natively within the application.

No stability issues.

No scalability issues.

The support team is great.

We previously used Power BI.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We implemented with an in-house team.

None.

The new licensing model is much better.

We evaluated Power BI.

• Ease of use
• Storytelling

It provides insight into data never achieved with the use of traditional tools such as Excel.

• Font management

I have used it for six months.

We have not encountered any deployment issues so far.

To date, we have not encountered any stability issues.

To date, we have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is excellent.

Technical support is excellent.

• Excel-based reporting to more engaging tools such as Qlik

Initial setup was pretty straightforward.

A third-party consultant helped with the installation.

We are still in the process of measuring ROI.

I don't have enough experience to address pricing and licensing at this time.

Before choosing, we only experimented with Qlik.

It's an easy-to-use solution that gives business users incredible insight into your business.

• · Enhanced data profiling – Improved profiling and auto creation of geographic data, plus smarter algorithms for identifying associations

  · More powerful data prep – New graphical capability for loading pivot tables, pre-filtering of data, and a more powerful scripting environment

  · User experience improvements – A new UI theme, drag-and-drop coloring, and improved search performance

It has empowered business users. Less dependence on IT for reports and analytical charts.

Being able to share and modifying on the fly can be improved.

I've only recently started using QlikSense. Now its been 9 months-it is amazing and intuitive, very easy to use.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It's excellent.

It's very good.

We switched because of the ease of use and it's ability to update on the fly.

It was straightforward.

We implemented it in-house.

It's to early for us to tell, but it's very exciting.

It didn't cost us anything to setup or use on a day to day basis.

• Tableau

QlikSense is really intuitive, easy to use and implement with very rich graphics. Adding the ability to share print and export is a great plus in v2.0.

We primarily use the solution as a self-service for business users without heavy knowledge of IT products. It allows them to create their own content either on custom data or pre-prepared structures and calculations by IT.  On top of that, there is also IT-prepared end-to-end content and global reporting covering mobile reporting mainly in big pharmaceutical corporations. 

We are running an on-premise version in the cloud on Amazon EC2 and Azure. 

We are using also additional Qlik products such as Mobile, GeoAnalytics, nPrinting, Alerting, and Qlik Data Catalyst. 

Qlik Sense is a great tool if you want to start with simple self-service inside your company and get familiarized your business partners with company data and extend a user's data literacy.  

For that, Qlik also provides various programs to help a company adopt the tool. These include the Qlik Continous Classrooms, Data Literacy program, etc. 

The only disadvantage is the custom language which users need to learn from scratch even though we are finding it more user-friendly than DAX or MDX for multidimensional querying of data.

The Insight Advisor (Natural Language Processing) feature allows users to find information through a chat bot which also recommends interesting views on data. It's a very nice feature. 

Showing a miniature version of the chart if the case chart is bigger than the screen resolution allows us to have full context at all times. Alternative dimensions and measures in charts help to limit the number of visualizations on-screen and make analytics easier for business users.

Providing the same basic capabilities as its competitors - such as an easy setup of colors, pixel-perfect reporting (if needed), better control of visual behavior of visualizations (currently legend and axis names are missing based on screen resolution), et cetera, is needed. 

They need much better server management. Currently, even a single application can crash the whole server. 

They should generally focus more on the evolution of current capabilities rather than doing everything but only at 50% effectiveness. 

I've used the solution for over three years.

We did use Cognos and PowerBI and we switched because of the demand of our clients.

We did not evaluate other options.