We have long been big fans of Qlik Sense Cloud. You can build full BI apps, in your browser at no cost – and I find I can start it up quicker than Sense Desktop. Recently a new button has appeared in the UI, heralding the arrival of Qlik Sense Cloud Plus.
This is an old post and pretty much everything in it has been superseded. Leaving it up as a reminder of the rapid evolution of this excellent tool over the past several years.
What Is Qlik Sense Cloud
For those of you who have not yet tried it out, Qlik Sense Cloud is a version of Sense you can run in a browser, with no installation. You simply need to sign up for a Qlik account (if you don’t already have one) at https://qlikid.qlik.com/#/register. Then simply sign in and then go to https://www.qlikcloud.com/.
From here you can upload data sets and build applications over them. You can also load data from the free sets that are available from Qlik DataMarket.
Qlik have provided a number of Getting Started resources which will help you with building applications. Once created you can share applications or individual charts with others, as we did in our previous blog post.
What Is Qlik Sense Cloud Plus
Today I received in my YouTube feed a new video from Mike Tarallo at Qlik, announcing some new features in the Qlik Sense Cloud, for a subscription fee. You can watch the video here:
[Video No Longer Available]
As yet I have not been able to find a huge amount more information on the service, or what direction it may take in the future, but it is an exciting step forward – opening up more functionality at a very low cost.
Where Do I Sign Up?
To sign up you simply log into the standard Qlik Sense Cloud and click the Upgrade button at the top of the screen:
From here you get a screen showing you what extra you get with Qlik Cloud Plus, more on that in a bit:
At the bottom of the Cloud Plus column is a Subscribe button, which takes you to a payment screen.
This screen describes the subscription model, i.e. that the amount you pay will be taken monthly until you cancel the subscription, there are T&Cs to accept (as you would expect) and then the option of PayPal or Credit Card payment:
The PayPal process was simple and painless, just like buying anything else on-line. There are a couple more sets of terms to accept on the next screen, before you opt to process the payment. A confirmation screen is shown and you are offered to go back to Qlik Sense cloud:
Back in the Cloud you can see the confirmation that the Plus payment has gone through, with a changed icon:
What Do You Get Extra?
The advantages of the Plus subscription, according to the screen as you sign up, are: an Unlimited number of shares, apps of up to 75MB in size (three times more than the free version), a whopping 10GB of storage for data files and access to the Essentials package on Qlik Data Market. I’ve not yet explored what extra I get in the Data Market subscription, but I am looking forward to looking around.
The two major limitations of the free Qlik Sense Cloud are still evident though. Whilst I can now share my Cloud with as many people as I want (provided they have also signed up for a Qlik account) it is still the case with Plus that all individuals you share with can see everything that you share with anyone – more granular sharing is a must to make this really useful. Hopefully once the subscription model has bedded in there may be a separate tier where this is possible. Similarly, you are still constrained to using data from Data Market or files you have manually uploaded – a simple enough task but not something that can be automated. The ability to access files from outside the Sense Cloud, or to automate the upload, would really add to the convenience of the tool.
The lifting of some of the limitations around size and sharing makes Sense Cloud more than the sandbox it was previously. It doesn’t quite go far enough though to replace a proper Qlik Sense implementation for any serious use, as far as I can see.
This makes the third column of the features comparison window very interesting though… All of the things which are part of a full on-premise Sense install are present and correct, and there is the option to have all that in the Cloud. All limitations around document size and storage space are gone. As is the need to upload data to the Cloud first, it would appear. In order to get a full Sense Server in the cloud you need to contact Qlik to find out more. The pricing for this hasn’t yet found it’s way to partners, as far as I can see. My guess is that it will be in line with getting an on-premise licence, but if it is getting hardware and managing boxes that is stopping you moving forward with Sense then this may be a good way forward for you.
Any More Information?
I have been hunting around for more details on the new subscription offerings, but not been finding much. When I find more publicly available information I will add it to the comments on this post. If anyone else can offer more insights then please do share them below also.
Whilst this upgrade may not be as impressive as I thought it might when I saw the title of the video in my email earlier (I’m always an optimist!) it is another sign that Qlik are forward looking and are innovating at an ever increasing pace.
