Implementing Qlik Sense

Implementing Qlik Sense

by Ganapati Hegde, Kaushik Solanki
Released October 2017
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781786460448

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Book description

Become a full-fledged Qlik Sense Consultant with the help of this unique guide

About This Book

  • Become a successful Qlik consultant with the help of this insightful guide
  • Build what is in line as well as exceeding your customer's expectations from your Qlik Sense solutions using this highly practical guide
  • Build result-driven optimized BI solutions using Qlik with the help of industry examples

Who This Book Is For

If you have basic familiarity with Qlik Sense and want to upgrade your skills to become a full-fledged Qlik Consultant, this book is for you. With this book, you will be able to create efficient business intelligence solutions that would fetch client satisfaction, and in turn, more projects.

What You Will Learn

  • Understand the importance and expectations of a consultant's role
  • Engage with the customer to understand the ir goals and future objectives
  • Design the optimum architecture, using the best practices for the development and implementation of your projects
  • Ensure successful adoption using real-life examples to make your learning complete
  • Learn about the important stages of a Qlik project's life cycle

In Detail

Qlik Sense is a leading platform for business intelligence (BI) solutions. Qlik Sense helps organizations in making informed decisions based on the data they have.

This book will teach you how to effectively use Qlik for optimum customer satisfaction. You will undergo a metamorphosis from a developer to a consultant who is capable of building the most suitable BI solutions for your clients. The book will take you through several business cases ? this will give you enough insight to understand the needs of the client clearly and build a BI solution that meets or exceeds their expectations. Starting from the pre-project activities, you will go to the actual execution of the project, the implementation, and even maintenance. This book will give you all the information you need - from the strategy to requirement gathering to implementing BI solutions using Qlik Sense.

The book will empower you to take the right decisions in tricky and diffi cult situations while developing analytics and dashboards.

Style and approach

This book will be a hands-on guide that will teach you all the what-to-do's, when-to-do's, and how-to-do's for becoming a successful Qlik Sense Consultant.

With the help of various business scenarios, the book will cover real-world problems that you can relate to.

Various solutions in the book will be backed up by the thought process of why are these solutions used and how you can implement them in your own business environment.

Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. What this book covers
    2. What you need for this book
    3. Who is this book for
    4. Conventions
    5. Reader feedback
    6. Customer support
      1. Downloading the example code
      2. Errata
      3. Piracy
      4. Questions
  2. Consultant - An Introduction
    1. Understanding who is a consultant
    2. Importance of being a consultant
    3. Difference between a developer and consultant
    4. Roles and responsibilities of a consultant
      1. Roles of a consultant
        1. Interacting with business users
        2. Understanding the data sources
        3. Setting the expectations correctly
        4. Designing the perfect solution
        5. Plan the Go-live
        6. Plan for the future road-map
      2. Responsibilities of a consultant
        1. Doing value adds
        2. Documentation
        3. Implementing best practices
        4. User Acceptance and Training (UAT)
        5. Post Go-live
    5. Strategy that a consultant should follow
      1. Size of the company
      2. What system do they use currently?
      3. Why do they want a new system?
      4. What are the objectives and goals?
      5. Are the stakeholders identified?
      6. Is there a project champion?
      7. What are the data sources?
      8. Is the data clean?
      9. Future road map
    6. Summary
  3. Preparing for the Project
    1. Knowing about the company
    2. Understanding the existing landscape
      1. Existing data sources
        1. Customer Relation Management
        2. Help desk applications
        3. Human resource systems
        4. Enterprise Resource Planning
        5. Social media
        6. Data warehouses
        7. Miscellaneous
      2. Existing BI systems
        1. Manual reporting
        2. Traditional BI tools
        3. Next generation tools
      3. Understanding the need for change
        1. Challenges with manual reporting
        2. Challenges with traditional reporting
        3. Challenges with new age tools
    3. Understanding organizational hierarchy
    4. What you need to study and prepare
    5. Identifying your champion
    6. Summary
  4. Prerequisites to Start a Project
    1. Understanding business process
      1. Looking at the sales function
        1. Business to business
          1. Direct sales
          2. Indirect sales
        2. Business to consumer
          1. Direct sales
          2. Indirect sales
        3. Mixed mode
        4. Product companies
        5. Services companies
        6. Product and services mix
        7. New age companies
      2. Understanding finance
        1. Financial planning
        2. Spend analytics
        3. Cash flow management
        4. Profitability analysis
        5. Risk and compliance
      3. Understanding human resources
        1. Hiring and on-boarding
        2. Reward management
        3. Workforce management
        4. Training and development
      4. Understanding supply chain management
        1. Material sourcing
        2. Forecasting and planning
        3. Production
        4. Warehouse
        5. Transportation
        6. Material returns
      5. Others
        1. Understanding  marketing
        2. Understanding information technology
        3. Understanding procurement
    2. Gathering brief requirements
    3. Brief project scope
    4. Planning risk and its mitigation
      1. Identifying risk
      2. Evaluating the risk
      3. Plan of action to tackle risk
      4. Control and monitor
    5. Documentation
    6. Example
    7. Summary
  5. Requirement Gathering
    1. Understanding requirement gathering
    2. Importance of requirement gathering
      1. Focused deliverables
      2. Project timelines
      3. Resource planning, roles, and responsibility
      4. Milestone and task definitions
      5. Success criteria
    3. Executing requirement gathering
      1. Functional requirement gathering
      2. Technical requirement gathering
      3. Infrastructural requirement gathering
        1. Brainstorming
        2. Requirement workshops
        3. Document analysis
        4. Reverse engineering
        5. Questionnaires
    4. Must have, should have, and good to have strategies
      1. Must have requirements
      2. Should have requirements
      3. Good to have requirements
    5. Questionnaires
      1. Functional questions
        1. Sales module
        2. Technical questions (database)
        3. Technical questions (non-database)
    6. Must ask information
      1. Business objective
      2. Current business challenges
      3. Success criteria
      4. Key stakeholders
    7. Common mistakes in requirement gathering
      1. Lack of business understanding
      2. Assumptions
      3. Communication problems
      4. No participation in meeting
      5. No recurring conversations
      6. Gap analysis
      7. Documentation
      8. Sign off
    8. Authentication and authorization
    9. Documentation
      1. Front page
      2. Introduction page
        1. Introduction to document
        2. Scope of the document
        3. Assumptions and constraints
        4. Meetings held
        5. Abbreviations used in documentation
        6. Requirement category
      3. Functional requirement
        1. Business use case
        2. KPIs
        3. Dimensions
        4. Functionality requirement
      4. Current reporting data flow
      5. Data sources
      6. Tables and fields listing
      7. Other logic and mappings
      8. Visualization requirement
      9. Authorization requirement
      10. Risk and mitigation plan
      11. User acceptance
    10. Example
    11. Summary
  6. Architecture Design
    1. An introduction and importance
      1. Parameters for infrastructure design
        1. Hardware infrastructure
          1. RAM (Random Access Memory)
          2. CPU (Central Processing Unit)
          3. HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
          4. Number of concurrent Users
          5. Number of Applications
          6. Things to remember
        2. Example calculation
      2. Software infrastructure
        1. Operating system
        2. Microsoft office
        3. Microsoft .NET Framework
        4. Relevant ODBC/OLEDB Drivers
        5. Qlik connectors
        6. PostgreSQL
      3. Security infrastructure
      4. Network infrastructure
    2. Hardware and software requirements
    3. Installation architecture
      1. Node
      2. Site
      3. Single node architecture
      4. Multi node architecture
      5. Qlik sense repository database
      6. Synchronized persistence
      7. Shared persistence
    4. Backup and restore design
      1. DR (Disaster Recovery) server setup
      2. Physical backup
        1. Applications
        2. Application data
        3. Log files
        4. Qlik Sense certificates
        5. Repository database
