Qlik Sense Reviews

We built a reporting platform across the organization. The business needed people with Qlik knowledge to develop the solution. As Qlik is Self-Service oriented, even business people can create their own quick solutions. We are using a proper QDF structure and versioning system, which gives us many benefits such as reusability, backup availability, control versioning, etc. We created best practices for development purposes. Our community is comprised of several hundreds of users, and it works like a charm!

There have been always requirements for reporting. At the very beginning, the only way we could report the data was via SQL and Excel. Now, there is a robust but flexible reporting platform that gives lots of opportunities to the end users, and the solutions are still integrated with other systems like Collibra, SageMaker, Airflow, etc. 

We would like to start with big data processing and shift it a bit ahead. We have discovered it is possible to have a data-driven organization as almost all decisions are based on data from this platform.

It is mainly easy to use. It is simple to develop, which is good. However, on the other hand, there is a lack of functionality. 

The self-service capability allows even less IT-oriented people to build their solution as quickly as possible for their next meeting in several hours. The ETL is another benefit of this tool as it is not the standard functionality of reporting tools. You can manipulate and clean the data directly in the tool without dependency on a DB team.

They need to keep it as simple as possible but include as much advanced functionality as possible by positioning all the objects on the page, changing colors for all the objects, improving sheets actions, etc. 

I really like the new UI, which is sadly similar to Power BI. Why is there a simple mode for something that is simple at the beginning? I would add more capabilities first into advanced mode. Pixel-perfect solutions are still required, yet not possible in Qlik right now.

I've used the solution for five years.

We used QlikView, however, it was too old and unsupported.

We'd like it if they could provide a discount.

We looked into Spotfire, PowerBI, and Tableau.

I was working for a power utility company, so our primary use case for Qlik Sense was consumption data and customer billing.

Qlik Sense is essentially a web-based tool even though it's on-prem – you're working off an HTML page – so it's pretty quick. Your processing speed does not matter because you're using a lot of stuff through the web. That's great because it brings down the cost in regards to hardware.

At the same time, learning the language is quite easy. It's not SQL, it's not Python, it's natural database language, so you can pick up the usage pretty easily.

There is room for improvement in the storytelling mode and the report sharing. Qlik Sense also does not have a subscription base like Power BI. So a lot of the analysis is housed in community pages that are managed by either the author or a database administrator, or whoever the Qlik Sense manager is there. It doesn't lend itself to being shared quite easily, because it requires licensing for viewers to consume.

I would also like to see a PowerPoint integration introduced. Power BI, for example, offers a slide deck that can be downloaded and inserted it into your deck. I'm referring to Power BI because that's what I use the most and that's the standard for me. Tableau has this integration in addition to a superior visualization tool. I think Qlik Sense has a better engine than all the three that I've mentioned, but in regards to sharing the analysis, it's clunky; it's not as good.

I have five years of experience with Qlik Sense. 

The stability of a solution depends on the process that brings in the data. We had a strong Qlik Sense production data pipeline that is always firing and we didn't have any resource issues where we were running out of space or anything like that. I think that for the most part, any tool will work well if the environment that it's set up on is well prepared.

Qlik Sense does have a lot of connection APIs that you could do. However, I think Microsoft Enterprise customers can run into challenges with it. We were Microsoft Enterprise, so eventually there was going to be some issues in regards to just how this tool was going to be able to grow with the company. I think it really depends on how many systems you have and how ingrained you are with those systems.

The solution does replace a lot of legacy products, which helps reduce costs, but you really do need somebody that knows what they're doing to get all the integrations done right.

The tech support we received was great. They were very knowledgeable and explained things quite well. They were very gracious with their time. Obviously, they were charging us, but they were well trained. We received tech support through our vendor. 

Positive

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. However, a lot of expertise from the backend was required from the vendor to get the solution running. So even after Qlik Sense had been deployed, we still had a lot of issues with development and it wasn't very self-service.

As far as maintenance went, from my standpoint, it didn't really feel like there was a big team working on Qlik Sense. I'm sure there was probably scheduled maintenance that was done during off-peak hours and it didn't really disrupt any of the daily production; reports were still running as planned. There was maybe one or two hiccups towards the end before I left, but again, that was during the pandemic, so a lot of things were probably falling behind. 

The deployment was done through a vendor, which was a problem. The vendor was ingrained into a lot of the deployment of our analysis and trying to get things off the ground from a proof of concept to production and the expertise was not shared very well with the in-house talent. We were always having to go back to them. That created a revenue stream for them, which became very expensive for us. 

Anytime somebody wanted to develop something, we were having to buy hours (paying consultancy charges), and ultimately, it was not sustainable. This model ends up being so much more expensive than deploying something that is a little bit more self-serving and can be deployed across your admin user rates.

It's not a tool that can be the one-all because the license does not cover all the services that a small business or even an enterprise needs to lean on because it requires too much from the vendor to support it.

Qlik Sense is a middle of the road solution in terms of price; just average in regards to pricing. It has a great following because of QlikView and an organization can save money if it goes through Qlik Sense as opposed to doing the full deployment of QlikView. Qlik Sense is a robust solution tool, but it's hard keeping up with the big guys now. 

