There may not seem to be a direct connection between these products, but Qlik’s new two-product strategy has got me thinking: perhaps they are more alike than you might think.
A Few of My Favourite Things
If you read this blog regularly you will know that I am a massive fan of QlikView, and am very excited about the future of Qlik Sense. You probably are not aware however that I also love Lego. As a child of the 80’s it played a big part in my childhood and now as a father of two it is great to see my children getting the same enjoyment from it.There is something tactile about Lego and the simple act of snapping two pieces together, and having them fit together perfectly, is a joy.
Both Lego and Qlik have improved my life and can do the same for others. It seems only appropriate therefore to create a blog post that references both.
I have written a subsequent post that follows on to this one, relating to the opportunities presented by interacting with the API in Qlik Sense: Qlik Sense APIs, Mash-Ups and Lego. This adds a further dimension to the Qlik Sense / QlikView debate.
Guided vs. Self Service
With the release of Qlik Sense there appeared to be a bit of an identity / branding challenge for Qlik. Was QlikView being replaced by Sense? Why would you want the old when you can have the new? In a previous blog post I likened them to siblings: most parents would find it hard to admit they have a favourite child.
Qlik announced that the two products were there to fulfil two very different purposes; the Guided Analytics of QlikView and the true Self Service BI of Sense.
As a long-time QlikView developer (who has crafted many an application that guides users to discovery through designing a UI to encourage this) I can see that distinction clearly. I find myself constrained when building apps in Sense, but I can see it is perfect for those that don’t need too much hand-holding to discovery but want to build their own dashboards – without the complicated stuff that QlikView has under the bonnet.
A clear message had been given about why there was a two-product strategy and why you might choose one or the other of Qlik’s products.
But what has that got to do with Lego?
Master Builders vs. Lord Business
Lego has a long history with ebbs and flows in popularity during that time. One of the things that has split opinion is to what extent they should sell kits for which you should follow the instructions to a flawless creation, or whether Lego should only consist of primary coloured square bricks that don’t hinder imagination so that anything can be built.
The two experiences are very different. One allows the child (or parent on their second time around) to give things a try and see what they can come up with, it may work or it may just wind up looking a mess – but hey, at least it’s a mess you designed yourself! The other route gives a much more polished finish. Custom pieces allow the completed article to really look like what it is a model of and, providing you stay inside the lines of the instructions, you will get a toy you can enjoy and play with.
Personally I have always been a little irritated with kits purchased for my children where there are large bits of plastic that can only possibly serve a purpose in the model they were created for. I find this particularly frustrating when trying to recreate an old model and you have to locate the one piece in a box of thousands that will fit. That is even the case with my meticulously sorted Lego storage!Just in case you were in any doubt of the two camps, Lego made it the primary theme of their Lego Movie; an epic tale of the struggle between the master builders who want to craft their own worlds and Lord Business who wants everyone to follow the instructions to a perfect creation.
Two camps are emerging with Qlik products also. There are those who like the ability to build whatever they feel like, with a vast array of blocks to choose from and not too much in the way of rigidity as to how they must be put together. For these Master Builders QlikView is the tool of choice. For those who want a more polished result, a responsive UI on any platform and a specific set of rules on how things must be laid out, Sense is the better choice.
A Question of Right and Wrong?
So, given that there are two distinct ways of experiencing Lego, and two different ways of building on top of the Qlik engine, is one of these ways inherently better than the other? Even though I have my preferences, in both Lego and Qlik software, I would say not.
The creativity that a bag of standard blocks can encourage is great, but without the launch of licensed sets, from the first Star Wars Lego kits to the recent Minecraft ones, Lego may not have survived as a company. It is these licensed sets that are now the money-spinners for the company.
Similarly, as a long term advocate of QlikView, I believe it can deliver on a diverse number of requirements and perform brilliantly, but then I have come across quite a number of train-wreck QlikView applications created by people that can’t harness the myriad of options that are there to make things look good and work well.
Sense on the other hand provides a framework so that everything is displayed in an orderly fashion; if a user follows the simple steps the output will look great. There are definitely cases where one product or approach is better than the other, but an equal number of times where the inverse would be true.
