Over the last two years, we have worked to modernize our company's data platform using technologies such as Qlik Sense to help deliver insight to our business partners. Prior to Qlik, our users had to depend on data extracted from our mainframe and loaded into various excel spreadsheets and access databases. Today, we have the ability to not only replace those antiquated methods, we can help our users look at data from many different angles. We are currently using an on-prem solution but will be moving to AWS next year.
Solutions Architect at Pekin Insurance Company
Gives our business users the ability to author their own sheets and share insights they have found
Pros and Cons
- "The number of visualizations that are present in Qlik is very useful for our developers to help our business partners tell stories with their data. Qlik continues to add to and enhance these visualizations with each release. We are also very excited to leverage the integration between Qlik Sense and Qlik Catalog as we roll that out soon."
- "I would like to see Qlik add more DevOps functionality to their product. Currently, we have to turn to 3rd party products to handle things like Source Control, Code Deployment through environments, etc."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Our executives and business users are starting to see how having the ability to analyze data and not just view reports can help them make decisions to help improve the business. We have started on our journey to become a data-driven and data-literate company. Qlik has been partnering with us to help us along that journey. The only roadblock has been our underlying data warehouse. However, we are looking to move that to Snowflake this year. Qlik and Snowflake have a partnership that should pay off greatly for us.
What is most valuable?
Qlik Sense allows the ingestion of all of our various data source platforms. It also gives our business users the ability to author their own sheets and share insights they have found. The number of visualizations that are present in Qlik is very useful for our developers to help our business partners tell stories with their data. Qlik continues to add to and enhance these visualizations with each release. We are also very excited to leverage the integration between Qlik Sense and Qlik Catalog as we roll that out soon.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see Qlik add more DevOps functionality to their product. Currently, we have to turn to 3rd party products to handle things like Source Control, Code Deployment through environments, etc. This should align with the DataOps focus Qlik has been moving towards with all of their latest acquisitions, such as Attunity and Podium. Without 3rd party products, managing code, promoting it from one environment to the next, rolling back code, allowing shared development workspaces, all are very challenging and manual with the out of the box solution.
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Qlik Sense
January 2025
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Qlik Sense for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Qlik has built in good fail-over mechanisms which help keep the platform stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe Qlik scales well, both on-prem as well as in the Cloud.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support has been very helpful. Their support site has a vast wealth of support articles to help troubleshoot known issues.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We had a Qlik employee come onsite to help with the initial installation and setup.
What about the implementation team?
We used a Qlik employee to do our initial implementation. They were quite knowledgeable about the product.
What was our ROI?
I believe the ROI has been and will continue to be achieved by unlocking our data and providing new insights to our business to help drive decisions to improve our company's performance.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Manager, BI Strategy and Architecture at PayPal
Has proven to be flexible, powerful, and friendly to both developers and end users
What is our primary use case?
Provide DIY solutions to business users who are knowledgeable (or just like to tinker with their own reporting designs), based on standardized, aggregated data sets to support consistent analytics across the enterprise.
How has it helped my organization?
Still getting there, but the availability of KPI monitoring on demand has led to improvements in data visibility and understanding of the value of reliable data insights.
What is most valuable?
- Access to multiple data sources
- Ability to design modular solutions
- Ability to implement a flexible data model that is accessible to knowledgeable users.
- In addition, the new capabilities in Qlik Sense introduced in Spring 2018 have expanded its capabilities significantly. And the "mash-up" capability with QlikView and Qlik Sense allows the best of both in a single solution.
What needs improvement?
Qlik's data handling could still use some strengthening, flexibility, and overall improvement. As a long-time data architect, I cannot overly stress how much the product could be improved by the addition of a more powerful data engine.
For how long have I used the solution?
Still implementing.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Occasionally, the software does behave somewhat erratically. However, I find this to be true of every platform. Qlik has done a good job of maintaining stability while supporting remarkable growth.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No, not in the software. Scalability issues have arisen only because we have more projects that could use this power than we have IT resources to support them.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
Qlik has always shown excellent service, from the communities to its partners to Qlik itself. They obviously value their customers.
