Coffee Break Series - Qlik application development process thoughts

Coffee Break Series - Qlik application development process thoughts

Let's have a coffee and think about some of phases in Qlik application development.

We can identify development process from very high level. There steps are...

- Prepare prerequisites
- Tasks before application development
- Tasks during application development
- Tasks after application development 

Focus to the outputs in each steps. And the most import, think what value each output will add to the end users. 

"Back end - Front End... they all matters"

1. PREREQUISITES

Here are some examples

Environment

- Set up and configure qlikview or and qliksense enviroments

Qlik application template
- Create corporate core application template
QDF
- Set up Qlik deployment framework
Licences
- Get licences to qlikview or qliksense

User rights
- Get user rights needed to develop applications

2. TASKS BEFORE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Here are some examples

Define requirements
- One very critical task, right. Understand the direction, in order to do agile development. Communicate..communicate.
Enable data
- Define needed data and create integration to data sources. 
Design application structure

- Very common approach to design application structure is DAR concept. Create sheets for Dashboard, Analysis and Reports. Make it usable and understandable. 

3. TASKS DURING APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Here are some examples

Use scripting best practices
- Group, design, write, comment and reuse... debug.. ok..sometimes.
Use dataload best practice
- Consider e.g. following dataload types: Load From file, Inline load, Resident load, Incremental load, Binary load, Add/Replace load, Buffer load
User Interface development best practices
- Try to make sense, keep it clear, present things that are relevant, ask how others understand your visualizations
Test and publish things to review
- Test data and visualizations and engage people by publishing application version to review and comment.  Development test and and production transfer
- Plan test, do test, fix and be ready for production. 

4. TASKS DURING APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Document
- It is recommend to do documentation of applications. You can use ready build QlikApplication that describes application content and structure, but also create written documents 
Collect experiences and further development issues
- User experiences are very valuable information to development applications further.  


More coffee... Yes