So, you've built a Qlik Sense Desktop app and you want to share it with others, either colleagues or friends, so you can find insights together. The cloud is the best way to do that, and doing so is built directly into Qlik Sense.
Qlik Sense isn't just for work, playing with data can be fun too. In this chapter, I will share a Qlik Sense app exploring UK music singles chart data going back to 1952.
To upload an app, you first need to log on to Qlik Sense Cloud on the Web. From the Qlik Sense hub, there are two ways to open Qlik Sense Cloud: either by clicking on the cloud image in the top-right corner of the window or by right-clicking on the app itself. Both the actions will take you to the Qlik Sense Cloud Hub in a browser. At this point, if you haven't done so already, you'll have to register.
The following screenshot shows the option for in-built cloud uploading:
As you'll see when you log in, Qlik Sense Cloud is intentionally simple, presenting just a few options. The actions you can take are:
The following screenshot shows the Qlik Sense Cloud Hub:
Uploading an app you have built on the desktop is simple. Click on New app, navigate to the file in the directory, and import. The uploaded QVF file brings the data model, sheets, and stories with it to the cloud for sharing. Note that the source data that was loaded into the app is not uploaded to Qlik Sense Cloud. This has implications for maintaining the app—more on this in a later section.
In the following screenshot, you can see the music chart app after upload. You'll notice that when uploaded, the app appears with the default thumbnail picture (rather than the custom image). Qlik Sense Cloud Hub does not currently support custom thumbnail images.
While not visible in the cloud hub, within the cloud app's information pane, you can show the custom image by selecting it from the media library. The media library is imported on upload, and includes thumbnails and any graphic files you've added to stories in the desktop app:
After the upload, you can use the app in exactly the same way as if it was running on a desktop. There's no difference; it's just Qlik Sense running on a server hosted by Qlik in the cloud. Modifications to the app can still be made using the Edit button, but only when the app is in the My personal cloud stream (more on this later).
Note that, unless you selected the publish option at upload, only you can see it—it's not been shared with anyone else yet.
Qlik Sense apps can also be created directly in Qlik Sense Cloud. The only difference in doing so is that data must first be loaded into the My personal data files
folder on the Qlik Sense Cloud Hub in order to be available for loading.
Qlik Sense Cloud is designed to enable people to share apps. To do this, a cloud app needs to be published, moving it from the My personal cloud stream to the My shared cloud stream. To do so, right-click on the app icon in the cloud hub and select Publish to shared cloud, as shown in the following screenshot:
Once published, you can invite up to five people to access Qlik Sense apps in your shared cloud stream. Note that anyone you share it with will be able to see all the apps you have published. To do so, click on share and enter their e-mail address as shown in the following screenshot. When people accept the invitation to share and register on Qlik Sense Cloud, they appear as followers at the bottom of the My shared cloud stream:
By selecting the Notification center (in-tray icon), you can see who's viewed apps and other alerts about Qlik Sense Cloud, as shown in the following screenshot:
People that you share apps with can use those apps, making selections, and so on, but they cannot share them with others or modify them. You can see in the following screenshot (from my follower Sarah's Mac) that there is no edit pen icon on the shared app:
Some thought needs to go into maintaining apps in Qlik Sense Cloud:
If there are changes to the source data that need reflecting in a Qlik Sense Cloud app, there are differences depending on how the cloud app was created.
lib://<user>/<file>
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