Hello all, today I am mostly talking about Qlik Sense Business… You what? Qlik Sense Business? Yes, Qlik Sense Business.. let me explain!
This is blog one of many I am planning on Qlik Sense Business. I hope to explore the functionality, and comparing and contrasting with Qlik Sense Enterprise and other solutions.
Anyway, on with today’s blog
Who is Qlik Sense Business?
Qlik Sense Business is Qlik’s newest SaaS solution which brings you all that you love about Qlik Sense, and puts it in the cloud, ‘as a service’
What is Qlik Sense Business?
Qlik Sense Business (or QSB for short) is Qlik Sense Enterprise, but hosted by Qlik on their SaaS (Software as a solution) platform, based on top of Kubernetes architecture – I believe the cool kids call this K8s?.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to know about Kubernetes or anything like that, this is a simple to use, quick to get up and running with, Business Intelligence platform.
QSB doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of standard Qlik Sense Enterprise, however, only drops API integrations, managed spaces, access to “value-added” products such as NPrinting and Alerting. You still get the core Qlik associative engine, with self service creation and ETL as well as global search, insight advisor, mobile access, and everything else you’d expect from a Qlik Sense product.
There is a seamless upgrade path to Qlik Sense Enterprise, which means once you’ve hit the capacity limits*, or want to look at different deployment methods, you can simply upscale without having to rewrite or ‘do anything’ – just the click of a button. I have to say, the capacity limits are quite high, which is good, and surprising for an entry level product. Well done Qlik!
*App size in memory 1.25GB, storage on disk (250GB), 50 reloads per day and 3 reloads concurrently.
Where can I find Qlik Sense Business?
QSB is a SaaS solution, and can be found the Qlik website. No software is required, just you, your data, and an internet connection – https://www.qlik.com/us/products/qlik-sense
How much does Qlik Sense Business cost?
QSB starts at $30/user/month, or for fellow Brits £23.75/user/month. There is tiered pricing available too, meaning, more you buy, the cheaper it can be! If that doesn’t tempt, there is also a 30 day free trial…
When can I use Qlik Sense Business?
QSB is available now, go for it. You might, also, wish to engage with a Qlik Partner, to help with configuration
How do you get started with Qlik Sense Business?
Head on over to https://www.qlik.com/us/products/qlik-sense and click “Try It Free”. Once you’ve got your tenant setup, its super simple to get going. On the main landing page, you can ‘start your journey’ by analysing sample data, or analyse your own files by uploading a spreadsheet or connecting to a SaaS/cloud data source
Clicking on ‘analysing sample data’ imports a data model, and launches the Insights Advisor, and allows you to explore and ask those questions of your data… For example… “top sales by customer” will auto generate insights, data, and charts for you – very cool, very easy to do.
To add the automatically generated chart to a sheet, click Add to sheet, which will take you into edit mode. From here, you can start to add more objects to craft your dashboard! Ps – notice, no code was used in the gif below, all drag and drop, all using the AI and Qlik’s cognitive engine…
Why would *you* use Qlik Sense Business?
If you are new to the Qlik ecosystem, and want to give it a try, using the 30 day free trial, then this is a great way to get started quickly and cheaply – if your data sources are mostly cloud based. On premise data sources such as a SQL Server running Sage 200 would require firewall configuration, to allow your Qlik Sense Business tenant to talk to your server.
Qlik Sense Business is a direct replacement for using Qlik Sense Desktop – as this is no longer available as a freemium product**. You get the vast majority of functionality with QSB, so this is not a cut down version, the good stuff is not hidden behind an expensive paywall (like other providers…).
Why would *I* use Qlik Sense Business?
Well, being honest, in my professional life, I currently don’t – apart from as an environment for learning – however, I can see there becomes a time where all Qlik prospects start out on Qlik Sense Business, for Proof of Concept / Seeing is Believing type events, and once the time is right, migrates over to Qlik Sense Enterprise.
But, for me, this isn’t quite how it works in practice 🙂
To finish…
I hope you found that useful, stay tuned for more blogs re Qlik Sense Business
**Qlik Sense Desktop is kinda still free, if you do this:
Canny Data 