E-mergo Tools Bundle for Qlik Sense

By choosing Qlik Sense, users have a BI platform that offers more than what you find out-of-the-box. Around Qlik Sense there's an ecosystem of extensions and themes that can extend the software's functionality. To do exactly this, E-mergo now presents the 'E-mergo Tools Bundle'. This is a set of extensions that helps us and our clients get more out of Qlik Sense.

Why this bundle?

Developments at Qlik never stand still. Yet there are sometimes wishes for setting up a good dashboard that aren't possible in Qlik Sense by default. For a number of clients, we've already developed extensions that made such specific wishes possible. With the E-mergo Tools Bundle, we've now created a set of extensions that can meet a number of basic needs of our own consultants and our clients.

A second reason to develop this bundle is to further enrich our knowledge of Qlik Sense. The product contains a large number of APIs with which developers can put the power of Qlik Sense to use in previously unimagined ways. The E-mergo Tools Bundle uses some of these APIs, and it can make the work of our consultants simpler and more efficient. Now we know more about these possibilities, and we can create even more value with this wonderful BI platform.

The E-mergo Tools Bundle

The E-mergo Tools Bundle is a set of five extensions, briefly explained below. An extensive description of each of the extensions can be found in the documentation (included in the download of the bundle below).

1 E-mergo App Object Importer

This extension makes it possible to copy elements from other dashboards into the current dashboard. This extension can therefore only be used when developing a dashboard and has no visual element for the dashboard user. The following 'app objects' can be imported:

• Sheets
• Master items. This applies to dimensions, measures, and visualizations alike.
• Alternate states
• Variables
• These are only copied for the current user of the dashboard.

Although technically possible, copying elements from a dashboard is currently not supported by Qlik Sense. This makes this extension very powerful and a solution for a large number of scenarios where a developer wants to reuse elements from other apps.

2 E-mergo Buttons

With Qlik's Dashboard bundle, Qlik Sense users have had access to a button visualization for a while now. This allows you to perform actions after the dashboard user clicks the button. In our opinion, the possibilities of that are still somewhat limited, which is why we made our own button. The E-mergo Buttons extension has a large functional overlap with the existing button visualization, but has a number of distinguishing additions. The most important are:

• The ability to show multiple buttons in one visualization. This lets you make better use of the space in an object and use the buttons more effectively as a navigation menu.
• The color of each button can be set from a preset, based on the color picker, or with an expression.
• Each button can be shown conditionally based on an expression.
• The set of actions is more extensive:
  • Select adjacent values. This lets you select the next or previous value of a field. This always takes the currently selected value into account. An example is 'browsing' through years or months in the data model this way.
  • Select pareto values. This lets you select field values that correspond to the pareto set belonging to a chosen measure expression. This functionality already existed in QlikView, but not yet in Qlik Sense.
  • Start reload. If the right permissions are set, this lets you reload the data model of the current dashboard.
  • Start reload task. If the right permissions are set, this lets you start a reload task. This isn't available in Qlik Sense Desktop.
  • Set theme. This lets you change the theme of the current session in the dashboard. An example is letting the user choose a color scheme adapted for colorblind users, or a Dark Theme, for instance.
• Instead of a static set of buttons, you can choose to have buttons automatically generated in dynamic mode based on an expression. The generated set of buttons then uses values found by the expression (labels, color code, etc.) and uses the same action type.
• The navigation options have been extended with an option to navigate to another dashboard and sheet.

3 E-mergo Divider

This visualization presents a simple line. It's used as a divider between different visualizations in the dashboard, to create a separation between left and right or top and bottom. In the extension's settings, you can determine the orientation, width, and color of the line.

4 E-mergo Table Inspector

When developing a dashboard, it regularly happens that the developer wants insight into the full fields and structure of a table from the data model. This extension provides that insight by showing the full table once the desired data table is chosen. This can be done without having to select each individual field. Choosing other data tables takes two clicks, columns in the table can be removed/added, and changes in the data model are automatically synchronized. All actions are available in the extension's context menu. Converting to a regular table works the same as with any other visualization. Our own consultants are very enthusiastic about this extension, because it used to be a slow, manual job to do this for different data tables.

5 E-mergo Triggers

This extension makes it possible to perform actions in response to events in the dashboard. Because only the actions are relevant, the extension has no visual element for the dashboard user. The set of actions and navigation options is the same as that of the E-mergo Buttons extension. What's special, however, is the moment at which these actions are executed: not by clicking a button, but by one of the following things happening or being made to happen:

• Making a field selection
• Removing a field selection
• Making selections so that an expression comparison is true
• Changing the value of a variable
• Entering a sheet
• A number of seconds has elapsed

With these options, you can, for example, set selections when entering a sheet. Another example is automatically browsing between sheets by using the next-sheet navigation option after 60 seconds have elapsed. Another scenario is automatically browsing through a time dimension, such as year or month, allowing you to visualize how the data changes without having to make the selections yourself. The possibilities of this extension are greater than we can currently foresee, so we're curious what our consultants and other users will make of it!

Conditions

The extensions mentioned in this bundle are offered free of charge to E-mergo clients. The extensions are also included in Qlik Branch, where the Qlik community shares extensions and knowledge. The code of the extensions has been placed on GitHub. Here, anyone can download the extensions, and with an account you can also report and discuss bugs. The MIT license that comes with each extension gives users of the extension the ability to use and modify the code as they see fit. It also frees E-mergo from any liability for any damage that may result from the use of the extensions.

Because the E-mergo Tools Bundle is used by our own consultants and clients, E-mergo guarantees that the extensions will, as far as possible, be maintained to keep working with every new version of Qlik Sense. Requests for new features can be submitted to support@e-mergo.nl, but E-mergo reserves the right to decide how to follow up on these at its own discretion.

Future of the bundle

With the E-mergo Tools Bundle, we've created a set of extensions that provides our consultants and clients with a number of basic needs. Because we determine the development of these extensions ourselves, we can respond quickly to bugs or urgently needed extensions if necessary. This bundle may grow in the future, or features may be added. Although we still have a few ideas on the shelf, we don't have a detailed roadmap. Moreover, we don't intend to build full data visualizations that extend Qlik Sense's visualization capabilities. For clients who do have a need for that, E-mergo has entered into a partnership with VizLib. This party offers a full package of additional visualizations and extensions for Qlik Sense.

Do you have a wish to extend the possibilities of Qlik Sense with extensions yourself? For questions about the possibilities of VizLib for your organization, or about building a specific solution, get in touch with one of our account managers.

Written by Laurens Offereins
Qlik Consultant

Download the bundle via the form!