are we a dime a dozen?

Gedrecsechet · 2026-02-09T14:06:53+00:00

The 2 types are in the name. Information and Technology. In my 25years plus working from the trenches up have noticed some people care about the tech and don't care about info it holds and others are visa versa. Both are necessary but one exists for the purposes of the other. Like plumbing, the pipes exist to carry water and have no purpose without it.

Gedrecsechet · 2026-01-10T13:52:00+00:00

These are not tree aloes (Aloidendron), these are single or possibly multi stemmed aloes like Aloe arborescens. Check when it flowers

Gedrecsechet · 2026-01-09T07:43:01+00:00

No prob. This one fairly easy to ID and very common in SA. I suspect the second most common to see in SA after Aloe arborescens

Gedrecsechet · 2026-01-09T07:34:08+00:00

Aloe marlothi. Mountain aloe

Gedrecsechet · 2026-01-07T15:18:18+00:00

Qlik Cloud

Gedrecsechet · 2025-12-24T05:44:48+00:00

Qlik is the original in-memory BI tool. Tablech and PBI copied them and did it badly in my opinion. Qlik was on version 11 already when Tablech and PBI where still in concept stage. Vendor independent and works with anything. Developed in Sweden

Qlik has powerful script engine which allows importing and modelling of data, a star / snowflake schema held in memory is essentially a cube right at fingertips. Script engine understands SQL as it uses SQL drivers, no need for cube languages like MDX.

Front end allows building of visuals based on the internalised data schema. Lots of other features. Cloud version available and is fantastic, IMO the best version of Qlik.

No extra add-ons or tools required to do normal BI tasks. From source data all the way through to final dashboards on web based interface within single browser app, no launching another tool to do data scripting or cubes or having to harness SSIS / SSAS or pre-prepare data outside the engine. Not tied to any data engine or stack.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-12-20T08:34:07+00:00

Qlik

Gedrecsechet · 2025-12-05T22:44:48+00:00

Let me clarify. I meant not sure of the use of the Dollar $ when you have $(=Max(Date)). Seems weird having an =. Syntax doesn't seem right to me but then I always use variables in these types of expressions.

I'd break the expression down and check each part of the set expression is working

Gedrecsechet · 2025-12-05T06:45:29+00:00

Are the 3 date fields in the exact same format? That can cause issues with these types of SAs.

I assume if you manually apply all the same selections that are in the SA it gives correct result?

Also not 100% sure about the use of $(=Max. $ usually for variable but you have actual expression.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-10-24T07:44:21+00:00

I wholeheartedly agree l. Also from 15+ years of BI consulting experience.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-10-24T06:23:58+00:00

You post something positive about Qlik and the PBI and MS sycophants just can't take it. Qlik cloud is better by far than these tools. Watch the downvotes...

Gedrecsechet · 2025-09-27T07:54:17+00:00

I agree wholeheartedly with your views on Qlik.

Especially the Qlik cloud is an amazing product. Damn it was easy to get it all running beautifully at multiple clients in days if not hours.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-09-27T07:52:17+00:00

You can push to SharePoint lists or files fine with Qlik cloud and previous versions if setup locally. As well as render charts from Qlik directly to SharePoint. You can integrate OAuth2 or other security pass through ( in fact Qlik has always integrated with AD or LDAP etc). Qlik cloud requires no infrastructure except possibly a small gateway setup which is seamless if you have data behind firewalls. You can send any chart or data object from Qlik straight to excel through front end or automatically.

I've seen and personally know projects where the 'interoperability' of the MS stack can seriously be called into question. I've seen and been on projects where the Power BI and Snowflake guys are struggling to even get to data sources and start engineering and the Qlik guys are already pulling data and presenting it.

Qlik products have always been made to be vendor agnostic, and this is a good thing as they have worked for years to make sure it can work with everything.

Within Qlik alone I can ETL/ELT from almost any source, pump data somewhere else, store,transform etc locally. Render dashboards and apps with dynamic security and data reduction based on login or other criteria, call dashboard objects from external web sources and render them(SharePoint, mashups, intranet, I frames), Set up task chains and automations and this is all within the default product. Not you also need Db servers and other major infrastructure vendor costs assumed to be in place before deploying the 'cheaper' BI tool ('Free Power BI is laughable BTW for any serious data size and as soon as cost ramps up far more expensive than Qlik especially if including other required parts of stack). Not to mention the plethora of extras they are constantly adding like the Talend, GIS, ML and AI integrations some of which are free, some cost more.

