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Director of Development at Strat-Wise Consulting
Consultant
Top 5Leaderboard
Very intuitive to business users and executives
Pros and Cons
  • "On the positive side, QlikView's scripting is a great asset as it functions as an ETL."
  • "If a user wanted to see something not included in the application the new object had to be created by a power user or developer because Qlik view's scripting has somewhat of a learning curve."

I do use both Tableau and QlikView. Although very different, I really like both solutions. They belong to the new BI generation known as Interactive Visual Analytics.

In my opinion, QlikView has a more intuitive interface for regular users or executives that are not technical experts but the development side is a little more complex. Up to version 12 QlikView did not provide drag & drop features.

If a user wanted to see something not included in the application the new object had to be created by a power user or developer because Qlikview's scripting has somewhat of a learning curve.

On the positive side, QlikView's scripting is a great asset as it functions as an ETL allowing the integration of hundreds of different data sources into the same visual app.

Another feature that’s extremely useful is Qlik’s proprietary Associative Model that allows the users to visualize data relationships that exist as well as those that do not.

Tableau on the other hand is a lot easier to use for developers, analysts or power users who need to connect, manipulate and visualize data rather quickly. While this makes Tableau a better fit for the more analytical crowd, it may not be as appealing or intuitive to the regular or casual business users as QlikView is.

Tableau has full pivot, drag & drop and drill down capabilities that are great for developers or power users. They can rotate measures and dimensions and graph them instantly using visualization best practices as suggested by the "show-me" feature.

Tableau’s provides a forecasting function and the capability to connect with the open source statistical program R to include predictive modeling.

Tableau includes a Data Interpreter that makes data cleansing, column splitting and crosstab pivoting very intuitive. Tableau’s latest versions allow joining tables from different data bases and have included the hyper data engine that provides 5 times faster query speeds.

The latest version includes "relationships" with an algorithm that makes
the necessary data connections automatically with no need to perform joins or add Level of Detail scripts (LOD) to eliminate duplicates. However one can still create joins to override relationships if for some reason it was necessary.

Also when opening older files containing joins they are kept under a
"migrated data base" or the migrated joins can be deleted to be replaced with simpler automatic relationships.  Tableau releases updated versions once a quarter.

Both Tableau and Qlik continue to be excellent. They are positioned at the top of the leader's quadrant in Gartner's 2022 Magic Quadrant report for BI and Analytics platforms. 

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/...

In my experience the choice depends on the fit with the company culture and the users' profile.

Qlik introduction of their new platform called “Qlik Sense” provides intuitive drag & drop functionality to create visualizations. At this point Qlik Sense Desktop is free for personal and small group of cloud business users that need to easily develop analytic applications on their own - with virtually no IT intervention.

Recently Tableau has moved to a subscription based model but still offers free products: Tableau Public and Tableau Reader to ease the user entry process.

It certainly seems like Qlik Sense is an attempt to regain some of the impressive growth Tableau has enjoyed during the last few years playing in the truly self-service visual BI segment.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Martin Goebbels - PeerSpot reviewer
Martin GoebbelsData Analyst & Researcher (Freelance) at Sonra Intelligence
Top 5Real User

Sure thing, Qlik ELT scripting isn't exactly standard programming language. And set analysis, very powerful but also complicated.

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Crm/Business Intelligence administrator at Kc firiakis LTD
Real User
User-friendly, easy to set up, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "We can scale it if we need to."
  • "They could improve the speed."

What is our primary use case?

I was using the solution for data exporting for the organization I was working for. I use it just for the data most of the time.

What is most valuable?

The product is very user-friendly and easy to operate. 

The initial setup was very easy.

It's pretty stable.

We can scale it if we need to. 

What needs improvement?

It works properly most of the time. I can't speak of any areas that need improvement in terms of features. 

It would be ideal if it was a little bit faster. They could improve the speed. It's not slow per se, however, sometimes it just takes some time to give you the results you want. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution over the last 12 months at least.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable and we haven't had any downtime. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale as needed.

We have at least ten people on the solution currently.

How are customer service and support?

I've never directly dealt with technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty simple and straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We had an IT person that installed the program. We mostly dealt with it, however, he helped explain the features to us. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't handle the licensing aspect and therefore can't speak to the exact costs. 

What other advice do I have?

I am just a customer and an end-user.

