December 12, 2023: What’s New in Qlik Cloud?

Support for Microsoft Fabric as a data pipeline target

Microsoft Fabric joins the ever-expanding list of data warehouses that can be used as targets in data pipeline projects.

Microsoft Fabric

New Direct Access gateway version

Direct Access gateway 1.6.1 introduces several important features and enhancements, improving overall stability and performance.

• Support for spreading reloads across multiple connector processes

  Connector process isolation has been added to Direct Access gateway. This is an opt-in feature, meaning that it is off by default. Process isolation allows administrators with direct access to the gateway server operating system to control how many processes are available for reloads per connector type. Spreading reloads across multiple connector processes increases the level of isolation by reducing the number of reloads running concurrently on each connector process. This in turn can improve overall Direct Access gateway stability in cases where connector crashes have occurred.

  See also: Mitigating connector crashes during reload

• Added the ability to disable chunking when working with the SAP BW (via Direct Access gateway) connector

  This version introduces the BEX_ONE_CHUNK application parameter for the SAP BW (via Direct Access gateway) connector. When accessing SAP BW directly from Qlik Cloud (that is, not via Direct access gateway), to optimize performance, the result set is divided into chunks in the SAP backend and read as separate threads. However, when accessing SAP BW via Direct Access gateway, dividing the result set into chunks has no real advantage. On the contrary, it consumes more of the shared memory in SAP as it requires an additional temp table to be created for the duration of the data transfer. It’s possible (though usually not required) to start chunking by setting BEX_ONE_CHUNK:false in the appsettings.json file, which is located in the SAP connector binaries folder.

• Diagnostics improvements for SAP BW (via Direct Access gateway) and SAP SQL (via Direct Access gateway) connectors

  For SAP BW (via Direct Access gateway) and SAP SQL (via Direct Access gateway) connector logs, a _port suffix was added before the log file name extension, and a ProcessID=### message was added to the connector’s log files in order to distinguish between events from new instances of the connector listening on the same port.

• Reconnection improvements

  The reconnection mechanism during reload has been improved so that Direct Access gateway no longer needs to connect to the pod that started the reload (as was previously the case). Now, instead of repeatedly trying to connect to the pod that started the reload (which often resulted in reload failures), it will connect to the first available pod.

For information about resolved issues, see Direct Access gateway version history.

For information about how to upgrade, see The upgrade procedure.

Qlik Cloud Tabular Reporting

Now Qlik Cloud customers can address common, centrally managed, tabular report distribution requirements. Report developers can create custom, highly formatted, XLS documents from Qlik data and Qlik visualizations. Governed Report Tasks can burst reports to any stakeholder ensuring that the Qlik platform is the source for operational decisions, customer communications and more.

Tabular reporting with Qlik Cloud Analytics

Tabular reporting

New pivot table

The new Pivot table is here with a set of new features:

• Dimension headers

• Null value custom symbol, foreground and background color

• Grid styling with width and color

• Font styling for size, color and family for headers and cell contents

• Totals styling and placement options: above or below

• Column width options, set to auto, in pixels or with percentage

• Scrollbars outside chart

• Interactive sort of dimensions

All of the above are designed and added based on feedback from our users. The new Pivot table is launched in the Visualization bundle and will replace native pivot next year when additional features are added.

Pivot table (Visualization bundle)

Styling Grid, Funnel & Sankey charts

The Grid chart, Funnel chart, and the Sankey chart have been upgraded with the new property panel for styling. The styling includes general settings for title, subtitle, footnote, background, border and shadow and chart specific settings for axis and value labels.

Grid chart (Visualization bundle)

Funnel chart (Visualization bundle)

Sankey chart (Visualization bundle)

Filter pane styling

The Filter pane now gets more properties for styling: General settings for title font styling, background, border and shadow. Chart specific styling for header and content font styling, color settings for selection state, background color and image.

Filter pane

Creating filter panes

Styling a filter pane