At my company, the licensing had to do more so with having other users, like non-technical users and business users, and enabling them to view the reports and the analysis. So I don't know if they've changed the licensing to a read-only or reader, but at the time when I was there, it was all or nothing. So you basically were a power user or you were just not going to get it.

My organization might have had a deal for 200 seats. I don't know how much a seat cost us though. 

We have 2 primary uses:

1. Technology-created, defined story-driven analytics providing Dashboarding to users that allow drill-down of information to pre-created aggregation levels.

2. Self-service reporting that allows data SMEs to create and manage their own visualizations.

Both use cases are heavily catered for in our business, and we have 80,000+ users across the company.  

Utilizing the Qlik API layer, and a set of React components we are also able to embed Qlik reporting into existing web applications providing fantastic opportunities to bring multiple data sets together into highly customizable portals.

It has provided much more widely available MI to senior stakeholders. Before rolling out Qlik Sense, much of the reporting was completed from incredibly manual spreadsheets or old and slow COGNOS reports.  

Qlik Sense has opened up a new quick-to-market BI tool, that allows business requirements to become a production-ready reality within days rather than months.

Qlik Sense lends itself very well to creating large centrally managed platforms to make better use of scalability. This reduces direct infrastructure requirements, leading to more sustainable solutions.

The extensibility of the Platform with either internally created extensions or the use of third-party provided items really opens the platform up.

Drag and drop objects create a quick learning curve to create basic reports that still provide business benefits.

Continued development for on-premises versions to enable companies with more restricted data sets that cannot move to Saas/cloud solutions to still benefit from new product enhancements

Ability to highly customize infrastructure/environment set-ups to open huge possibilities.

More focus needs to be on data streaming/real-time data reporting. This is currently too slow to use outside of very small data sets.

More focus on CI/CD integration is needed. Having Dashboards stored as very static binary files does not lead itself well to the modern DevSecOps standards and processes.

To compete with other tools in the sector, more focus on the commenting/feedback abilities of users would be beneficial. For example, at an object level, be able to have users add comments to certain data points that other users can view and also comment back on.

We have been using Qlik Sense in various guises since version 3.1 - for about 6 to 7 years now.

The tool scales with infra fairly well. For performant applications on large data volumes, utilizing tooling to hold applications in memory leads to the best results, however, it also requires large infrastructure to support.

Prior to Qlik Sense, we were using QlikView, and shifting to Qlik Sense provided a much more modern architecture. Prior to QlikView, COGNOS was heavily leveraged.

The switch moved us from a very manual, spreadsheet/PowerPoint-based reporting to a much more fluid, dynamic, and interactive solution.

An in-house team was used. Having existing Qlik product knowledge helped make this viable. However, I am aware of other teams within our organization who have used vendor teams to great success as well.

The ROI is high as there are large financial reporting solutions built into Qlik. They have brought large money-saving insights from data and visualizations.

Economies of scale come into play very quickly, especially with no enterprise/infrastructure-specific licensing for Qlik Sense.  

With on-premise solutions, there can be a requirement for some heavy hardware, however, moving into the cloud means this can be reduced.

Tableau, PowerBI, and Looker were all reviewed and clear choices brought Qlik Sense out on top.

Its ability to score highly across the board makes it the best all-around tool, although the others score higher in very specific areas.

The solution is used for helping clients in their decision-making abilities, and to effectively analyze their data.

With the product, we're creating intuitive, interactive, and storytelling dashboards.  

This is a powerful tool with integrated ETL and the ability to handle huge data sets. It's capable of building intuitive and interactive dashboard designs.

The best features include ETL. Transforming data with complex logic can be done within the tool.

The Nprinting is useful. With it, we're scheduling reports directly to end-users.

I'd like to see more end-user-friendly UI designs and the ability to layer objects one by one would make a huge impact.                     

I've been working with Qlik Sense for more than seven years now.

My entire career I've only dealt with Qlik only.

We primarily use the solution for:

Business Intelligence. Qlik Sense is used by organizations to gain insights and make informed decisions by analyzing their data.

Data Visualization. Qlik Sense enables users to create interactive and visually appealing dashboards, reports, and charts to present data in a meaningful way.

Data Analytics. Qlik Sense provides tools to perform data analysis, including data exploration, discovery, and predictive analytics.

Collaboration. Qlik Sense allows teams to collaborate and share data insights and reports with each other, facilitating better communication and decision-making.

Data Governance. Qlik Sense provides features to manage and govern data, ensuring data security, accuracy, and regulation compliance.

The solution has helped out the organization via:

Faster and More Informed Decision Making. Qlik Sense enables users to analyze and visualize data in real time, providing insights that help organizations make informed decisions faster. It also enables users to explore data from multiple perspectives, providing a complete understanding of their data.

Increased Efficiency and Productivity. Qlik Sense is a self-service analytics tool that enables business users to create their reports and dashboards, reducing their dependence on IT resources. This increases productivity by enabling users to get the information they need when they need it without having to wait for IT support.