I'm not sure which version of the solution I'm using. 

I'd recommend the solution as it is pretty user-friendly in general. 

Overall, I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.

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.
PeerSpot user
Prashant Baste - PeerSpot reviewer
Prashant BasteSr. Solution Architect at Team Computers
Top 5Real User

Performance of an application depends on Solution Design + Architecture design. In past 12 Years I have seen, whenever Performance issue is reported there are data-model redesign is required & after applying best practices performance issue has resolved, in few cases Architectural  improvements have resulted into better performances.


Prashant P Baste | Sr. Solution Architect

Buyer's Guide
QlikView
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about QlikView. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Head of Qlikview IT at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
The business is delighted with its self-service capabilities, without the usual restrictions working through traditional IT channels.

What is most valuable?

QlikView’s Associative Data Model allow business users to easily create data models.

QlikView’s in-memory technology offers lightning-fast drill-down and drill-through capabilities.

The ability to apply row-based security provides the flexibility to deploy a single application and restrict access to sensitive data according to role.

How has it helped my organization?

We are busy rolling out QlikView as a self-service BI tool. The business is delighted with the capabilities they have without the usual restrictions they encountered working through the traditional IT channels.

What needs improvement?

  • Robust Version Control integration, limited in current versions
  • Automated deployment between DEV/UAT/PROD environments, currently these are manual file-based operations
  • More descriptive system metrics and lower-level diagnostic and performance metrics at the application level

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment is easy and straightforward, even for non-technical resources.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is largely linked to the infrastructure and requirements. QlikView SA has provided extensive guidance on deploying suitable hardware to support our environment.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability depends on the environment and requirements. If you have large data sets, due to the in-memory nature of QlikView, the hardware needs to support your requirements.

How are customer service and technical support?

I rate technical support 10/10, excellent. Qlik as well as our local QlikView Partner, QlikView SA, provides extremely good service and support.

There is also an extremely large and active online community.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We evaluated IBM Cognos and SAP BusinessObjects. We chose QlikView because of its online community, extensibility and support, and large demand from business.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was straightforward, but consideration needs to be taken when procuring the hardware.

What about the implementation team?

Implementation was a combination of in-house and vendor. Take the time to understand the underlying architecture and deployment setup to later be able to troubleshoot the environments.

What was our ROI?

We realised instant value through data discovery not previously possible with traditional BI.

Consolidating six disparate instances into a single group instance has improved our ROI immensely.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Care should be taken to purchase the right type of licensing blend for the environment.

Take time to understand the different license types, the requirements from users, usage model, etc., before deciding on licenses.

Potentially get some demo licenses before purchasing.

What other advice do I have?

Happy Qlikking!

Take the time to understand the data, and develop solid data models. This will ensure good performance and a great user experience.

Just because QlikView can do it, doesn’t mean it should. (There is still a place for traditional BI, databases and ETL/ELT.)

Develop fit-for-purpose applications.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1904637 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Coordinator Manager at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Real User
User-friendly, informative, and customizable
Pros and Cons
  • "You can switch views easily."
  • "The only thing I would improve about it is the fact that it refreshes all the time, and when it does that, it just deletes all the options you had, all the filters that you had selected, so you need to select them from the beginning."

What is our primary use case?

The product is mostly for reports and analyzing the data of the company, basically. We aren't using it as a CRM right now. 

What is most valuable?

It's helpful. It's informative. It's good. Since we're doing analysis all the time and it has to do with numbers, it's pretty good.

It's user-friendly. The fact that you have everything accumulated in one place. You can switch views easily. You can also incorporate things if you want to. It's customizable and personalizable. 

What needs improvement?

The only thing I would improve about it is the fact that it refreshes all the time, and when it does that, it just deletes all the options you had, all the filters that you had selected, so you need to select them from the beginning. If it could refresh without it taking away all your filters, it would be amazing. It doesn't take a long time to refresh. It's every 20 minutes or so. Still, if it kept your options where you wanted them, it would have been much better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is pretty stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It is reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

While we do add users every now and then, I can't speak to the real scalability. I haven't attempted to scale. 

We have around 50 people using the solution. 

How are customer service and support?

I haven't spoken to technical support directly. I've spoken with our tech team that was taking care of any issues, however, when dealing with them, everything was resolved pretty fast, pretty easily.

