For Every business environment, data-driven decisions rely heavily on effective tools like Qlik Sense. Whether you’re building dashboards, custom visualizations, or complex data models, a smooth deployment and version control process ensures that your Qlik deployment applications are consistently up-to-date, reliable, and scalable.
However, when you’re working with Qlik’s powerful features, managing the deployment process and keeping track of versions becomes increasingly important. In this blog post, we’ll explore best practices for deployment and version control in Qlik, ensuring that your applications are well-organized and accessible across teams.
Why Deployment and Version Control Matter
As businesses evolve and data needs grow, Qlik Sense applications will undergo continuous development and improvement. Whether you’re making minor adjustments or significant updates, having a structured approach to deployment and version control ensures that your applications: (Ref: Hands-on: Improving the UX of a Custom Visualization in Qlik)
- Maintain stability across updates.
- Allow for easy rollback in case of errors or unwanted changes.
- Enable collaboration between multiple developers or teams.
- Ensure governance and security around application versions.
Setting Up a Deployment Strategy
Before diving into the technical aspects of deployment, it’s important to lay the groundwork with a clear strategy. A well-planned deployment approach will help reduce downtime, prevent errors, and ensure that your applications are always in the best shape.
Key Elements of a Deployment Strategy:
- Staging Environment: Create a dedicated environment where you can test new changes before they are deployed to production. This minimizes the risk of introducing errors or breaking existing functionality.
- Automation: Use deployment automation tools to streamline the process. Automated deployments reduce human error, speed up delivery, and ensure consistency.
- Documentation: Keep comprehensive records of deployment steps and changes. This helps with troubleshooting, tracking versions, and ensuring transparency.
Version Control: Managing Changes Efficiently
Version control in Qlik Sense involves managing different versions of your applications, scripts, and data models to ensure that all changes are tracked and can be rolled back if necessary. A robust version control system helps maintain consistency and minimizes risk when updates are made.
Best Practices for Version Control in Qlik:
- Use a Git-based repository: Git is one of the most popular version control systems, and integrating it with Qlik’s deployment process is a smart move. Storing Qlik Sense applications in a Git repository allows developers to keep track of each version of the app, manage conflicts, and ensure that everyone is working on the most up-to-date version.Tip: Create separate branches for development, testing, and production to ensure that changes don’t disrupt the live environment.
- Track changes at the script level: In Qlik, the data load script is an integral part of the application. Track changes to scripts carefully, particularly when modifying data sources, transformation logic, or calculations.
- Versioning of Extensions and Custom Visualizations: If you’re building custom extensions or visualizations in Qlik deployment, version control becomes even more crucial. Store the source code for your custom extensions in your version control system to ensure that updates are tracked and can be reverted if something breaks.
- Document changes and updates: When committing a new version of your Qlik deployment application, include detailed commit messages that describe the changes made. This will make it easier to understand what was altered, why, and which issue it resolves.
Streamlining Deployment with Qlik Management Console (QMC)
Qlik Sense offers the Qlik Management Console (QMC), which is an essential tool for managing and Qlik deployment applications. Within the QMC, you can configure tasks, monitor deployments, and control access to applications across your organization.
Key Features in the QMC for Qlik deployment:
- App Deployment: Use the QMC to deploy apps to different environments (e.g., development, test, and production). The QMC allows you to manage apps and their corresponding versions efficiently.
- Content Libraries: Use content libraries within Qlik Sense to store, share, and deploy assets like data files, scripts, and extensions that are part of your Qlik applications.
- Automated Tasks: Create automated reload and deployment tasks in the QMC to streamline data updates and app deployment processes. This ensures that changes are automatically reflected across environments.
Tip: Integrating deployment tasks into your DevOps pipeline can significantly enhance automation and reduce manual intervention.
Managing Multiple Versions in Production
Once your Qlik deployment applications are deployed to production, managing multiple versions becomes critical, particularly when different users may need access to different features or data models.
Versioning in Production:
- App Versions: Always maintain clear version numbers for your Qlik deployment applications. When deploying updates, consider incrementing version numbers in a logical and consistent manner (e.g., v1.0, v1.1, v2.0).
- Rollback Process: Sometimes, new versions of apps may introduce errors or bugs. Having a rollback strategy ensures that you can revert to a previous, stable version quickly. In the QMC, you can manage different versions of apps, making it easy to deploy the right version based on user needs or issues.
- Access Control: In production environments, it’s crucial to restrict access to certain versions of applications. You can configure security rules in the QMC to limit access to specific apps based on user roles. This ensures that only authorized users are able to view or interact with different versions.
Testing and Validation: Ensuring Quality Control
Before deploying a new version to production, thorough testing is essential to ensure that the app functions as expected. This process helps identify issues early and ensures that updates don’t negatively impact user experience or data integrity.
Key Testing Practices:
- Unit Testing: Test individual components (e.g., data load scripts, visualizations) to ensure they work as expected.
- Regression Testing: Run tests to ensure that new changes don’t break existing functionality.
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Have end-users test the new version in a staging environment to make sure it meets their needs.
Continuous Improvement through Feedback and Monitoring
After Qlik deployment, continue to monitor the performance of your Qlik Sense applications. Collect user feedback to understand what works well and what could be improved in future versions. By continuously iterating on your application, you can ensure it remains effective and valuable.
Key Metrics to Monitor:
- App Performance: Track load times and performance metrics to ensure smooth user interactions.
- User Activity: Monitor which features are used most often and identify areas for enhancement.
- Error Logs: Keep track of any issues or errors reported by users and resolve them promptly.
Final Thoughts
Effective Qlik deployment and version control are critical to the success of Qlik Sense applications. By following best practices such as using Git-based version control, setting up a clear deployment strategy, and utilizing the Qlik Management Console, you can ensure smooth application delivery and management. Additionally, by maintaining clear documentation, automating Qlik deployment tasks, and incorporating feedback from users, you can keep your Qlik deployment applications in top shape and continuously improve their performance and user experience.
The key to successful Qlik deployment is organization, consistency, and quality control. With the right processes in place, you’ll be able to manage the lifecycle of your Qlik apps more efficiently, providing value to your organization and end-users every step of the way.