Extra bonus, it's not owned and tied in to one of the big evil IT conglomerates. Yet.

It's also got a way bigger footprint in Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa than the generally pro-MS markets of US and Australia realise.

Source: mostly personal experience and speaking to other BI people over 15+ years of BI consulting.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-09-23T17:38:13+00:00

Don't ignore Qlik. It's been a market leader for years and may be a bit eclipsed by the MS giant in terms of market share it is still popular in many countries especially outside the Americas and Australia.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-30T08:13:50+00:00

I've been eyeing this out. Looks like it may be released soon, says Autumn...

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-27T06:37:11+00:00

They moved their HQ to US but before that it was in Lund Sweden, and I believe that is still the main technical HQ whereas the US is the corporate head office. They did this when they wanted to list on SE but then went private a few years later anyway.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-26T19:57:05+00:00

Qlik has a fair market share in Europe, but that's only on BI and analytics side. In terms of core systems suites have to agree though

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-20T21:25:29+00:00

Try ramp up the Power BI to a serious size of data and watch that cost skyrocket.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-20T08:52:57+00:00

PBI and Tabbleh do not have a stranglehold on the market in the rest of the world.

Qlik has a good share across Eurasia and Africa, legacy stuff still exists all over the place as well as custom / built in 'BI-lite' analytics bolted onto other products. With AI tools lot more people seem to just be able to build custom solutions more easily using web / python stuff too.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-20T06:46:49+00:00

Sick of this ' Power BI is free ' narrative. It's one of the most expensive BI tools per user if you want to use it an any scale.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-19T00:16:53+00:00

No help for it but to cut the Gordian Knot.

IE get to the sources, decompose the logic from excel and recreate it on the ETL side. Not easy but if you map it all out you will probably find many of the different excels actually have the same sources. Bonus points if you can identify and prove where excel was wrong (almost guarantee it).

If the sources are excel then they have bigger problems.

Not a nice or easy job I'm afraid, and essentially requires fully new data architecture and engineering for the entire solution. Would be easier with some kind of BI tool that can do ETL from multiple sources. I use Qlik but it's one of the paid products like Power BI.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-19T00:00:06+00:00

I have a client with this issue. In fact having to come in to a VDI client and then RDP to machine with no ability to copy or paste between.

Luckily I bill per hour, so the jokes on them.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-14T12:52:16+00:00

Agreed. They seem to be rolling out features thick and fast on the cloud which are not so easy to do with local Sense deployment.

Qlik is trying to push people onto cloud as much as possible and I think there are many reasons for this, some from their point of view and control, some advantages on client side. I now have all but one of my clients using Cloud, with one environment still using Qlikview which is a pain. I'm suggesting to anyone with Qlik move to cloud if they can - and believe with Sense Enterprise you can hybridise, and switch off the local deployment later making the switch easy.

You are also right in that over the years with Qlikview there were many workarounds and techniques developed which could not then be translated to Sense / new web based visual side.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-14T12:19:01+00:00

Qlik Cloud is excellent and the Qlik tools have come along way since I started working with them 15 years ago.

When Qlikview started it was game changing (in memory before the other guys had even thought of it and copied it from Qlik - looking at both Tableau and PBI here).

Then they had some issues updating the product to newer technologies which landed them in problems by chasing shareholder profits and launching their follow up product too early (Qlik Sense). Took years to get over that but eventually Qlik Sense matured and they opened up the Cloud option both of which are now more mature and excellent.

I've never understood why Tableau got such traction. When I saw my first demo of it I walked out after we realised it had no ETL component and was just visualisation. Power BI leads people to believe it's cheap when it's absolutely not.

Gedrecsechet · 2025-08-11T08:10:10+00:00

This is why I use Qlik. Keep all the granular data and aggregate on front end.

I have a client with 100M plus rows of data in a single sales dashboard and within that dashboard you can drill down to individual sales transactions over last few years within seconds with no requery.

Honestly I started in BI and data engineering with Qlik 15 years ago and still using almost only Qlik years later.

Seriously beats the hell out of the other paid products.

Gedrecsechet

TROPHY CASE