How was the initial setup?

I'm not sure about how the setup is, as I'm not the one that does that part. We do request it from our tech people, and it's done fairly quickly, however, I don't know if it's easy or hard. That's their part to know.

What about the implementation team?

We have a tech team that handles the setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't deal with the licensing aspect. I don't handle that part of the solution. 

What other advice do I have?

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. I'm not sure which deployment version we're using. 

I'd advise new users that it's a pretty straightforward product. It's easy. They should be a bit patient once it refreshes and takes away all your filters.

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Software Developer at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
We implemented applications that combine CRM data and sales data from two completely different data sources. It's the first step towards big data.

What is most valuable?

Extraction from almost all data sources provides a lot of value to me. Ease of operation, data modelling and creating dashboards with simple objects and the abundance of visualizations are also valuable.

We extract our data from SAP BW as well as Update 7 data source. Extracting and associating these data to form Main Data Model is quite simple. The objects that QlikView provides can be used to make complex KPIs for visualization. Apart from these for visualization, we also implemented many extension objects of Maps with our QlikView applications.

How has it helped my organization?

We managed to implement applications combining CRM (Customer Relationship Management) data and sales data from two completely different data sources. It's the first (small) step towards big data. CRM data comes from Update 7 and sales data comes from SAP BW, which made it tricky to combine them and make common navigation possible.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see JavaScript or jQuery features added to it.

Dynamic changes with respect to page scrolling, responsiveness and actions related to it are what I am expecting in the next version.

Other than these, while adding named CALs in QMC, it would be really great if we could load all of the names from a single file (for example, an Excel sheet) together all at once.

The iPad application lacks some features. For example, container box object functionality does not work properly in iPads.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for more than 13 onths.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

We had issues. After deployment, while extracting data from SAP BW, a timeout error occurred many times. We haven’t found any solution for it. So, we have to keep reloading the job on QMC until it gets successfully reloaded for the day.

How are customer service and technical support?

Franky speaking, I have never contacted technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not use a different solution before Tableau. This is the first tool I have used for BI.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the complete setup. However, its installation using multiple transports and connectors is quite straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it with the help of a vendor team. (QlikTech)

What other advice do I have?

Deployment and configuration of this tool is very simple. The tutorials that come with the installation of the product are very helpful with creating dashboards and learning about the product in short time.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Shabaz Shaikh - PeerSpot reviewer
Shabaz ShaikhSoftware Developer at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Real User

It is unbelievable to see such a comment... Before forwarding my review, I checked the content multiple times...
I firmly believe the comment has been edited by moderator and mistake has been made by him...
As far as I remember, I forwarded just the 2nd sentence which is visible in that section...

Clearing your confusion, this review is for QlikView tool... And yeah, I haven't used Tableau till date...

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Business Information Expert Performance Measurement at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
It combines ETL with powerful scripting options and a fast, flexible front end.

What is most valuable?

  • Combination of ETL with powerful scripting options and a fast, flexible front end makes it like a Swiss army knife
  • Powerful front end, which allows us to make very user-friendly interfaces
  • The associative model, which allows for truly integral reporting

How has it helped my organization?

The combination of quick, agile delivery combined with a front end that allows you to easily drill through from high-level dashboards to low level details means that we can deliver according to the business case. Compared to our other tools (e.g. SAP BO), business users are using this tool a lot more.

What needs improvement?

  • Chart types; some look a bit outdated, would love to see Qlik Sense- or Tableau-like visuals
  • Central formula/measure repository, can now only be done with variables

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for eight years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deployment is very easy and quite stable. Only drawback is that the server can stop functioning if not enough memory is available, so that needs active monitoring once you are close to the limit.

How are customer service and technical support?

Good, quick responses and mostly the support team is very knowledgeable. You don't have to go through multiple layers that delay the resolution, like with some other products we have experience with.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have everything, but the combination of functions in one tool as well as the good support and quick implementation times make QuickView our preferred tool for most use cases.

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward, easy installation (next-->next-->next). Single sign on was a bit more complex, but way easier than with SAP BO, for example.

What about the implementation team?

We have implemented it with vendor teams and in-house ones (multiple installations). For a simple scenario with one server, just do the training and you can do it yourself. For a more complex scenario (we have a cluster of six servers in the cloud), it is better to let the vendor do it; they have the best connections for the complexities of clustering.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

License prices are quite high; it makes the roll-out slow as you first have to convince people of the benefits. When growing, session licenses are the best; we achieve a ratio of 1:30 for the average user.