Improved Data Quality and Governance. Qlik Sense provides tools for data quality management, enabling organizations to maintain clean, accurate, and reliable data. It also provides features for data governance, ensuring data security and compliance with regulations.

Enhanced Collaboration. Qlik Sense enables users to share data insights and reports with each other, facilitating better communication and collaboration. It also enables users to collaborate on data analysis, improving the quality of insights generated.

Cost Reduction. By enabling users to create their reports and dashboards, Qlik Sense reduces the cost of IT resources required for data analysis. It also enables organizations to identify cost-saving opportunities by analyzing data across different departments and operations.

The most valuable aspects of the solution include:

Data Visualization. Qlik Sense provides a variety of options to visualize data, including charts, tables, and graphs, making it easier for users to interpret data and gain insights.

Associative Model. Qlik Sense uses an associative model that allows users to explore data relationships in real-time, enabling them to ask and answer ad-hoc questions without the need for pre-aggregated data.

Self-Service Analytics. Qlik Sense is designed to be a self-service analytics tool, allowing business users to create their reports and dashboards without requiring IT intervention.

Data Storytelling. Qlik Sense allows users to create data stories that provide a narrative around their data, making it easier to communicate data insights and analysis to non-technical stakeholders.

Collaboration. Qlik Sense provides collaboration features that enable users to share their insights with others, such as creating and sharing dashboards, reports, and visualizations, commenting on and discussing data, and co-authoring apps.

I'd like to see the following improvements:

Improved Data Preparation and integration. Qlik Sense could include additional features for data preparation and integration, making it easier for users to clean, transform, and integrate data from various sources.

Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning. Qlik Sense could include more advanced analytics and machine learning features, allowing users to build predictive models and perform advanced statistical analysis on their data.

Enhanced Collaboration and Sharing. Qlik Sense could improve collaboration features, such as real-time collaboration and commenting on visualizations. It could also improve sharing capabilities, such as embedding visualizations and reports into external websites or applications.

Mobile Optimization. Qlik Sense could include more mobile-optimized features, allowing users to access and analyze data on-the-go, on any device.

Natural Language Processing. Qlik Sense could incorporate natural language processing (NLP) technology, allowing users to ask questions and receive answers in natural language, making data analysis more accessible to non-technical users.

Improved Security and Governance. Qlik Sense could include additional features for data security and governance, such as more granular access controls, audit trails, and compliance reporting.

I've been using the solution for nine years.

Qlik Sense is very stable, especially when we are talking about panels with more than 200 million rows.

The scalability of Qlik Sense is impressive, both horizontally and vertically. The software is really designed for the use of available processing and RAM memory.

Customer support is good, yet it could improve as sometimes it takes a little while for accurate responses.

Neutral

I had already used traditional BI, however, the change or evolution process was very time-consuming. We achieved more agility with the use of Qlik Sense.

The initial setup is simple and straightforward. It is very easy.

We implemented the product with the supplier team. They usually have some tricks. That said, after following the entire process, we concluded that our internal team could have done the implementation.

They have an excellent team of suppliers that are fully committed to sharing knowledge with our team.

In terms of the ROI of Qlik Sense, we thought it might take a while. However, it surprised us with a return in six months.

The entire setup process is very simple. The licensing fee seems high at first. That said, the productivity and speed of delivery make up for it. There have been no billing surprises, as there is no need for other acquisitions, such as databases.

I also evaluated Tableau and Power BI.

The cost of licensing seems high and yet it is worth every penny, as the delivery of the panels is very fast.

The scripting in it is very strong. So, I use the Qlik Sense for scripting.

I like to develop steps in getting a solution for any application, and they have a lot of time, and the application is very efficient.

It offers good control. 

Loading the logs is also a good thing.

There is room for improvement in some ways of increasing the power of visualization. The current visualization features feel incomplete compared to what's available with scripting tools.

The current visualizations feel limited. They lack the variety and richness needed for diverse applications. I'd appreciate more options for visually representing data.

More customization options would be very welcome.

I have been using it for a year. 

It is a very stable solution. 

It is easy to scale. 

We use support from the community. 

The initial setup is not complex. I didn't find it complex. There is Qlik Management Console (QMC) for managing.

It's not complex, so it doesn't prevent anyone from starting to work with it. Just by being familiar with it, you can use it.

Two people take care of the deployment. It takes around two to three months to implement the solution. 

It is easy to control and maintain. 

It is a good tool. Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. I would recommend using this solution. 

I use the product to teach data visualization at a university.

The product responds fast for data analysis.

The product could be less expensive.

It is a stable product. I rate its stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the product's scalability a five out of ten. It depends on the number of servers.

The technical support services are good.

Positive

I have worked with Palo Alto and Power BI.

The tool is very easy to set up. It took me nearly two hours to complete the proof of concept. It requires a couple of days to deploy it in a productive environment.

The product is expensive compared to Power BI. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten.

It is a very good tool for on-premise data analysis. I rate it a six out of ten.