A subtle and powerful shift happened last year.
I was building a QlikView application for financials. My client and I had discussed the idea of this application a year earlier but it was impossible then. Version 8.5 had not been released. The ability to look at dozens of simultaneous selection sets is the key to making this great idea work.
Zoom forward to 2009. Versions 8.5 and then 9.0 are released with features including Set Analysis, unlimited rows, chaining of document selections, data export from the script, and Dynamic Tables. These innovations remove the architectural limitations of QlikView that had tied my hands. A year ago I could not deliver the solution that was in my head and that my client needed. Now these limits are gone and I can build exactly what my client needs.
Build exactly what my client needs? This is the first time that this thought crossed my mind. It’s true! With the release of version 9, QlikView has entered a new phase. One that no other product can match.
QlikView is the first and ONLY tool on the market in which every business analysis that I have been asked to build can be built with confidence and an expectation of success. Dream big!
QlikView is not SPSS or JMP, and it never will be, but since I have never been asked to do anything more complex than a regression, QlikView works perfectly.
QlikView is the tool to turn to. It delivers results. Real value, right now. And you can be confident that it can achieve any business analysis you can think of. To get an idea of what QlikView can do, follow this thread on LinkedIn with over 100 unique uses for QlikView.
Related posts:
Hi
My Qlikview “WOW” quickly dissipated once I discovered I still needed a technical resource to get anything done.
Qlikview is an impressive data integration toolset with interactive data browsing and dash boarding capabilities. It is a technical tool for consultants like YOU. It reduces your cost and time to deliver solutions to the business. However, it is not a reporting tool, true analytical workbench or designed for non-technical users like myself.
Non-technical users will browse their data and maybe could figure out the dialogs to create charts and dashboards; however, they will struggle with setting up more complicated standard industry analysis models and require a technical resource to develop these dashboards. Furthermore, Qlikview is missing a key feature found in other visual analytical workbench products; the ability to select random points from a chart and create a subset for further analysis. Without this feature Qlikview is nothing more than an impressive interactive data browser; it is not an analytical workbench.
To make Qlikview do anything really useful/acurate, I found I needed a consultant proficient in the scripting language, macros and chart objects.
Due to the lack of analytical workbench features and technical resource requirements, business users will quickly realize that Qlikview does not buy them freedom from IS or BI consultants. All I did was swap out my SAP consultant cost with a Qlikview consultant cost.
Personally, I prefer to have my technical resource do all the data integration, cleansing and transformation work and NONE of the charting work. I (the business user) will do all of the charting/dashboard work in a real analytical tool like tableau.
An perfect solution would be a tool like Tableau pointing to a columnar database. You get all the performance and multi-dimensional analytical benefits of Qlikview + you don’t need a nerd to code your charts.
Thank you for your feedback! It’s true that my post was from my own expert level perspective and it’s been a long time since I’ve been a fresh user. Your critique is accurate. I recently came back from the global partner conference and there are going to be major changes that will address some, but not all, of your concerns. I would point out that the Tableau+columnar database still requires that data gets IN to the database. Particularly for those well-versed in QlikView and other BI/ETL/DB platforms, this is the best part of using QlikView.
Yes, correct. I’d still need IT to prepare my data in Vertica.
I guess my point was that Qlikview does not really lower my BI consulting costs since I still need consultants around to develop charts. Yes, the data integration is easier for you (the consultant) to code, but I’m still going to need you around to code the charts.
To me BI has always been more a problem of human resources, than technology. I don’t care how cool a tool is, if I still need a consultant around to code reports, then what have I really gained/saved?
For example, instead of hiring you to build a Qlikview datastore (1 week) and reports (6+months), I’d hire you to build me only a vertica data store + automation (2 months+sporadic maintenance). Business will do their own reporting.
With consulting services (day rates) the real cost in BI…in 5 years which of the above solutions will cost less? Vertica/Tableau solution will cost less and have higher adoption rates, because external consultants are not being paid to develop charts/dashboards.
I’m waiting for the day when I can use a best of breed non-technical integration tool (Lyza type interface) with a best of breed visualisation tool (tableau). Then self-service analytics will be a reality. Sadly, all these new DI tools have proprietary closed structures.