5. Save your work.
Cloning Sheet Objects
There are a number of ways to clone sheet objects in QlikView. Feel free to practice all of them and pick your favorite:
● Right-click on the object and select Clone from the context menu. The new object will be created slightly below the source object. You can reposition the new object by dragging it to the new location with your mouse, holding it by the Caption bar.
● You can also clone an object by dragging it while pressing the Ctrl key. The new object will be created in the new location while you release the mouse key.
This method also allows moving and copying objects between sheets. Dragging the object and dropping it on the other sheet’s tab allows moving the object. The same movement combined with pressing the Ctrl key results in cloning the object and placing the new clone in the new tab.
● Right-click on the object, select Copy to Clipboard⇒Object, and then paste it anywhere on the same sheet or on another sheet, or even in another document. Yes, that’s right. QlikView objects can be copied between documents. As long as the same data fields exist in both documents, the copied object will function the same way in a different QlikView application.
● Lastly, if you prefer good ol’ keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, those will work too. Just make sure to activate the desired object by clicking on it. Similarly, to copy and paste all the objects on a given sheet, use the combination of shortcuts Ctrl+A (Select All), Ctrl+C (Copy), and then Ctrl+V (Paste) on the new sheet.
Cloning Sheets and Pasting Objects as Links
In the previous section, you finished building the Template sheet. Having the main outline of a page saved in a Template sheet helps create new sheets with a consistent set of common objects.
For that matter, you need an easy and effective way of cloning the contents of the whole sheet. You can copy all objects and paste them on the new sheet, but there are better ways.
One way is to copy the sheet by right-clicking anywhere on the sheet and selecting Copy Sheet from the menu. A new sheet will be created with exact copies of all objects.
The new objects that are created are going to repeat all the settings of the old objects, but they are individual objects, not linked in any way to their originals. That means that if you need to make any changes to your common objects (assign another color or font, or modify a border), these changes will have to be propagated manually in all copies of the same object on different sheets.
QlikView offers a better alternative for objects that need to be repeated many times. Objects can be copied and pasted as links. This way, the objects remain linked and share the same set of properties. Now, a change in one of the objects will affect all the linked objects at once.
Different instances of linked objects may have different positions on different screens. However, it’s common to reposition the object in the template and to want all linked objects to follow the same position. For this purpose, linked objects offer a special menu option in the right-click context menu – Linked Objects ⇒ Adjust Position of Linked Objects. This way, all linked objects can be positioned identically.
The process of creating linked objects is somewhat similar to the regular process of copy and paste. The only difference is that this kind of paste cannot be performed with the Paste command or with Ctrl+V. Instead, you right-click on the desired sheet and select Paste Sheet Object as Link. Alternatively, you can drag and drop objects while holding Ctrl+Shift to create linked objects.
For the purpose of cloning template objects, using the Copy and Paste Objects as Link options is preferable to the simple Copy Sheet, for easier maintenance.
Notice that once the linked objects are created at least once, Copy Sheet will produce the desired result as well. Since all the common objects are already identified as linked objects, the new sheet will contain new instances of the same linked objects.
In the following exercise, you create linked objects for all template objects and then clone the Template sheet to create two more sheets.
Exercise 4.12: Cloning Common Objects as Linked Objects
1. Activate all objects on the Template sheet (Ctrl+A) and copy them (Ctrl+C).
2. Open the sheet called Sales. Right-click it and select Paste Sheet Object as Link.
3. IMPORTANT! Sheet title and sheet icon need to be different on every sheet. For this reason, these two objects on top of the sheet need to remain unlinked. Right-click the text object with the sheet title Template and select Link Object⇒Unlink This Object. Repeat for the text object that carries the icon in the upper-left corner.
4. Use Copy Sheet to clone the Sales sheet and create two more sheets named Trends and Reports.
Voila! The application is now ready for the main analytical part – adding charts.
Developing Simple Charts in QlikView
Charts are definitely the heart of QlikView visualizations. Charts carry most of the analytical value in any QlikView dashboard. The other sheet objects serve as accessories and accents, which merely support the main message communicated in charts. Needless to say, mastering the craft of developing insightful charts is a huge part of becoming a QlikView professional.
QlikView 11 supports 13 types of charts – 10 types of graphs, 2 textual objects, and a variety of gauges. We will cover all the available chart types throughout this book.
In this section, you learn the basics of QlikView charts and create the following chart types:
● Bar charts
● Line charts
● Pie charts
● Straight tables and Pivot tables
Main Components of QlikView Charts
QlikView charts can be divided into three logical groups:
● Graphical charts, such as bar charts, line charts, and several other graphical chart types.
● Non-graphical charts, such as straight tables and pivot tables (you will discover that these can also include some graphical elements).
● Gauges, such as speedometers and dials, that are used to represent single KPIs in a graphical form.
The various charts may look different from each other, yet they share a set of important common characteristics. For this reason, all of them are called “charts” and are configured in a similar way. The next sections describe the two main characteristics shared by all charts – expressions and dimensions.
Chart Expressions
Charts communicate aggregated information, presented in a variety of forms. The main component of a chart that defines what the measure is and how it should be calculated is called an expression. Simple charts typically visualize a single expression, while more complex charts may have multiple expressions.
Since charts always present aggregated data, a chart expression should always contain one or more aggregation functions. The most commonly used aggregation functions are sum(), count(), avg(), min(), and max() (many other aggregation functions can be found in QlikView’s Help section). All of these functions accept at least one parameter – an expression that will get calculated at each detailed row and then aggregated up. For example, the following expression:
will simply summarize the values of the field [# Sales Amount] for all available rows of data. This expression:
instructs