Technical Support:
While I have hit a few problems that seemed new to the tech support teams, I've had a habit of doing that with other platforms over the years. Their tech support is excellent.
When they cannot solve a problem immediately, they make sure to stay in touch with us and, honestly, relate both the issues and their status. I can be patient as long as the support team is open with me. Qlik is.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used multiple solutions in BI. Qlik has proven to be flexible, powerful, and friendly to both developers and end users.
How was the initial setup?
Initial setup was very straightforward, and the online resources helped with any issues we encountered ramping up.
What about the implementation team?
This was an in-house implementation following a vendor-support QlikView implementation. The vendor was a Qlik partner and has been excellent.
What was our ROI?
Calculating ROI is always difficult in BI, and we have never agreed on a final formula or result.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pay close attention to your licensing needs, especially when determining your requirements for developers vs users. Qlik offers excellent options, but you have to know your own requirements for them to help you.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Multiple other options were and have been considered.
What other advice do I have?
Keep building and always turn to your colleagues in the Qlik community when you need assistance.
Qlik: Keep up the good work, but I mean what I say about your data engine. It could stand some enhancement. I would never recommend anyone away from your product because of it, but adding power would only increase your products' abilities and ultimate success.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Buyer's Guide
Qlik Sense
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Qlik Sense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
831,997 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Business Intelligence Developer at Bonduelle SAS
Set analysis is great for its power user capabilities but the QMC needs more work
Pros and Cons
- "Set analysis is great for its power user capabilities such as performing an IF on an aggregated column. The ability to create custom coloring expressions based on values is also a good idea although not as easy as I wished it was."
- "The QMC needs more work. Some of the features should be available directly from the hub. Too many duplicates/publish. Intelli-sense when loading a stored qvd would help so much with remembering column names. The pop-up windows are too small when working in the QMC."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case of Qlik Sense is as a dashboard. It replaces some Excel grids we used to provide to people. We are currently serving only a few business units but are working on expanding to all other BU over time. We normally use this tool by loading data from our data warehouse into a QDF (Qlik deployment framework). This allows for better reusability at the cost of duplicate apps. We have also recently begun using Qlik Sense to load data from other sources, such as excel to help other business units that previously had no BI at all.
How has it helped my organization?
Qlik Sense did not improve our organization. Its use was forced by our parent company. We already have Cognos installed with dashboarding capabilities. The tool is good but we already have a clean data warehouse which means a lot of redundant work to load qvd files. It feels like Qlik was invented with a quick create report/throwaway when done mindset. We are not a company built around this so it makes reusing code very difficult. I must say the setup is easy and the user token is very flexible.
What is most valuable?
Set analysis is great for its power user capabilities such as performing an IF on an aggregated column. The ability to create custom coloring expressions based on values is also a good idea although not as easy as I wished it was. Its new trellis feature is great for not having to redo a lot of small charts multiple times and scales well over time. The ability to create presentations in the tool itself is good for users. This prevents having to copy/paste lots of images in an external document.
What needs improvement?
The QMC needs more work. Some of the features should be available directly from the hub. Too many duplicates/publish. Intelli-sense when loading a stored qvd would help so much with remembering column names. The pop-up windows are too small when working in the QMC. There is no reason why all the front-end is responsive but the publish windows are too small for most app titles to show up completely. I wish you could work directly in a published app instead of having to duplicate it to your content then publish it again when done. I also wish you could create folders in your own content to make sorting your apps easier.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Qlik Sense for almost 2 years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We still use IBM Cognos but only for it's Excel grid features.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I was not part of the evaluation team.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was not part of the evaluation team.
What other advice do I have?
Good software but not for us at the moment.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Data Management Specialist at Marsh Limited
Modern and intuitive user interface that makes designing dashboards quick to do
Pros and Cons
- "Qlik Sense has a modern look and feel and a very intuitive UI, so non-technical users find it very user friendly."