What I feel is important is that we recognise and embrace the differences, and make informed decisions about which product is right for the specific project (or to stretch the metaphor further, that present for your nephew’s sixth birthday).
The Best of Both Worlds
Sometimes with Lego the best creations and play can come from blending bits from various kits: the brand new X-Wing model can take off from a Hoth base constructed from assorted bits of Lego City houses long since destroyed (and a whole chunk of imagination). By only going one way or the other with Lego, various opportunities are missed – the same is, I believe, true of Qlik products.
At a recent event a number of developers were saying that they were keen to use Sense, but couldn’t see themselves moving away from QlikView for building scripts and generating QVDs. I would go further than this, saying that my tool of choice for building most things would still be QlikView, but for gloss and wow factor Sense certainly has the edge. By making the decision about which platform to go for based on the requirement and the audience on a case-by-case basis the best results will be achieved.
There are of course limitations to this, as separate hardware is required to run both Servers at present, cost is going to be a factor. As both products evolve and improve I would hope to see them play better alongside each other. As Lego has its universal system of studs, holes and geometry that means bricks from any set can fit with others, Qlik products are built on essentially the same associative engine. This should mean that taking objects from one platform to another is a possibility – perhaps Sense’s excellent Measure repository being shared with a QlikView 12 instance?
What is clear to me though is that, whether you have a large pile of brightly-coloured plastic or a licence to use a Qlik product there is a toy-box available to you that you can construct fantastic things with, given the right creativity or guidance.
Be prepared to give things a go. If it doesn’t work, break it up and start again, enjoy the process as much as the result and the possibilities are endless.
The same goes for Lego.
Great post Steve,
I feel exactly the same way as you do. From the beginning I loved the “Look and feel” of Qlik Sense and how it approaches to a true self service business discovery tool, but once I started getting deeper into some more techie matters I realized that Qlikview 11 gave me the flexibility to enrich the content of my applications with some other functionalities and, in my personal case, I love to get my hands dirty and Qlikview 11 gives me that possibility in better way than Sense.
I think now the different kind of developers and users have two good options to choose what suits them best.
Thanks Ryuma. I am certainly more excited about showing people the new Sense functionality these days, especially on tablet devices. Takes me back to the original jaw drop expressions when I showed people QlikView. If I was building something for myself though I would still pick QlikView for most situations.
Hi Steve, nice blog. I like the metaphore with Lego, it’s so true. I was (still am) reluctant to the Qlik Sense stuff and now I know why (I’m a Master Builder :-)). Thanks for the insight. Liesbeth
Thanks Liesbeth. I will have to get some badges made up with the slogan “I’m A Qlik Master Builder”…
Steve, I want those as well!
Good explanation. It really helps to understand the difference.
Hi Steve. Brilliant way to explain… it really helps.
I have grinned after reading your article even more now that I’m father of one Lego Master Destroyer (Builder part is on me) and QlikView lover. Fantastic analogy!
Hi Miguel. To extend the analogy, I have some customers with internal development teams that serve as Master Destroyers to my Qlik applications! I always try to keep a copy out of reach of the internal developers – for when they use the ‘it was like that when I found it’ excuse.
Good post, Steve. I love the comparison with Lego – am in the same spot with my little one and hope I’ll find the opportunity to knit some Qlikview into his life soon? Surely 4 isn’t too young?;)
But I hear the pain of developers who want to find a way to use Sense but as yet haven’t had the opportunity. The simple truth is as you’ve said, they both serve quite different purposes. I’ve been working on some dashboards for an NHS trust and came realised the dashboard we wanted to build would need to find a variety of screen sizes from mobile to a 60 inch LED screen… It seemed the perfect answer was Sense with responsive resizing.
But equally as a developer, I love the freedom of the dashboard screen on QV and the control that can give you… so I’m excited to see what Qlik produce once they realise they need to take the best of both and put into one product.
Hope you and Neil are well!
Your never too young to start learning QlikView: https://twitter.com/quintelligence/status/276066479554842624
There have been numerous times I have used QlikView to help my children with their homework.
