Components of the QlikView Business Discovery platform

The QlikView Business Discovery platform consists of 3 major components – QlikView Server, QlikView Publisher and QlikView Desktop, each playing an important part in designing, developing and implementing almost every QlikView deployment . Each component is used primarily by either an IT professional, a business analyst/developer, or a business user.

                                                      

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Components of the Qlikview Business Discovery Platform

Typical Qlikview Deployment

QlikView Desktop

The QlikView Desktop is a Windows-based desktop tool that is used by business analysts and developers to create a data model and to lay out the graphical user interface (GUI or presentation layer) for QlikView apps. It is within this environment where a developer will use a SQL-like scripting environment (augmented by ‘wizards’) to create the linkages (connection strings) to the source data and to transform the data (e.g. rename fields, apply expressions) so that it can be analyzed and used within the UI, as well as re-used by other QlikView files. The QlikView Desktop is also the environment where all user interface design and user experience is developed in a drag-and-drop paradigm: everything from graphs and tables containing slices of data to multi-tab architectures to application of color scheme templates and company logos is done here.

The file type that is created using the QlikView Desktop is known as a QVW (.qvw, or QlikView file). Upon reload, a QVW can be used to create a data-only QVD (QlikView data) file, which is binary and contains no UI.

QlikView Server (QVS)

The QVS is a server-side product that contains the in-memory analytics engine and which handles all client/server communication between a QlikView client (i.e. desktop, IE plugin, AJAX or Mobile) and the server. It includes a management environment (QlikView Management Console) for providing administrator access to control all aspects of the server deployments (including security, clustering, distribution etc.) and also includes a web server to provide front-end access to the documents within. The web server’s user portal is known as Access Point. (It’s important to note that while the QVS contains its own web server, one can also utilize Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) for this purpose, too). The QVS handles client authorization against existing directory providers (e.g. Microsoft Active Directory, eDirectory) and also performs read and write to ACLs (access control lists) for QVW documents.

QlikView Publisher

The QlikView Publisher is a server-side product that performs two main functions:

1)   It is used to load data directly from data sources defined via connection strings in the source QVW files.

2)   It is also used as a distribution service to reduce data and applications from source QVW files based on various rules (such as user authorization or data access privileges) and to distribute these newly-created documents to the appropriate QlikView Servers or as static PDF reports via email.

Data sources that can be readily accessed by QlikView include standard ODBC or OLEDBcompliant databases, standard flat files such as Microsoft Excel, XML, etc. as well as from systems such as SAP NetWeaver, Salesforce.com, and Informatica.