- "The on-demand report generation button in Qlik Sense currently doesn't work if NPrinting requires Okta verification, which our company uses."
What is our primary use case?
I work in the Data Solutions team at Marsh (Insurance company). We build Qlik Sense dashboards for Client Executives in the Specialties team, tailored to their requirements.
The Client Executives can view their client's portfolio over several years and also see how Marsh is performing in the space. These visualizations help them with client and insurer meetings.
Currently, it is being used for new client wins, client retention, negotiating with insurers, providing time efficiencies, and providing consistency in presentations.
How has it helped my organization?
Qlik Sense has a modern look and feel and a very intuitive UI, so non-technical users find it very user friendly.
Our team has been able to deliver some very complex analytics that was possible only due to the powerful back-end functionalities and availability of extensions.
The NPrinting functionality has also been very helpful for us, as it can deliver canned reports. It has saved a lot of hours for our business users.
Dashboards we built on Qlik Sense have helped with new client wins, client retention, negotiating with insurers, providing time efficiencies, and providing consistency in presentations.
What is most valuable?
The time required to build a dashboard is very good, as it only takes a couple of hours to build a basic dashboard. We use this basic dashboard in our Client Executive meetings where we then start the ideation process and consolidate requirements for the final dashboard. We are able to show the Client Executives the art of possible, which helps them understand what can be done.
It has helped us immensely with Data and Digital Literacy. Business users now understand the importance of data and data of good quality!
What needs improvement?
Several things can be improved, including:
- Ability to add and customize reference lines (average, linear regression, etc.) on all charts.
- There are features of QlikView that have still not come to Qlik Sense. These include "Always one value selected", option buttons, and checkboxes with extended functionalities in the Qlik bundle. I am currently using an external plug-in for this, but its performance is poor.
- Legends for charts that are being colored using a formula.
- Ease to add company color palette to Qlik Sense dashboard.
- The on-demand report generation button in Qlik Sense currently doesn't work if NPrinting requires Okta verification, which our company uses. So, we are not able to deliver this to our business users. This is a very powerful functionality and we want to use it!
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Qlik Sense for more than two years. Prior to that, I have also used QlikView for one year.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
BI Developer at Soak.com
Easy to use for sales and margin reporting in a retail setting
Pros and Cons
- "The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me."
- "The only thing I would say that comes up is that sometimes it can be a bit buggy."
What is our primary use case?
As a consultant, I used this for a wide variety of use cases. Mainly, the first thing people would look at would be sales and margin reporting, especially in retail (which is the area I work in now). I have also used Qlik Sense as an integration tool to gather data from multiple data sources to be exported and sent to AWS to be picked up by a web marketing tool.
How has it helped my organization?
It has improved the amount of time it takes to get information out to the business in a few ways. Firstly, by replacing reporting that was done manually in Excel by business users and giving them that time back. Next, by providing cleansed data to analysts so that they can create their own analysis.
What is most valuable?
The drag and drop UI has been the most useful to me. Working previously as a consultant, the self-service wizards for loading data weren't too important, as I knew how to load and manipulate data in the script. However, being able to see a list of the different chart types and fields certainly sped me up in terms of creating dashboards and visualizations.
What needs improvement?
The only thing I would say that comes up is that sometimes it can be a bit buggy. The product updates that come out are fairly regular, which is always nice, but getting bugs here and there that you have to work around can be a bit of a pain at times. This can be taken into account by waiting for a month or two to see if any patches come out (much like with how you would treat Microsoft releases) but if you want to get the latest updates as soon as possible then you need to prepare yourself.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is generally good. I haven't had the same sort of instability that I had with QlikView, but that may be a coincidence.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is pretty good, but it is very RAM and CPU intensive, so you need to keep on top of this.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer service/support is good through the partner, as this is the suggested way to receive feedback.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used QlikView before (and still have some reports on this). We changed when Qlik ran a good promotion to get people to switch. I had used the product before and knew the benefits that come with Qlik Sense (i.e. the easier self-service for business users), so I was happy to get the chance to switch.