The addition of the KPI object into the latest version of Sense I think is a great acknowledgement that dynamic text is as important on a dashboard as any chart object. Hopefully standard text boxes that you can put expressions in will follow in a later release. Trying to line up pixels that show correctly in both IE Plugin and Ajax is not something I will miss doing – once Sense or QlikView 12 (or 13…) if fully responsive and fully featured.
Good Analogy! But Qlik Sense is more like MindStorms. Is the connection with web technologies and that means there is no limit to integrate web APIs ( GPS and other sensors, third party platforms APIs… whatever). Qlik Sense will explode fueled by community.
Hi Gus,
Nice – I like the idea of Qlik Mindstorms. You only have to look to YouTube to see some fantastic creations made by Lego enthusiasts around the world, using their robotics kit. The same should indeed be true of Sense, and it is already happening.
[…] many people will know Shane Gibson is currently very into Lego. Having found this blog QlikView, Qlik Sense, and Lego I think I might know […]
Great Blog Steve……!!! 2 Thumbs Up….
Thanks Saurabh.
[…] https://www.quickintelligence.co.uk/qlikview-vs-qlik-sense/ […]
Hi Steve,
This is a great article. It summarizes my thoughts about Qlikview vs. Qliksense. It has been a while since you wrote this article. Any change in your position?
Thanks
Hi Santoshi,
Obviously I have spent a lot more time in Qlik Sense since I wrote this article, and I have grown to like it more. However, I still feel that there are too many fundamental features that have been left out (in comparison to QlikView) to make it truly great. I’ve recently been discussing this on Qlik Community, should you want to take a look:
http://bit.ly/1Tp6L6B
I was a bit concerned when I saw the new video promoting Qlik Sense 3, the UI for the new Associative Data Modelling function (with bubbles glooping about on the screen) looks like they have put more time into funky UI than the core functionlality. This video can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLEmoc0OQ10
Hi Steve,
I went through your article.. Thank you for clarifying this. Actually I am new to Qlikview community or this whole Qlik community in general. I had recently started learning Qlikview through tutorials thinking it would help in my Business Analyst career but I was wondering should I rather focus on Qlik Sense to meet BA needs. I do love write SQL queries and play around with database a lot, will I be able to do that with Qlik Sense? Please suggest,
Given that you have not spent time learning QlikView previously then it will certainly be worth investing time in learning Sense as it is going to be the future of the product. The load script element of the two products is identical – so you have all the same power to manipulate the data on the way into the product.
Currently Sense is not yet an easy to use self service BI Tool for the business user, also the basic drag & drop functionality has to be improved a lot
I think that Qlik Cloud is potentially showing signs of making things simpler – provided you can get over the leap of uploading your data to someone else’s computer. Sense Desktop is not too difficult, and Sense III has more jazzy features that will make the data load process more fluid (not yet released at time of writing though). The server is understandably more involved to set up – due to the level of granularity that things can be set up to – for a user accessing the site in a browser though it couldn’t be simpler – if an app is ready for them with data loaded and stored measures and objects created for them ready to drop onto their own page.
Yes, there are improvements to be made – but each version does seem to be better than the last.
I have to say, after using Qlikview for a long time and now switching over to Qlik Sense… And now occasionally going back to view. I find myself missing features that are available in Sense script editor and debugger ..
– firstly I don’t need to run script in sense to work out when there is an error, it highlights a missing comma before the script is even run.
Secondly – the debugger logs as you run the script. I don’t have to remember exactly what my issue was. The log is there, I can see variables being created on the fly.
Thirdly – I now find myself actually preferring the data connection methodology in Sense rather than view. It is much cleaner and easier to move apps between environments.
Fourthly- if an error occurs during a debug load, I can change the script where it paused. There is a lot less jumping around.
I am largely convinced now that the majority of reasons to stick with Qlikview are based simply on personal preference and ‘I’ve done it before that way’ mentality rather than what is actually a better approach. This is just talking about the script editor, and there are certainly some more functionality that should be available in Qlik sense front end visualisations, but it’s getting there.
Hi Adam,
Many thanks for your thoughts. I have to say that I agree with most of your comments, but there are still little things that Sense can’t do that people plain expect to be there.