What other advice do I have?

Perhaps if you start from scratch, it is better to start with Qlik Sense, as it seems that most development effort goes into that product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user3768 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
QlikView vs Tableau

As promised in my last “first look” review, I’m taking Qlikview 10 for a spin. For those of you not familiar with Qlikview it’s a data visualization tool that’s designed to make the creation of ad-hoc reports and dashboards, from existing data, quick and simple.

Installation

Getting hold of Qlikview is a matter of registering on their web site and downloading the “personal” edition. The personal edition has the limitation of not being able to share your Qlikview files with any other users, but doesn’t appear to have any other time or functionality restrictions.

You will probably want to download the tutorial. This is made up of some sample files and a PDF tutorial. Whilst a PDF feels a bit “old school” however it is clearly written and progressive, making it pretty easy to follow.

Interface

The interface is very “Office 2003”. Not a bad thing, in that most of the icons are pretty easy to figure out, but it does feel quite dated (Qlikview 11 is being trumpeted on their blog – so this may be remedied soon). The workspace is also pretty bare until you start adding some data. There’s not too much clutter though and most Windows follow sensible conventions (right click on an object for properties etc.)

Properties window. Lots there, but fairly accessible

Applying the “man test”

Being a vain middle aged man I prefer not to read tutorials and instructions. The “man test” is very subjective, and in this case I did resort to reading the tutorial (whereas with Tableau I was compelled by child-like curiosity to cobble something together without instructions). This isn’t to say that Qlikview isn’t intuitive – it’s really very good, but it’s not quite as visual and inviting as apps such as Tableau.

Features that really stood out

Qlikview seems to bring the data to the fore. Your start point is very much the fields that make up the database and you then add charts onto this. One of Qlikview's specialities – they call it the Associative Engine – seems to be the ability to filter all linked fields in other tables when selecting any field in any table. It grays out not applicable data and highlights linked data in white – so you understand the associative relationship (or not) between datasets.

I think I’d need to use this tool in anger on my own data set to really understand the benefits of this approach, but it seems logical and intuitive – all good.

Dashboards are quick and easy to create, at least as simple as Tableau – they are both drag-and-drop efforts. Qlikview makes it fractionally easier to tweak the look and feel of objects.

Tables are easy to create and to drop into dashboards. Interactivity on tables and charts is excellent, allowing you to reselect data and ranges on the fly.

Things I didn’t like

This type of tool is all about delivering insight from your data. This inevitably includes charts. Working through the tutorial I was very disappointed by the standard of charts shown. Now it may well be possible to tweak these graphs to follow better practice, but frankly we shouldn’t have to. Having charts like this:

…is unacceptable. It shows a real lack of understanding of how to present information and you wonder how much of this attitude spills into the design of other templates and software features. The 3d pie chart…

.. had me biting lumps out of the carpet – but perhaps it’s just me (see this rant about pie charts for the background of my loathing). By the time I got to mock-gauges…

…I was inconsolable. Tableau can do “proper” charts, with minimal clutter, careful use of colour and good layout – Qlikview, you can do better.

One of Qlikview's selling points is that it’s “in-memory”, so it should be able to execute analysis very swiftly. However, the Gartner report from 2011 on BI tools indicates that customers are not particularly stunned by the overall speed of Qlikview and I have concerns over server memory usage – a query I still have open with Qlikview sales (i.e. what happens when you exceed the available memory with your requirements).

Sharing

There are lots of ways to share your output:

  • Over the intra/internet
  • To a dedicated client app on your PC
  • To mobile phones/tablets (iOS, Blackberry and Android supported)
  • Export to Excel
  • PDF

Pretty much every method you could hope for, save carrier pigeon.

Verdict

I like the ease of use of Qlikview. I was very under-whelmed by it’s charting ability- it feels like the defaults and the tutorial regard graphic representation as an afterthought – this was backed up by their sales person commenting on the “pretty graphs” of their rival – Qlikview – you just don’t seem to get it!  The company are making great play of the way it handles data, and specifically the relationship between that data, so I think it merits some further investigation. Watch this space for some longer-term road testing and a more in-depth review.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ed Dallal - PeerSpot reviewer
Ed DallalFounder, CEO, & President at Krystal Sekurity
Consultant

Hello,
I believe QlickSense has addressed most of the charting challenges listed above and most recently just announced the capabilities to be able to export to PDF or PowerPoint and print the story/charts. Very intriguing product in deed.