How was the initial setup?
Setup is fairly straightforward. We had a single server to put this on, so we were able to just "next" through the setup wizard, other than supplying a few passwords for services.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented ourselves, as I had previous experience doing this. Our partner, who we have used for work, is generally helpful and had a good understanding of the product.
What was our ROI?
We haven't really measured this, but this will improve once business users are trained to work for themselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing can start to get expensive, but compared to other tools in this space it is about average.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We didn't evaluate any other options as the promotion on getting Qlik Sense whilst being a QlikView customer was too good.
What other advice do I have?
I would say when you start with this tool, take the time to prepare the data first before creating reports and showing the business (especially if you are the only one doing this). This will help with getting ready for giving users the ability to create reports themselves, as opposed to them having to ask you all the time.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Business Development/Medical Economics at a university with 5,001-10,000 employees
We were able to identify easy things, such as when a contract was loaded incorrectly
Pros and Cons
- "We began to see how our processes and other team's processes were negatively affecting the bottom line. We were able to provide tips to other teams to help improve their processes."
- "We were able to identify easy things, such as when a contract was loaded incorrectly."
What is our primary use case?
Within the University of Miami healthcare system (UHealth), we wanted to see a high level view of our contracting performance. We currently are utilizing multiple systems of truth. We utilize the Advisory Board's PIC (Payment Integrity Compass) system to model all of our hospital contracts. For professional services, we use Experian's modeling tool. We wanted to consolidate all these different inputs of expected payment values into one view or report. There was a need to compare expected contractual values with actual over time.
It helps our team get better at predicting the future if we continue to monitor and follow. Our hope is that actual values would materialize from our expected values.
How has it helped my organization?
In our own wheelhouse, we were able to identify easy things, such as when a contract was loaded incorrectly. We also began to see how our processes and other team's processes were negatively affecting the bottom line. We were able to provide tips to other teams to help improve their processes.
What is most valuable?
Qlik Sense data visualization building gives users tons of insight and connections that they may not have thought about. When you start play and building with knowledge that is presented, it just begs for more.
What needs improvement?
Trending percentage volume over time in a new way, instead of using multiple pie charts, just have a percent scale and line that shows the percent change over time.
The ability to free form visualizations without coding, I know it is a tall order. There is so much right about Qlik Sense that it is hard to ask for improvements.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is super stable. We have no issues
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
With memory and disk space being so cheap, we have not had an issue
How are customer service and technical support?
Excellent support with constant communications.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used a combination of SQL and Crystal reports. It takes a lot more time and effort to get similar results. Qlik does much of the work for you, like a great assistant.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very quick and simple.
What about the implementation team?
Vendor assistance.
What was our ROI?
Currently, our ROI is clear and concise decision-making. This timely addition will easily add $15 million to our bottom line in 2017.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
You will spend more time on educating your staff than licensing the product. Ultimately, the cost is low, and it implements fast. The limiting factor is how quickly your staff can keep up.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I looked at Power BI and Tableau. Both were missing many things, including the academic healthcare community and expertise around Epic.
What other advice do I have?
It is a great tool for those companies or institutions that really want to empower their users to do great things.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Senior Software Engineer at Ingram Content Group
Quickly and efficiently develop new dashboards that display relevant data
Pros and Cons
- "We can easily and quickly deploy new dashboards that reach a wide audience and any changes get reflected almost instantaneously for the users."
- "If a team wants to keep track of source code changes, there is not an out-of-the-box solution for it."
What is our primary use case?
My company is a distributor.
We use Qlik to surface information regarding sales, inventory, ordering volumes, customer data, and other key pieces of information to decision-makers in our company. We primarily use Qlik internally.