The feature where you can edit your script when there is a break point on it is fantastic – I only found it by accident a couple of weeks back. I wasn’t even aware of the script being produced – will have to check that out later. Syntax highlighting in QlikView picks up many things, but not all, I find in Sense I often miss the errors found (not that I make errors!) in the split second between clicking save and load – I just need to remember to take a breath between clicking these two buttons. The Library function is just forcing people to do in Sense what I have done in QlikView for years with include files – but I can see it is nice. Locked script and going back to the wizard irritates me slightly (an extra click to do what I want often) but I can see it is good for many users.
It is just such a shame that some of the great stuff in Sense can’t be retrofitted back to QlikView, so the two product strategy (I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere) could be a reality rather that something to appease the large existing user base.
Sense certainly has a nicer feel to it, and I do enjoy using it – particularly Qlik Cloud on my tablet when out and about and I am just playing with data.
Adam,
I am a bit surprised by the advantages you mentionned. They definitely help the developers but not the end users. And that’s really the limit in Sense, the fact that we can’t provide much of what the user is expecting without extensions. All my clients saw Sense, liked some new features but don’t think it worth compared to the functionalities they would lose
The distinction is whether you want the users to help themselves, or have a developer help them. If there is someone who understands data, and design and is meticulous producing an app for an end user – then QlikView gives them the features they need to deliver that out of the box. If you are wanting to provide a blank canvas to a user and expect them to create what they need for themselves then they may need the simplicity of the Sense UI – but they shouldn’t expect to create everything that was possible in QlikView (if created by a skilled developer).
The thing that is striking me more of late is that Sense can do a lot more of the really involved stuff, but then you need to get a different type of developer – not just one that knows a tool but one that can create from scratch. Possibilities are then limitless – which makes up for the ‘out of the box’ shortcomings that are apparent when using Sense after being used to QlikView. The problem is then that you have one tool with two very very different propositions – that is a difficult one to get across to people.
First Impression of Qlik Sense
Steve, I haven’t used Qlik Sense much, but in the first week of Jun 16, I tried to straight table and a bar chart. Here were my first impressions
I. Straight table
What I liked about QS: :
1. The Grid
What I did not Like:
1, Slower to add columns: In Qlikview, it was a lot easier to add dimensions. I could use an interface, and select several columns to drag from one window on the right, to a second window on the left. In QS, I have to look up and/or type every column one at a time. It is much slower.
2. Column labels talk longer: In QV, I could just enter a label. In QS, my label changes are not saved unless I type-in the label AND hit return. Again, slower. It takes two actions in QS, one in QV.
[Question to developers: if the left menu is a formed based entry, could there not be an equivalent of a JavaScript ‘onblur’ event that updates the label name in the table object definition, rather than hitting a return?]
3. Fonts and Style: I could not find a way change my fonts or style in QS. :0(
II. In terms of a bar chart
What I liked
1. Nice color scheme
What I did not like:
1. Custom colors? Perhaps there is a way to do this, but couldn’t find it (in the short time I looked)
2. Side-sliding context bar: I really don’t like the sliding window bar that appears (when an object extends longer than the height of an object window). I wish I could disable this or at least choose standard window slider controls.
3. Lack of controls (or I haven’t learned them yet). In QV, I could change the expression titles or hide them; I could shift objects around (Cntl-Shft-R); I could change the style; I could turn off the grids; I could use angles for labels; I could force to zero (or not), etc…. in general, a lot more control.
So my first impression… a developer has a lot more control in QV – and with your comments above, echo the point.. ** .I really feel constrained using QS.
By the way, I really wish Qlik would allow ways to customize the screens via HTML and CSS … and even use a scripting languages (Python? Perl?) … and allow ways to manipulate the HTML/CSS/JavaScript manually [rather than creating/adding extensions… I find most extensions really fragile].
My two cents,
Jarrell
Thank you for your thoughts. There is a lot more that you can do with Sense, once you get into doing mash-ups. I believe that you can override some of the CSS in a mashup to do some of the things you are mentioning – but this is not something I have tried as yet. Overall though, I think your sentiments echo what most people who have come from QlikView feel about Sense.
Those who have not come from a QlikView background tend to love it though!
