Why Qlik is the sleeper BI tool that has been around for 20 years and in Gartner's top Quadrant
January 19, 2019

Why Qlik is the sleeper BI tool that has been around for 20 years and in Gartner's top Quadrant

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Qlik Sense Enterprise

Overall Satisfaction with Qlik Sense

I work with Qlik Sense with both departments and enterprises. I have significant experience working with competitors products. Overall, I have 20 years of BI experience and a solution agnostic point of view.

Pros

  • Scales marvelously thanks to its very mature in-memory engine. Response times for users are excellent for even non-optimized data models when deployed on hardware with appropriate RAM.
  • Users genuinely solve business problems within minutes of loading their first data set. The simple but comprehensive explorability of the data is second to none in the market place. Tableau and PowerBI are on the same playing level here. Qlik's jargon for this is their "associative engine," which really is a technical term, that doesn't describe the benefits.
  • Self-service with Qlik covers these areas: 1) reusable data models for power users - avoiding multiple sources of truth, 2) ability for users to click edit on a published dashboard, create new views seamlessly without disrupting the production copy and a process to fold changes back into the production copy, 3) complete web-based creation of apps.
  • Data loading and transformation capability and performance are far more powerful than PowerBI and Tableau. With PowerBI and Tableau you most likely will need an ETL tool when you are fully building advanced dashboards for many users.
  • Built on open standards, HTML5, Javascript, etc. Very extensible and embed-able. Vast open source libraries of D3 can be applied.

Cons

  • The depth of capability in the graphs/charts is improving, but not on par with Tableau yet.
  • Lack of wizards for creating some key features like accumulated totals, period-over-period analysis, etc. Note: the tool is fully capable of this, via chart formulas, but the syntax is complex.
Good for organizations new to BI. Evolves well with different BI maturities. Supports mixes of user types well. Excels when there are multiple different types of data and sources. It blends data together without batting an eye Less optimal for users who are firmly anchored in a traditional 'report mindset.' Like its competitors, you can't just 'build it and just hope it will be adopted'.

Qlik Sense Feature Ratings

Pixel Perfect reports
6
Customizable dashboards
10
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Integration with R or other statistical packages
8
Report sharing and collaboration
9
Publish to Web
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
Not Rated
Report Versioning
Not Rated
Report Delivery Scheduling
Not Rated
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
8
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
8
Predictive Analytics
9
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Mobile Application
10
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
9

Qlik Sense Support

Its good, but not world class. Partners are the deepest and most knowledgeable
ProsCons
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Kept well informed
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None

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