    5. Example Scenario
      1. Hardware requirements
        1. Calculation
      2. Software requirements
      3. Security requirements
      4. Network requirements
      5. User access requirement
      6. Installation architecture
      7. Backup and recovery
    6. Data architecture
      1. QVF
      2. QVD
      3. Parameters of data architecture
        1. Data source
        2. Business logics
        3. Frequency
      4. QVD Tier Architecture
        1. One Tier
        2. Two tier architecture
        3. Three tire architecture
      5. QVF Architecture
        1. Two Tier QVF Architecture
        2. Three tier QVF architecture
        3. Hybrid architecture
    7. Example case study
      1. Data Sources
      2. Business logic
      3. Frequency
    8. Data flow diagrams
      1. External entity
      2. Process
      3. Data store
      4. Data flow
    9. Example of creating a DFD
    10. Summary
  7. Development
    1. Data extraction process
      1. Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL)
        1. Extract
          1. Full Load
          2. Incremental Load
    2. Building Data Model
    3. Common challenges of Data modeling
      1. Synthetic Keys
        1. Removing the Fields
        2. Renaming the Fields
        3. Concatenate
        4. Link Table
        5. Circular Reference
        6. Multiple Fact tables with different Granularity
          1. Match the granularity
          2. Generic Keys
    4. Script Management
      1. Separate Code
      2. Comments
      3. Naming Conventions
    5. Best Practices in Data Modeling
    6. Data modeling Validation
      1. Row Count
      2. Field Meta Data
    7. Security Strategy
    8. Visualization Strategy
    9. Choices of Objects
    10. Use of Extensions
    11. Visualization best practices
    12. Story Telling
      1. Finding the insights for the story
      2. Creating the story
      3. Adding the Screenshots
        1. Adding Text
        2. Add shapes
        3. Add effect library
        4. Add images
        5. Add sheets
      4. Story presentation
      5. Sharing the story
    13. Summary
  8. Validation, UAT and Go-Live
    1. Introduction and importance
      1. Data validation
        1. Data type
        2. Null values
        3. Duplicate values
      2. Script validation
      3. Business logic validation
      4. Visualization validation
        1. Chart type validation
        2. Dimensions and expression validation
        3. Business flow validation
      5. Performance validation
    2. User acceptance testing
    3. Go-Live Strategy
    4. Summary
  9. Post Go-Live
    1. Adoption strategy
      1. User training
        1. Train the trainer
        2. Qlik Sense Administration training
        3. Training Process
          1. A single long training
          2. Multiple short trainings
          3. Training Methodology
      2. User Manual
        1. Technical document
          1. Administration
          2. Product Usage
        2. Functional document
        3. FAQs
      3. Top management use
      4. Videos
        1. Technical Videos
        2. Functional videos
    2. Maintenance strategy
      1. Application performance
        1. Upgrade infrastructure
        2. Application optimization
        3. Review visualization
        4. How much data to keep
        5. On-demand app generation
      2. Data quality check
      3. New updates and versions
      4. Source changes
    3. Auditing strategy
    4. Documentation
    5. Summary
  10. Avoiding Common Pitfalls
    1. The art of listening
    2. Importance of documentation
    3. Avoiding Over-Committing
    4. Preparing for the Unexpected
    5. Avoiding last minute surprises
      1. Missed timelines
      2. Infrastructure
      3. People changing
      4. Data Validation Issues
    6. Hand-holding
    7. Summary
  11. Knowledge Sets
    1. Getting to know Insurance
      1. Insured
      2. Insurance Companies
        1. General Insurance
        2. Life insurance
      3. Re-Insurer
      4. Terms frequently used in insurance
      5. Insurance organization
        1. Distribution
          1. Sales
          2. Marketing
          3. Service (Post Sales)
        2. Front Office
          1. Product Management
          2. Underwriting
          3. Investments
        3. Operations
          1. Policy Administration
          2. Claims Processing
        4. Back office
          1. Finance
          2. Collections
          3. Risk
          4. HR
          5. IT
          6. Analytics
      6. KPIs which are used in Insurance
      7. Use cases in insurance
        1. Sales performance
        2. Marketing Performance
        3. Investments
        4. Risk
        5. Underwriting and Claims
        6. BI/IT/Reporting
    2. Knowing Pharmaceuticals and Life-sciences
      1. Vendors
      2. Pharmaceutical company
      3. Distributors
      4. Pharmacy
      5. Online pharmacies
      6. Doctors/Physicians
      7. End consumer (patient)
      8. Terms frequently used in pharmaceutical industry
        1. API
        2. Batch Processing
        3. Brand Name
        4. Continuous Processing
        5. Expiry
        6. FDA
        7. Generics
        8. KOL
        9. New Drug Application
        10. OTC
        11. Primary Sales
        12. Secondary Sales
        13. Tertiary Sales
        14. Therapeutic Areas
      9. Pharma organization
        1. Sales
        2. Marketing
        3. Finance
        4. SCM
        5. Research and development
        6. IT/Reporting
        7. Manufacturing/Distribution
        8. HR/Training
        9. Clinical
      10. KPIs which are looked at by Pharma industry
      11. Use Cases in Pharma
        1. Sales and marketing
        2. Executive management
        3. Supply Chain Management
        4. Finance
        5. Human resources
    3. Knowing Retail
      1. Retail organization
        1. Sales
        2. Marketing
        3. Finance
        4. IT/HR/Analytics
        5. Merchandising
        6. Supply Chain Management
    4. Summary
  12. A Real Life Case-Study
    1. Introduction to Adventure Works
    2. Preparation
      1. Studying AWC Website
      2. Understanding the Business Process
      3. Getting to know Organization Hierarchy
      4. Identifying Business Champion
      5. Understanding the existing system and landscape
      6. Understanding Business Challenges
    3. Gathering Business Requirements
    4. Defining approach and solution architecture
    5. Execution of project
      1. Extraction
        1. Extraction in our example
        2. Data modeling
        3. Dashboard
        4. Story
    6. Post Go-Live Steps
    7. Summary

Product information

  • Title: Implementing Qlik Sense
  • Author(s): Ganapati Hegde, Kaushik Solanki
  • Release date: October 2017
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781786460448