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it_user297504 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Its associative model helped us identify customer purchase behavior and we could define combos according to this information.

What is most valuable?

QlikView’s associative model is a fantastic design that enabled the Green/White/Grey feature. This feature greatly helped us highlight the relationship between different kinds of data.

To further explain the Green/White/Grey feature, let’s take a sales report of an electronics shop as an example. In this report, it may have dimensions (Product Category, Salesman) and expressions (Sales Qty, Sales Amount).

Green means the values of dimension that you have selected. Under the Product Category dimension, it will have different values e.g. Smartphone, Laptop, Desktop. If we want to see the sales performance of Smartphone, we can click on Smartphone, then it will become green. We can also select multiple values e.g. Smartphone and Laptop in the dimension.

White – shows the values of dimension which are related to the another dimension values that you have selected.

Grey - shows the values of dimension which are NOT related to the another dimension values that you have selected. By following the previous example, we have selected Smartphone in Product Category dimension. In the Salesman dimension, Salesman e.g. Jeremy or Janice who have have sold Smartphone will be shown in white color. Another Salesman, e.g. Roy, who didn’t sell Smartphone will be shown as Grey. This is very useful for us to identify relationship between dimensions

Its “Search Object” function is also very useful for us to search for the information we needed.

“Section Access” is another great feature as we can identify user authority on accessing data in an easy way.

Another feature "Set Analysis" which enabled us to configure different behavior for each dashboard. So that some dashboards (e.g. YTD) can be freezed and not affected by some of the filter selections.

How has it helped my organization?

My experience using QlikView was in a F&B chain store with outlets around the world. In such a F&B chain store, there are a lot of dishes and they are changing frequently with a high transaction volume.

In such an environment, a search function is very helpful for us when we want to find out the sales performance and trend of a specific dish.

Qlik’s associative model greatly helped us identify customer purchase behavior and we can define combos according to this information.

What needs improvement?

By comparing with the latest data discovery tools like Tableau, Qlik Sense and Sisense, the layout and colors are not eye catching enough. It looks like a very powerful excel with a lot of powerful features for analysis. But it may not be good for presentation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used it for two years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Qlik is able to import data directly from a transactional database and create joins between the tables in there. However, I encountered a performance issue with high volumes of data.

Therefore, I suggest designing a data warehouse and use it instead as Qlik’s data source. The performance will be much better.

How are customer service and technical support?

Actually, I can’t remember any issue that I was required to check with customer service or technical support. For nearly all of my questions, I can get answers in the Qlik community.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have previous experience with IBM Cognos. It was a very comprehensive solution that can be used for pixel-perfect reports, email schedules and also data analysis. However, there are many more development and implementation steps than with Qlik.

Also, Cognos requires a steep learning curve even for a user with a technical background.

As we wanted an easy and user-friendly self-service BI solution, QlikView is more suitable from this perspective.

How was the initial setup?

On the server side, it is quite straightforward and we didn’t encounter any problem.

On the client side, the user can access it by browser or a desktop application. For the desktop installation, it can be downloaded from internet. And the configuration to connect the server is very easy; even end-users are able to do it. We prepared just one slide and end-users are able to follow it.

What about the implementation team?

We implement it through a collaboration with the vendor. The vendor team is responsible for installation and configuration. And the in-house team is responsible for development.

My advice is to use a data warehouse as the data source, which can greatly reduce Qlik implementation time, as creating too many joins in Qlik is not a best practice.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My advice is to start small with the named license scheme as the price is much cheaper and it will be much easier to gain management approval.

What other advice do I have?

People who have interest on QlikView should also take a look on Qlik’s another product Qlik Sense. They have similar features (e.g. Section Access, Search function, Associative model).

QlikView relies more on the IT side. IT builds the base and a majority of end-users make use of it. Some power users can build dashboards, share with others and create formulas in there.

Qlik Sense is a self-service BI tool. It is easier to use and stronger in visualization. But some advance formulas might not be available.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Download our free QlikView Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
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Download our free QlikView Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.