Greetings.
My name is Steven Taschereau and since 2013, I've had
the responsibility of developing QlikView applications for the clients
of the company where I work.
I feel it is important to note that I am neither a certified QlikView
developer, nor am I a QlikView "consultant". As such, some of the things I tell you
may be inaccurate interpretations of what I perceive to be QlikView
behavior. Should this happen, please, by all means, correct me!
Now wait a second... if I'm writing QlikView apps for my company's clients, then I must be a QlikView consultant, right?
Not quite...
I am a software engineer with 35+ years of experience and I was hired to
develop IVR applications that provide SaaS for our clients. These
applications collect a lot of data; data that is valuable to both our clients and to the company but which we have few ways to present/analyze in a meaningful way.
One day my company licensed/installed
QlikView and I was given the responsibility of developing QlikView apps
to visualize all this data, because of my reputation to figure things
out and get things done. We have some very demanding clients who don't
want to hear that "QlikView doesn't support this or that". They want
what they want. Period. It's my job to make QlikView deliver the
requested features, if at all possible. (It's important to note here that we demand things of QlikView that it wasn't designed to do.)
To that end, I am both developer and designer of our QlikView apps
(it's a small company) and thus work in both the data collection/data
model side and the data visualization side of QlikView development. I
even do a little system management from time to time.
As an engineer, I approach QlikView the way I approach any other "unfamiliar" system; as a black-box. I try to make QlikView do things,
I make note of QlikView's response and then I try something else. Over
time I developed a feeling for the behavior of QlikView that, in my
opinion, is just as valuable as any design/architectural documentation.
Because, truth be told, systems don't always perform as documented. (And I've discovered the QlikView documentation isn't always correct!)
By using the methodology mentioned above, I've developed a pretty
extensive collection of notes, hints, tips and tricks regarding
QlikView.
So why am I writing this blog?
Because, as amazing as QlikView is (and it is amazing), it can also be very frustrating; especially when something that seems straightforward doesn't work as intended and for less than obvious reasons. In addition, many of the QlikView "consultants" I've encountered, while wonderful at creating charts and graphs, exhibit a poor understanding of certain QlikView behaviors. For these reasons, I'd like to share my knowledge in the hopes of changing the status quo.
I hope you find something useful. Legitimate comments and corrections are always welcome.
Regards,
-Steve
(PS. Check my profile for contact information.)
