5 min read
New: Qlik New Authoring Experience
A lot is changing in the world of Qlik, especially now with the Qlik Cloud platform and all the new functionality being added at a rapid pace. One thing, however, had remained unchanged ever since the introduction of Qlik Sense in 2015: the interface used to build a dashboard. Sure, an occasional new button or sub-menu got added, but the basics stayed the same for all those years. Until Qlik launched the “new authoring experience” in early July 2022. With this release, Qlik thoroughly overhauls the user experience to better enable end users to develop dashboards themselves, regardless of their level of Qlik knowledge. In this blog we explain what's different and where to find the new buttons.
First, the good news for anyone who'd like to keep developing the “old” way: with a simple toggle at the top of the sheet, you can turn on “advanced options”, which basically means switching back to the old, familiar way of working.
In any case, the new interface isn't yet available by default at the moment. On August 9, the feature will be automatically enabled on all Qlik Cloud tenants. If you want to use this new feature before then, your tenant administrator will need to enable it in the management console.
You'll find this option under “Settings”->“Feature preview”->“Create chart and default sheet behaviour”. Once you enable the feature here, it's immediately activated for all users. Keep in mind that you can't turn it off again afterward!
To help users get started, Qlik has made a number of resources available. There's an instructional video on YouTube, an interactive walk-through, and even a training to help you get going. Of course, we'll also help you get started right here in this blog. Below you'll see the new interface, where we've numbered the different sections:
#1 Fields and master items
You'll then immediately see the different values of that field as well as how often they occur. By checking or unchecking the boxes, you filter the entire dashboard on that value. You can drag the fields from the column onto a visualization, just like you're used to in the old interface, or drag them onto box 2 under “Data”.
#2 Field value
As soon as you drag a field onto this box, you can choose whether to treat the field value as a dimension or an expression, or let Qlik make a suggestion itself.
If you drop it on measure, or if it's a field suitable for creating a measure, Qlik will automatically suggest an aggregation (usually in the form of a sum or count). You can then still give the KPI or dimension value formatting and a label by clicking the > icon:
#3 Visualization
As soon as you've dropped a field onto the “data” area (2), Qlik will automatically suggest a visualization based on the type of fields. If you want to decide the visualization type yourself, you can use the icons in this panel to pick a different chart type.
#4 Filter chart
Where you used to always have to work with set analysis if you wanted to filter a chart, this has now been made much simpler. By dragging a field onto this area, you can filter the chart on values from that field.
You can check off fields you do or don't want to include, search for values containing a partial text string (for example, all countries starting with a U), compare values with other fields, or ignore all other selections in the dashboard. When you've applied one or more filters to a visualization, a bit of text appears at the bottom of the chart explaining what filtering has been applied to it. That way it's always clear what is and isn't included.
#5 Chart formatting
Once the basics of your chart are in place, you can adjust the chart's formatting to your liking in area 5. You'll find many of the options here that you're also used to from the old way of working, although certainly not all options can be found here. For example, the conditional display option and showing reference lines are missing. If you still want to use those options, you'll need to switch to the advanced options.
#6 Table view
In area 6 you'll find a view of the tables in your data model. Very handy if you're still exploring the dataset, since you can see exactly what kind of values are in the columns. You can use a drop-down menu to choose which table is shown. An extra handy feature is that you can also click within this table to make selections on the dashboard. The downside of this table preview is that it takes up quite a bit of screen space, but fortunately it can be hidden or brought back with the press of the button with the table icon just above the area.
#7 Second visualization
If you want to add a second visualization to your dashboard, there are two areas on the right and at the bottom with a + symbol. As soon as you press the +, a new visualization is added in that spot. By dragging, you can adjust the position of the different visualizations, but Qlik determines the height and width of the chart itself. If you want to adjust that yourself, you'll need to switch to advanced mode. If you then switch back again, you'll see that the + signs have changed into little locks, and you can no longer add elements from the new mode either. Clicking the locks removes this restriction and Qlik takes over the layout again.
Want to know more?
In summary, Qlik has made the interface a lot more intuitive for new users who don't yet have much experience, but it also definitely includes a number of handy new tricks that help even seasoned Qlik developers quickly set up a new dashboard. Despite this intuitive way of working, are you still unsure whether you too can put together a polished dashboard? Or would you rather get a full grip on all the options in advanced mode? Then take a look at our Qlik Sense Designer training via the button below.
“Senior Consultant”