Creating Stunning Dashboards with QlikView

Book description

Bring real business insights to your company through effective and engaging dashboards in QlikView

About This Book

  • Build outstanding dashboards that respond to your company's information needs
  • Present the data in efficient and innovative ways to promote insights
  • Unleash the true power of QlikView by creating engaging visualizations

Who This Book Is For

This book is focused on QlikView developers with basic knowledge of scripting and layouts who want to improve their designing skills and build effective, eye-catching dashboards that deliver tangible value to their business.

What You Will Learn

  • Build a comprehensive library of QlikView components to speed up your developments
  • Define a practical roadmap that will help you build business-driven dashboards
  • Explore the most effective and engaging ways to present data
  • Apply the best practices in the field of data visualization
  • Avoid common pitfalls when creating bar, line and pie charts
  • Create robust visualizations such as heat maps, histograms and scatter plots

In Detail

QlikView is one of the most powerful analytical tools in the market. Based on an in-memory associative model, it lets users freely navigate through the data, spot trends and make better decisions. This platform is capable of integrating a wide range of data sources like ERP systems, data warehouses or spreadsheets into a single application in order display dashboards with state-of-the-art visualizations.

Creating Stunning Dashboards with QlikView is an easy to follow handbook that guides you through the process of creating an effective and engaging dashboard that delivers tangible value to the business. It starts with the identification of the business needs and the definition of the main KPIs, and takes you all the way to the application rollout.

Throughout the book, you will learn how to apply some of the best practices in the field of data visualization, create a robust navigation schema, chose the best chart types for each scenario and many other things that will help you create effective dashboards that uncover all the stories behind the data.

Style and approach

This easy-to-follow compilation of best practices, tips, and tricks will help you leverage your QlikView developments. Each section presents practical guidelines to help you create dashboards that are not only functional, but also engaging and compelling.

Table of contents

  1. Creating Stunning Dashboards with QlikView
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Creating Stunning Dashboards with QlikView
    3. Credits
    4. Foreword
    5. About the Author
    6. About the Reviewers
    7. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more
        1. Why subscribe?
        2. Free access for Packt account holders
        3. Instant updates on new Packt books
    8. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Downloading the example code
        2. Downloading the color images of this book
        3. Errata
        4. Piracy
        5. Questions
    9. 1. Know Your Battlefield, Devise Your Strategy
      1. Dashboards in perspective
        1. Step 1 – define your audience
        2. Step 2 – spot the business need
        3. Step 3 – choose the right KPIs
          1. Metrics that matter
        4. Step 4 – get to know your data sources
        5. Step 5 – tell a story
        6. Step 6 – enjoy the process
      2. Creating the perfect dashboard
        1. Don't overdo it
        2. Embrace simplicity
        3. Timely feedback
      3. Summary
    10. 2. All about Dashboard Design Best Practices
      1. Dashboard design best practices
        1. Gestalt principles
        2. Giving context to the data
        3. Data-Ink Ratio
        4. Avoiding chart junk
        5. Balance
        6. Excessive precision
        7. 3-D charts
        8. Sorting
        9. Alignment and distribution
        10. Animations
        11. Avoid scroll bars
        12. Consistency
        13. White space
        14. Applying makeup
        15. Meaningless variety
        16. Choosing your weapon
        17. Level of accuracy
        18. Types of analysis
        19. Bar charts
        20. Dot plots
        21. Line charts
        22. Stacked area charts
        23. Combo charts
        24. Slope charts
        25. Radar charts
        26. Pie charts
        27. Other area charts
        28. Stacked bar charts
        29. Scatter plots
        30. Tables
        31. Gauges and other forms of display for KPIs
        32. Other representations
      2. Summary
    11. 3. First Things First – The Dashboard Structure
      1. Dashboard style
        1. Document style
        2. Fonts
        3. Colors
        4. Backgrounds
        5. Design resolution
      2. Layout and distribution
      3. Filter panes
        1. Filter presentation
        2. Hidden Filter Pane
      4. Current selections
      5. General navigation
        1. Tab row
        2. Showing and hiding objects
        3. Logos
      6. Summary
    12. 4. It's Not Only about Charts
      1. Text objects
        1. More than simple labels
          1. Displaying KPIs
          2. Creating hierarchies
          3. Selection prerequisites
          4. Controlling variables
          5. Transparent buttons
          6. Creating switches
          7. Interactive KPI display
          8. Unconventional visualizations
          9. Handcrafted dashboards
      2. Tables
        1. Spicing up tables
          1. Adding colors
          2. The visual cues tab
          3. Expression attributes
            1. Custom Format Cell
          4. Traffic lights and icons
          5. Traffic light gauges
          6. Icons and images
            1. Loading images to QlikView
          7. Other visual cues
          8. Embedding charts
            1. Sparklines
            2. Linear gauges
            3. Mini bar charts
          9. Tips and tricks – tables
            1. Minimalistic tables
            2. Spacing
            3. Dimensionless tables
            4. Removing zeroes and nulls
            5. Stripes
            6. Leave the hashtags for Twitter
            7. Ad hoc analysis
            8. Accumulation
            9. Quirky tables
            10. Reducing functionality
      3. Summary
    13. 5. Handling "The Classics"
      1. About "the classics"
        1. Structure
        2. Chart orientation
        3. Formatting chart axes
        4. Forced zero axis
        5. Unwanted selections
        6. Limited dimensions and scroll bars
        7. To stack or not to stack
        8. Changing the classic perspectives
        9. Defending the indefensible – pie charts
        10. Special icons
        11. Let the color talk
        12. Legen… wait for it… dary
          1. Labeling best practices
      2. Enhancing the classics: tips and tricks
        1. Twin bar chart
        2. Completion chart
        3. Dot plot
        4. Waterfall chart
        5. Waterfall chart – Vol. 2
        6. Control chart
        7. Slope chart
        8. Variance highlight
        9. Line styles
        10. Bar heat map
      3. Summary
    14. 6. Creating Complex Visualizations
      1. Histograms
      2. Scatter plots
        1. How to read this chart
      3. Color highlight
      4. Gauges, gauges, gauges!
      5. Geographic representations
      6. Is that a table?
        1. The waffle chart
        2. Table infographics
          1. Heat maps
      7. Overlapping objects
        1. Range charts
        2. Overlapping charts – other examples
          1. Crusted line chart
          2. Pie gauge
          3. Area infographics
      8. Extensions
      9. Summary
    15. 7. Enhance Your QlikView Experience
      1. Folder structure
      2. Opening and closing scripts
      3. Subroutines
      4. Variables – making your life easier
        1. Formulas and Set Analysis
        2. Handling colors with variables
      5. Backgrounds
      6. Icons, symbols, and buttons
      7. Color palettes
      8. The object repository
      9. Keeping in shape
      10. Summary
    16. 8. Before You Go
      1. Before the rollout
        1. Locking objects
        2. The application datasheet
        3. In-chart help
        4. The dashboard cover
          1. Dashboard testing
        5. Documentation and backups
      2. The 10 commandments of QlikView design
      3. After the rollout
        1. Sell it!
        2. Dashboard navigation course
        3. Maintenance
      4. Summary
    17. Index

Product information

  • Title: Creating Stunning Dashboards with QlikView
  • Author(s): Swizec Teller
  • Release date: October 2015
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781782175735