Vizlib Finance Report Best Practice and Troubleshooting

When you're working with Vizlib Finance Report it's important to be clear about what you can and can't do. We've collected together tips for best practice and any known issues and limitations and listed them here for you.

This topic contains the following sections:

Best Practice

  • Let's introduce you - If you're new to Vizlib Finance Report, or looking to find some information, the Introduction page has links to the product resources and knowledge base articles.

  • Watch and learn - We always recommend that you watch the setup tutorial page or on our Youtube channel) before starting to work with Vizlib Finance Report. And while it's designed to be easy to use, it's also designed to be used within a company finance department, so you'll also need knowledge of both Qlik Sense and finance solutions.

  • Go for Enterprise - If you upgrade to the Enterprise version of Vizlib Finance Report, you'll be able to use the full range of features for the extension, including full comments functionality and an integration with Vizlib Server.

  • Use Templates - Templates in Vizlib Finance Report help you apply a look and feel instantly, speed up development and make maintaining your solutions much easier. You can even design your own and save them.

  • There is an alternative - Vizlib Finance Report can be used with alternative dimensions and measures. If you add alternatives, you'll be able to choose the measure you prefer when you're using analysis mode, changing the outcome of the finance report for a much more adaptable and varied used experience. If you'd like to add more focus to your chart, look at adding reference lines to help users analyze the chart data.

  • Bookmark it - You can use the Bookmark function in Qlik Sense to keep track of any selected data you need to view regularly, which can save you time and effort.

  • Calculations - If you're looking to use data from specific rows in your finance report, follow these instructions.

    • Create a calculated row with a unique calculation (Field PnL_calculation in the template file and column Calculation in the Excel).

    • Ensure the row is connected to all the data needed for the calculation (if you aren't getting the result you think you should check by selecting the row and the associated data in standard Qlik filters/tables).

    • Create your calculation in the expression using any logic you want. (A set expression is fastest.)

  • Viztips - Viztips is a very powerful tool to add to any extension, but you can only start using it with some preparation. Make sure the visualization using Viztips is set up with the dimensions and measures to give you the result you want, and has the set analysis you need. You can watch our guide on using Viztips with Vizlib Finance Report here.

  • Performance - Vizlib Finance Report uses using the Qlik Sense Hub engine, and each individual value will be processed separately, so working with large amounts of data may affect the engine processing time. You can find more information on performance issues in our article on Best Practice and Performance Optimization in Qlik Sense, and we've added some performance tips specific to Vizlib Finance Report here.

    • Use Top Dimension - If your top dimension has a large number of values this will impact on performance, so consider carefully if you need to enable the setting. If the last dimension also has a large number of values calculations could take a lot longer to complete.

    • Open Table Expanded to Level - Only use this setting in tables with a small number of values on the sub-dimensions to avoid a negative impact on performance. For dimensions with many values it is much more efficient for the user to expand only data that is needed.

Limitations

  • Dimensions - Maximum of 5 simultaneous dimensions. (Unlimited alternative dimensions and drill- down dimensions are possible).

  • Export - Indicator icons and data bars do not export to Excel yet.

  • Legacy PnL - Any older PnL objects need to be recreated with version 2.0 and higher!

  • Trial Version - The trial/free version of the finance report has limitations (maximum of 5 user licenses, the Vizlib watermark is displayed in the report background of the report and there's no form of commentary available on the report.

  • Zero Values and Pivot Tables - To accommodate inconsistencies in behaviour when a pivot table uses zero values, we've introduced a fix to make Vizlib Finance Report consistent with other Qlik Sense tables. Figure 1 shows examples from:

    1. Vizlib Finance Report

    2. Qlik Native Pivot Table

    3. Vizlib Pivot Table

    4. Qlik Native Table

  • Vizlib Finance Report does not actively support scrollbars in export or Storytelling views. There have been cases resulting in missing columns. For more information, see Vizlib Finance Report v4.4.0.

The red box in the Qlik Native Table shows the total value for Value 2 is 0 as 2 + (-2) = 0. In all pivot tables (including Vizlib Finance Report pivot tables) this leads to the first dimension being hidden. However, when the table is expanded these values are still shown. The green arrows indicate in examples 1 and 2 indicate a slightly thicker line, which indicates that another dimension (Value 2) is being used.

Figure 1: Zero Values Pivot Tables

Add tags to the extension to fix incorrect dimension names

A legacy feature/bug has been identified in versions 4.3.1 and lower, displaying the top dimension name based on the first dimension in the Dimension group within the Property panel. This issue happens when you have invalid calculation conditions (that is, the Calc. condition is not met; therefore, display = false).

As Vizlib users have been accustomed to this way of working, this feature is included as a fix so we can accommodate both styles, but this is classified as a bug and therefore is not actively supported in future fixes/releases.

Here is a comparison between each version v4.3.1 and lower and version v4.3.3.

In versions lower than v4.3.3, if you want to change the name of the last (group) dimension, you need to change the first dimension name.

Whereas, in versions greater than 4.3.3, if you change the name of the last dimension, you change the Last (group) dimension name.

Note: If you do not update your extension for versions 4.3.3 and above with the FR-1824 the name of the top dimension will automatically change. In other words, to keep the legacy way of working within v4.3.3 you MUST include FR-1824 as a tag within the cl-finance-report extension on your Qlik Extensions section on the QMC/Console. You and your users will need to clear your browser cache to ensure you are using the updated version of the extension if forgotten.

Add tags to the extension to keep the original naming scheme working within your environment.

Qlik Enterprise

  1. Go to your QMC and locate the Tags section found in <QlikSenseDomain>/qmc/tags

  2. Create a tag called FR-1824.

  3. Go to <QlikSenseDomain>qmc/extensions/ and locate the Vizlib Finance Report and insert that FR-1824 tag and save.

Note: NOTE: Vizlib Finance Reports created with versions lower than 4.3.3 are required to insert the tag on Extension Installation/Update as to keep the original way of working; otherwise the Finance Report will operate in the new, correct, way of working.

Update tag in Qlik Cloud

  1. Go to your Qlik Cloud Console <QlikCloudDomain>/console/extensions

  2. Locate the cl-finance-report extension.

  3. In the input field, add the FR-1824 tag in the input field, and save the changes.

Note: Note: Please ensure you have used capital letters for ‘FR-1824'.

Note: Note: Please be aware that the accommodation of the original bug and the reason FR-1824 is required will not be actively supported. It is recommended that all charts transition to the correct way of operating with dimension title names.

Recommended Versions

Qlik Sense Version

Recommended

April 2019 and higher

Latest available version

February 2019

2.1.1

November 2018

2.1.1

September 2018

2.1.1

June 2018

2.1.1

April 2018

2.1.1

February 2018

2.1.1

November 2017

2.1.1

September 2017

1.5.1

June 2017

1.3.0