This can only be a good thing for us all.
The third option would seem to be a full on-premise Sense install as is available now. That could be run in the cloud if you get a cloud server separately. To me it does not look like o future offering but the existing full Sense offering.
Hi Anders,
You could say that of QlikView as well, that you could simply get cloud box and install on there. However, I still get a lot of people ask if there is an option to run QlikView in the cloud. This is usually because they want a subscription model for the licences, a lower cost of entry and not to have to worry about hardware, patching etc.. Sense is obviously far more ‘cloud ready’, as you can build without the need for a desktop client, and I feel that there will be some smaller businesses that would like the subscription model with no hardware for Sense also. In fact, I could see we could use it for public demos – if the pricing model was right.
I suppose that the other difference with Sense is that there is no overhead for purchasing the Server software, so from that point of view the lower cost of entry is possible with a cloud machine and a handful of tokens. I still think the Cloud Subscription model is an exciting first step into something bigger and better though.
Steve
Thanks Steve. Yes, I fully agree with you that this is still not good enough to be used in serious businesses. It misses the option to secure apps between consumers and to remove the obstacle of having to have data reloaded into apps available in the QlikCloud. Why, if data are present in an app anyhow. But, those are still early days, since the first version was made available in September last year, I think. My organization is interested in moving certain things to Qlik Cloud, but with those two issues sorted out. Cheers
Hi Nenad,
My assumption is that the need to upload data first is in order to make it possible to ensure there is no malicious content on the server. If loading from a Web source, a change to the source could cause an app to fail causing issues on the server (though I expect each users space is in it’s own sandbox). The manual upload also prevents people from using too much bandwidth with too frequent reloads. The way around this is to, as cloud machine providers do, charge for bandwidth – so you have to consider this when setting up reload schedules.
Regarding the sharing, this feels like it is there simply to ensure that users have to move to the full version to be able to sensibly use it in a business – where data security is paramount. Hopefully if the low-cost subscription model is adopted then further tiers will be introduced.
Steve
Love the idea for Qlik Cloud and think that apart from Sense itself this should be given development priority. It really need to support extensions, reload, some API support (like uploading data) etc.
Like you Stefan I enjoy what is on offer here. There is always something satisfying about pulling out a tablet among friends and creating something on the fly.
There has been some discussion around this post on Twitter, including this exchange:
Great to see hints from Qlik insiders that this is something that is going to evolve and get better over time. As things happen I will post updates on this blog.
Also discovered on Twitter is the fact that the app size limit has changed from the limit stated above.
Hi Steve,
Do you know is there a possibility with Qlik Sense Cloud Plus to share the app with other people without their registration?
The free one doesn’t have this possibility as I can see
Hi Sergey,
Thanks for your comment. All the different flavours of Sense Cloud require that the user is invited. In Cloud and Cloud Plus you have an Shared area which you can share with a number of people (more on Plus) but they can all see everything in your shared area. A formal announcement should be out soon about Qlik Sense Business – which looks very excellent for sharing different content with different users.
The best you can do with putting content out for people to view without registering is to share an object, which gives a partially interactive chart – but it doesn’t connect back to a live data model and it is not selectable.
Hope that helps.
Excellent Steve, thank you for all the information you always provide.
One question, for example If I create and suscribe to Qlik Cloud Plus using my account and mail, for example 3 month later i want to change the mail or the account of the owner of the qlik cloud plus? what are the correct things to do?
down the user and create a new one and the sing plus? and the all qvf that were sharing with my users?
thanks a lot
Fernando K.
Hi Fernando. Sense Cloud and Sense Cloud Plus is tied to your Qlik login (which you use for Qlik Community etc.). I’ve just had a quick look at whether you can change your email address on there, and it doesn’t seem to be an option. From Qlik Sense Cloud, you can download any app to a local .qvf file, which can then be uploaded into a different Qlik Sense Cloud account. Personally, I would look to get in touch with Qoncierge and see if you can get them to change the address on your account rather than trying to migrate to a new one. Hope that helps?
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