This a very clear analogy of the differences, well done. I think that the deciding factor when choosing should be who is going to be the end user. If you are developing for other analysts the sense is probably the way to go. However in my experience I tend to be developing apps for managers and users who are not analysts but need to understand the KPI’S for their business area and the detail behind it
Hi Adam. There are numerous considerations as to which platform to go for. I think with Sense improving with each major release it is the logical choice for new sites. It’s hard if you are used to all of the features of QlikView to live without them, but the advantages of responsive design and platform agnostic development are worth considering.
At version 3.0 it is possible to have QlikView apps appear in the Sense Hub (but only if you have Publisher) hopefully there will be further integrations in future releases. Having both products run on a single server will be a big moment, and perhaps it will not need to be a choice.
I am nowhere near the expert that many posters here are, but I have developed with QV for the last five years, so I feel I have some facility with it.
I was asked in June to design a commission statement generator in Qlik Sense for a retailer. I had never actually used Sense before, but was sure I could pick it up quickly. In the event, I found using Sense much more frustrating than QV, because so many things I wanted to do seemed to be impossible. Since I didn’t know the data model, I wasn’t sure what certain fields were, or how they were derived. But the tools that I would use in QV to examine the data – straight tables and table boxes, where I could see 10-15 fields at a time, and understand the relationships between them – weren’t available in Sense, and the inability to resize fields so I could see them all on the screen at one time made me just throw up my hands in despair. Very little work was actually done from June to September!
Eventually, I realized that since I could import the QVD into QV, I could do the development there, clean it up and debug it, and then create a new presentation layer in Sense. Since then, the project has advanced quickly.
So my take on the question is somewhat different; I think Sense is fine if you know what you want, and you know your own data. If neither is true, then I think QV gives you more flexibility and tools, and you always have the option of transferring the presentation layer to Sense.
Hi Kevin,
I was thinking about this recently, as I was penning a future blog post regarding data profiling in QlikView. The techniques I describe would not work in Sense, and there is no clear way of doing similar. Whilst Sense is really coming of age now (much more than when I wrote the above post), I strongly feel that there is merit in purchasing a QlikView Desktop licence for one analyst, even if your organisation is going all out for Sense, as there are some things it is simply better at. The problem is whether Qlik make this option possible, by continuing to allow people to buy single Desktop licences of QlikView.
I’m now finding I switch between Sense and QlikView more these days, but there are things that I will always use QlikView for – at the moment.
Hi Steve,
Thank you for pointing out nicely the differences, especially for people like me who have to shift from QV to QS.
As for now, following Qlik’s new business model, we are all aware that for new SMB customers, we are “forced” to use QS.
Like some people who commented above, most of the cases we develop for manages and users, and not for analysts.So I’m not sure how a “standard” QV project should be delivered now with QS.
Thank you.
Hi Dafi, Thank you for your comment.
Customers who have already invested in QlikView can rest assured it will be supported for years to come – this will include the ability to purchase additional licences. Qlik are also committed to scalability, reliability and performance updates for the product, even if the UI is not changing much between releases. Existing clients are not being forced to do anything.
For a new customer however, the removal of Small Business Edition does make the cost of entry to QlikView potentially prohibitive. This is less of a worry now than it was when I write this article, as Qlik Sense has really matured as a product since then, and can deal with many of the use cases that QlikView was previously required for.
How does qlikview/qliksense compare to TIBCO spotfire? I used spotfire in my preview job and my new job has qlikview (not sure if they have sense also). I was going to suggest getting spotfire as the ability to create very visual interactive dashboards for reporting/KPI’s etc was easy to sell to users. How do the qlik products compare and can you provide annotation on the reports created?
Hi Ian, Many thanks for visiting the site and for your question. Unfortunately I have not used SpotFire, so can not provide that comparison. If your new company uses QlikView though I am reasonably sure that they will be happy with it and what it provides. QlikView (and even more so Sense) are designed for on screen analysis, rather than reports, but certainly both have the ability to annotate. A plugin for Sense, by a company called Narrative Sciences, auto generates annotations based on the data and algorithms that pick out the salient points. If they have Sense then it allows them to create “stories” out of the box, these are like a slide deck where snapshots of charts can be combined with narrative added by the person creating the story.
