1st Generation Extensions - Vizlib Service and Support Levels

This topic contains the following sections:

Building for Our Customers

At Vizlib, one of our core values is to build for the customer.

We recognize we're privileged to work with wonderful customers who continue to:

  • Support us on our journey to deliver Vizlib’s interactive visualizations, self-service analytics, and game-changing write-back capabilities and also

  • Challenge us to build for expanded use cases as cloud-based SaaS platforms have evolved, and to deliver the collaboration features critical to supporting the worldwide changes in the way that teams work together.

We constantly update and improve the code of all our extensions. As part of these changes, we now have some extensions that cover the same (and typically more) use-cases in a better way.

The list of 1st generation extensions includes:

  • Library: Heatmap, Sankey, Sheet Menu

  • Self Service: Cards, Selection Bar.

 

First Generation Extensions

Our 1st generation extensions use older programming languages, whereas all new extensions are designed and built in line with the constant evolution of web technology. This makes our new extensions faster, smaller files, easier to maintain, and structured in such a way that new features can be added more easily.

We also have clearer goals for each extension compared to our 1st generation extensions that evolved more organically.

Building new is also better for our customers as this allows us (often based on user feedback) to create more flexible extensions to support wider use cases across different industries, platforms and data sources.

Use Sheet Menu Plus for Qlik Cloud

In the case of Sheet Menu, Qlik's addition of the Qlik SaaS platform introduced significant changes, where the technology used was no longer a good match. Therefore Sheet Menu is not available on Qlik Cloud, and our new extension Sheet Menu Plus must be used.

Service and Support for 1st Generation Extensions

The key facts for all 1st generation extensions are:

  • All are supported and updated to function with new versions of Qlik Sense.

  • We will also fix any significant bugs.

  • All new extensions are included in the respective products at no extra cost.

  • New features will not be added to 1st generation extensions after January 2023

Therefore we recommend:

We also expect to be able to provide slightly higher service levels for our new extensions.

Conversions from 1st Generation Extensions

We're working on providing easy conversions to the newer extensions. This type of conversion is not yet available for all 1st generation extensions but we expect to add conversion support for all of them in due time.

Where conversion is available, as it is from Sheet Menu to Sheet Menu Plus, you 'drag and drop' the new extension on the existing 1st generation object, and the conversion completes in a few seconds.

Note: This is not an automated process, you will need to repeat the drag and drop for each of your 1st generation objects.

Comparing our 1st Generation Extensions with Their Closest New Extension

The following new extensions are recommended for best performance and future feature additions.

Library extensions - Heatmap > Grid Chart

A Grid Chart is a smarter version of a heatmap, supporting two measures one for color and one for size, allowing the creation of smarter visualization with more insights. It's also possible to show a grid that allows changing the size of each combination of dimensional values.

Library extensions - Sankey > Flow Chart

While they may look similar, Flow Chart supports more features including allowing empty/missing connections. For example, this allows a more meaningful visualization of a user flow on a website where users can leave at any point.

Library extensions - Sheet Menu > Sheet Menu Plus

Sheet Menu Plus is supported in both Qlik SaaS and Qlik Sense for Windows.

Self Service extensions - Cards > Tiles

The Cards extension has a fixed design with limited configuration options. Whereas the Tiles extension allows complete customization of a table view, it also allows the use of Bullet Charts, Gauges, Lines, and Viztips.

Self Service extensions - Selection-Bar > Toolbar

Selection Bar allows horizontal visualization of selections, a calendar, variables, and showing flags.

With the Toolbar extension, it's possible to freely customize any combination of those plus the additional visual alternatives of drop-downs and buttons. The Toolbar can also be “docked” to the side or top, used inside the Sheet Menu, or be started from a button and expanded to “float” on top of the Qlik application.

Download bundles offer 1st generation extensions

Both new and 1st generation extensions are included in the bundles.

In time, a feature will be added to the User Portal to allow turning the download of 1st generation extensions in bundles on or off. At that time, any new customers will automatically have the download of 1st generation extensions turned off in their bundles, but the 1st generation extension will still be available to download separately.

Communications if 1st generation extensions are discontinued

There are no dates set to discontinue any of our 1st generation extensions. If it becomes necessary, we would give notice well in advance, and help with conversion tools.