Qlik Sense Enterprise Connector: Overview

The OCF Connector for Qlik Sense Enterprise was developed by Alation and is available out of the box.

To download the Qlik Sense Enterprise OCF connector package, go to the Alation Connector Hub available from the Customer Portal. Go to Customer Portal > Connectors > Alation Connector Hub. Only Alation users with access to the Customer Portal can access the Alation Connector Hub. If you don’t have access to the Customer Portal, contact Alation Support.

This connector should be used to catalog Qlik Sense Enterprise as a BI source in Alation. It extracts Qlik Sense Enterprise objects such as Streams, Applications and Sheets. Users will be able to search and find Qlik Sense Enterprise objects, curate Qlik Sense Enterprise object pages, and explore measures and dimensions from the Alation user interface.

Note

Qlik Cloud is not supported by this OCF connector.

Team

The following administrators are required to install this connector:

  • Alation Server Admin:

    • Installs the connector

    • Creates a Qlik Sense BI source

    • Provisions Alation API tokens

  • Qlik Sense Enterprise administrator with the RootAdmin privilege:

    • Creates and exports the certificates.

Scope

The table below shows what features are covered by the connector.

Feature

Scope

Availability

Qlik Sense

Catalog a Qlik Sense instance as a BI source

Yes

Streams

Extract streams

Yes

Filter streams

Ability to include or exclude specific streams

Yes

Container

Ability to catalog Container objects

Yes

KPI

Ability to catalog KPI object

Yes

Dates

Ability to catalog Date object

Yes

Applications

Catalog applications in a stream

Yes

Filter applications

Ability to include or exclude specific applications.

Yes

Filter Pane objects

Ability to include or exclude cataloging of Filter Pane objects. Filter Pane labels are not cataloged.

Yes

Sheets

Catalog sheets in an application

Yes

Filter sheets

Ability to include or exclude certain sheets

No

Sheet objects, dimensions, measures, and expressions

Catalog dimensions, measures and measures expressions of a sheet object

Yes

Auto-generated sheet object titles

Ability to capture auto generated sheet object titles in Qlik Sense

No

Data sources

Ability to catalog data sources

Yes

Master items

Ability to catalog master items

No

Image previews

Ability to preview thumbnail images of sheet objects

No

Source comments

Ability to extract source comments for sheets and apps

Yes

Lineage

Ability to generate linegae for the BI source

Yes

Cross-System lineage

Ability to generate lineage between the BI source and a data source

No

Limitations

  • As Qlik Sense API currently does not return the host and port information of upstream data sources, Alation is unable to support cross-system lineage.

  • The connector parses the field names and expressions for the associated Sheet objects from the JSON response. The connector parses most of the information; however, some information might be lost in some cases.

Qlik Sense Enterprise Object Hierarchy

The following diagram shows the hierarchy of Qlik Sense Enterprise objects and how they are cataloged in Alation:

../../../_images/Qliksense_01.png

Qlik Sense Enterprise API Methods

The table below lists the Qlik Sense Enterprise API methods used by this connector to extract metadata from the Qlik Sense Enterprise server:

Type

API Methods

Description

Stream

GetDocList

Gets the list of applications which includes streams from Qlik.

Application

GetDocList

Gets the list of applications which includes streams from Qlik.

Sheets

OpenDoc CreateSessionObject GetLayout

Every time when the application is opened, a session is created and the information is returned.

Sheets Objects

GetObject GetFullPropertyTree

GetObject gets basic sheet information. GetFullPropertyTree produces a JSON object with all information.

Sheet object dimensions, measures, expressions

GetFullPropertyTree

Gets each sheet object, its dimensions, measures, and expressions

DataSources

GetConnections GetLineage

GetConnections returns all connections used by the application. GetLineage can be used to tie an application to a set of data sources

Refer to App API for more information.