{"id":116,"date":"2018-01-08T19:12:03","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T19:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com.temp.realssl.com\/?p=116"},"modified":"2018-11-27T22:56:58","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T22:56:58","slug":"configuring-your-apps-across-environments-and-servers-with-a-keywords-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/08\/configuring-your-apps-across-environments-and-servers-with-a-keywords-file\/","title":{"rendered":"Configuring Your Apps Across Environments and Servers With a Keywords File"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

In this post, I\u2019ll share a technique that I\u2019ve used for many years in my QlikView scripts and recently revised for use in Qlik Sense.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Most larger Qlik Sense development environments and many smaller ones follow a process before an App gets into a public (or production) stream. Usually, the app is developed and tested in a work stream, then published to a test stream, and finally, a public stream. All this activity might occur on the same server or it might span several servers. Even if this doesn\u2019t describe your Qlik environment, there are probably apps on your server that exist in several stream or as copies.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

If any of the above describes your Qlik Sense environment then you probably have to deal with different versions of data connections, configuration values, and other items that might change from environment to environment. If you use any third-party extensions that link apps to other apps or sheets within those apps then you have the added problem of keeping track of all the different app and sheet IDs.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

What\u2019s the best way to manage this? Qlik provides a good solution to one facet of this by providing externally defined Data Connections, but how can you keep track of, and properly define all of the other information. One simple way that I\u2019ve seen it done is to simply code it into the script and then edit that information in the script from stream-to-stream or environment-to-environment. That works, but it\u2019s really not a best practive. Another technique that I\u2019ve used in both QlikView and Qlik Sense Apps is to use an external configuration file that can be modified for each app instance. If you\u2019re an application developer who has coded in any major development language then you\u2019re probably very familiar with this concept.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Here\u2019s an example of the configuration approach that I\u2019ve used with Qlik Sense. It has four major pieces; a content folder to hold the configuration files; a configuration file\u2014I use an Excel file; a simple script; and a process for associating the configuration with a specific instance of the app.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The Content Folder<\/span><\/u><\/p>

Create a Content Folder where you\u2019ll store configuration files. In the example script that follows, I\u2019ve called mine \u201cConfiguration Files\u201d.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The Configuration File<\/span><\/u><\/p>

Each app that requires a configuration will have its own file. This is where you specify the specific items and their values, that need to change for each version of the app. Name this file with the ID of the specific App to which it applies\u2014you can look that up in the QMC. For example \u201cd5a57d9b-71e2-46c7-3b2a-f8bc82a12f27.xlsx\u201d. Upload the file to the Content Folder.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

My spreadsheet usually has two columns; a Keyword and a Value. I renamed the tab name in my example to \u201cKeywords\u201d. For example:<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
File: d5a57d9b-71e2-46c7-3b2a-f8bc82a12f27.xlsx<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Keywords Script<\/span><\/u><\/p>

The script segment below processes the configuration file and its contents. You would place this early in your script, before the point where you need to use the values that it retrieves.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\/\/ Get the ID of the app that\u2019s executing this script.<\/p>

Let AppID = DocumentName();\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\/\/ Make the file name of the configuration file for this App<\/p>

Let KeywordFileName = ‘lib:\/\/Configuration Files\/’ & ‘$(vX.App.ID)’ & ‘.xlsx’;<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

If FileSize(‘$(KeywordFileName)’) > 0 then \u00a0 \/\/ Process the file only if it exists<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 Keywords:<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 Load<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Keyword,<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Value<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 From [$(KeywordFileName)]<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 (ooxml, embedded labels, table is Keywords);<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 For i = 0 to (NoOfRows(‘ KeywordFileName ‘) – 1)<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Let KeywordName = Peek(‘Keyword’, i, ‘Keywords’);<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Let $(KeywordName) = Peek(‘Value’, i, ‘Keywords’);<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 Next i<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 Drop Table Keywords;<\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

End If;<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

After this script runs, I\u2019ll have actual variables in my App that were initialized from the spreadsheet with their respective values, equivalent to the script statements below.<\/span><\/p>

1. Let myConnectionName = \u2018Sales Database\u2019;
2. Let\u00a0myEnvironment = \u2018TEST\u2019;
3. Let\u00a0mySomeOtherAppID = \u2018e3a13f5c-82d5-47a7-9a2c-b1ce34c82f32\u2019;<\/p>

I might use #1 in a connection statement. For example:<\/span><\/p>

LIB CONNECT TO ‘$(myConnectionName)’;<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>

I can use #2 to condition some of my script logic. For example:<\/span><\/p>

If ‘$(myEnvironment) = ‘TEST’ then<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 … do some logic<\/span><\/p>

Else<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0… do some other logic<\/span><\/p>

End If<\/span><\/p>

#3 could be used as a value in one of my visualization extensions that link to another App.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span>In Summary<\/span><\/u><\/p>

  • Create a content folder to store the Configuration files.<\/span><\/li>
  • Name each configuration file as the {ID}.xlsx and store it in the content folder.<\/span><\/li>
  • Use the script provided to read the configuration file into your app. You can keep the script in another content folder and \u201cInclude\u201d it so that you don\u2019t have to pate it into every script.<\/span><\/li>
  • Reference the variables that got created wherever you need them in your App.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>

    This is a flexible way to standardize variables from environment to environment, or server to server, and not have to modify your App script.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In this post, I\u2019ll share a technique that I\u2019ve used for many years in my QlikView scripts and recently revised for use in Qlik Sense. Most larger Qlik Sense development environments and many smaller ones follow a process before an App gets into a public (or production) stream. Usually, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qliksense","category-scripting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120,"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qlikwithfriends.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}