Obviously I am biased, but I would recommend that you get to know QlikView and what it can do and then decide for yourself whether you still feel SpotFire may be a good addition for that business.
I’m curious to know, whether 2 years on from your original post, have your thoughts on Qlik Sense versus QlikView changed at all? Do you think there are better customisation and analytical tools available in the latest version of Qlik Sense, compared to 2 years ago?
Thanks.
Hi Katrina, thank you for the comment and for the reminder that I have been meaning to add a link to my newer article where I answer just that: Qlik Sense APIs, Mash-Ups and Lego (still using Lego as an analogy). Qlik Sense has been evolving at a startling rate and improves at each version. The fact that users can now do things with the engine, and build pretty much anything that they can imagine, opens up many opportunities. Qlik must remember though that the majority of people want something that is fantastic out of the box – I think that properly certified and supported extensions by Qlik (or third party vendors) is the next step in that evolution.
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Excellent blog to get the best from both siblings!
Great Post. Comparison with Lego drives the point very clearly!
Thanks!
Excellent blog, many thanks. I was wondering… as someone who is new to Qlik Sense, have the majority of the issues (or lack of features from Qlik View) been address with the subsequent upgrades since this article was written three years ago?
Thanks again!
Hi Craig. Sense has been evolving at quite a rate and each release brings new features. Parity with QlikView is certainly something that has been addressed. Where this has not been done by the core releases it is a rich seam for extension developers to mine. Of particular note is the VizLib extensions, their Text Area ticks a lot of boxes for getting bespoke content into Sense, and their latest extension implements Alternate States – a key feature in QlikView not exposed through the Sense UI. However, rather than focussing on what Sense can do (or not do) of what QlikView does the smarter thing to look at is all the things that it does that QlikView does not – drag and drop chart creation and responsive design being the two most important.
Hi Steve,
Nice comparison. I am just curious – For an end user how much can qlik sense provide the support he/she needs. Being a finance guy, I find these new tools bit overwhelming for someone without a technical background.
Hi Anoop. Thanks for your comment. Sense has many features which make it easier for non technical users to make discoveries in their data. The new Insights feature being a great case in point. That said, there is no replacement for having an expert preparing the data and building the initial views in Sense. It’s not essential, but it can move you much further forward much quicker. Obviously as an expert consultant I am slightly biased though! Hope that answers your question?
Hi Steve,
First of all thanks for a nice blog post.
I used in the pass QlikView and now I m using Qlik Sense.
Sincerely I can not find any thing that I can do as developer in QV that I can not do in QS. If you know a practical example where QV is better than QS please let me know.
Since Qlik Sense is very easy to use, and even a not IT guy could build his own Dashboard, I have the feel that some seniors developers of QV tend to say it is more complex and complet cause its difficult to admit that they Job are maybe in Risk.
Nobody going to pay you to make something that its easy to do or that many people know.
I worked like ibm cognos Report Studio developer, in a company with people that were saying Cognos its a much better tool than QV. Why did they say such a think ? Well, some of them were working in cognos for 10 years, its difficult to admit that the tool in which you spend years of your life ist not anymore usefull.
Its happening the same to the Qv developers ?
I would like to be wrong(because I self work like Qlik developer) and really would like discovered that QV its a much more complex tool than QS that enable you to build much more complex and better Dashboards.
Hi Enrique, thanks for the comment.
If you look at the data and time of this post you will see it was written a couple of years back – and much has changed since. Sense has come on in leaps and bounds, and it is now where I spend most of my time working (you will see this reflected in my most recent blog posts). We have not brought on a new QlikView client in quite some time now. That said though, there is a level of customisation (using variables and actions) available in QlikView which is not there in Qlik Sense, without adding in extensions.
The fact of the matter is that there is still much scope for consultancy in Sense, as the creating of load scripts, data models and expressions still requires expert help to do more than a simple drag and drop build of an application. The risk is (and has always been since I have been around Qlik products) that the marketing machine sells the software as being super simple to use, but makes no mention that understanding data takes a bit of skill.
There is definitely space for both products, but many fewer barriers to Sense adoption than there were a couple of years back.