To date, we have created more than 1300 dashboards for various business teams within the organization. We have five developers who help create and maintain the dashboards. Some of our advanced users have also contributed sheets to our user community to augment the existing dashboards.
How has it helped my organization?
Qlik has brought tremendous value to our organization in a few key ways.
One thing Qlik has done is to give us a consistent platform on which we can build analytical solutions. Another thing Qlik has enabled us to do is to move rapidly. Most dashboards are now completed in a few days to a few weeks versus a few months with our previous solutions.
Also, Qlik has enabled our organization to deliver data that was previously unavailable to our internal users. We can now surface that information and do so in a consistent and meaningful manner.
What is most valuable?
The fact that we can develop and deliver solutions through the browser really cuts down on the operations overhead of producing dashboards that our company finds relevant.
We can easily and quickly deploy new dashboards that reach a wide audience and any changes get reflected almost instantaneously for the users.
Qlik provides an abundance of tools to use for data visualization. We spend more time focusing on how the data is best displayed rather than developing controls to display the information.
What needs improvement?
As a developer, the biggest area for improvement is in the realm of source control. If a team wants to keep track of source code changes, there is not an out-of-the-box solution for it. Doing manual version control is error-prone and does not lend itself to simple rollbacks in many cases.
One other area for improvement would be discoverability. There are a lot of advanced capabilities in Qlik that are not easily discovered. Even some of the more 'mundane' features are sometimes hard to find or require a fair amount of explanation before users can take full advantage of them.
For how long have I used the solution?
My company has been using Qlik for about four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
While we have been on Qlik there have not been any outages. I would say the up time for Qlik is impeccable. We do occasionally have to take the system down for upgrades and maintenance but those are easily scheduled to occur during off-peak hours and are typically done well before users expect the system to be available.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Qlik scales relatively well.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director de administración at Agrosana Servicios Agrícolas SL
The large number of graphs, tables, and other objects available for data analysis enables users to understand and discover new relationships between the data they are analyzing
Pros and Cons
- "Obviously and considering that Qlik Sense is a data visualization application, the most attractive feature is the fast handling of large amounts of data and the attractive visualization of the same."
What is our primary use case?
Our organization uses Qlik Sense above all for financial reporting to management, as well as for reporting sales, collections, stock to the commercial department, and payment-purchase reporting for the administration department.
We use ERP SAP Bussiness One for the management of the company, which is why we needed a solution for information extraction due to the limited nature of this application in the reporting area.
The version we currently use is Qlik Sense desktop, April 2020 version, and its implementation began at the end of 2018.
How has it helped my organization?
The most valuable thing for us is the speed in obtaining data and statistics of our business because due to the complexity of our corporate structure, many times we lost too much time in collecting the data. Currently, that time that we previously dedicated to compiling and refining the figures is dedicated to analysis for data-based decision-making. On the other hand, the analysis has improved the information that the organization manages at all levels, not only at the management levels but also at the operational level.
What is most valuable?
Obviously and considering that Qlik Sense is a data visualization application, the most attractive feature is the fast handling of large amounts of data and the attractive visualization of the same. The large number of graphs, tables, and other objects that Qlik makes available for data analysis enables the advanced user to understand and discover new relationships between the data they are analyzing. Also noteworthy is the fast pace of updating the program, which I hope will continue in the future.
What needs improvement?
Qlik Sense advertises itself as a more focused solution so that the end-user can carry out their own reporting, in contrast to its other Qlik View application, which would be for a use more directed at IT professionals who launch static reports that are then used by the entire organization. From my point of view, the possibility for end-users to make their own reports in Qlik Sense is limited to very advanced users who have deep knowledge of the application. I think that in this sense the application could be improved much more so that a less advanced user could get more out of it
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Qlik Sense for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Fantastic.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Good.
How was the initial setup?
Yes, which is why a good partner is required.
What about the implementation team?
Vendor team. Not a good experience.
What was our ROI?
We will see it in the future, it is still too soon.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: January 2025
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