Interview Questions for Qlikview Server Admin

Question.1 What is QlikView Server (QVS) and Publisher?

Answer:

QlikView server hosts all the QlikView documents, users and objects. QlikView server is accessed by QlikView management console.
QlikView publisher is a component of QVS and is used for content management, access, data reduction and distribution. A separate license is required for Publisher.

Question.2 How QlikView applications are deployed on the server?

Answer:

  • QVWs are developed using QlikView desktop and placed in the Source document folder. Source document folder is a physical folder on the QlikView Server.
  • QVWs will contain data load scripts and/or Visualizations.
  • Server folders are accessed through QlikView management console (QMC).
  • Appropriate security is applied to the dashboard.
  • Data reload and distribution tasks are created.
  • Once the distribution tasks are executed, dashboard goes in User document folder. Based on the settings one document can be split into multiple documents.
  • User access these documents/dashboards from user document folder through Access Point.

Question.3 What are tasks and Trigger on QlikView Management Console?

Answer: Tasks are created to reload data and distribute dashboards to the users. Triggers are created to schedule a task to run at a certain time. Dependencies between the tasks are also set using triggers.

Question.4 What different services are available in the QlikView Server environment?

Answer:

  • QlikView Management Service (QMS)
    QMS manages all the components of the environment. All the communication passes through QMS. Settings of QMS are stored as XML files.
  • QlikView Server (QVS)
    It is responsible for handling users, the security of documents, authorization and processes user requests.
  • QlikView WebServer (QVWS)
    It is responsible to start user authentication. It also stores Access Point and AJAX client files.
  • QlikView distribution services (QDS)
    It performs all the publisher tasks and is also required when the publisher is not present. It reloads data, performs data reduction and distributes documents.
  • Directory Service Connector (DSC)
    It is responsible for extracting permission related user information from Active directory, LDAP and ODBC. It also provides email distribution information to QDS.

Question.5 What different tabs are present in the QlikView Management console?

Answer:

Different tabs present on QlikView Management console are

  • Status. This tab displays the status of the executed tasks. You can monitor the success and failure of the tasks. It also gives the status on different services running on the server.
  • Documents. This contains subtabs for Source and User Document folders. Source documents contain developer created dashboards and user document folder contain published dashboard.
  • Users. This tab is used to configure users and Client Access Licenses System. This tab contains information regarding the QlikView Server environment and different services.

Question.6 What is Loop and Reduce in QlikView?

Answer:Loop and reduce is implemented by QlikView publisher. Using Loop and reduce a single document in the Source document folder is split into multiple user documents based on the reduce field. For e.g. if user group is divided into multiple regions, then you will create one dashboard and define loop and reduce based on the reduce field “Region”. One QlikView document will be split into multiple documents based on the number of regions. You can even specify the document name prefixed by Regions.

Question.7 What are CALs? What are the different types of CALs in QlikView?

Answer: CALs refer to Client Access License. To connect to QlikView server, you must have a Client Access License.

There are different CAL types. CAL will depend on the various usage requirements.

  • Named User CAL. It is specific to the user or the machine
  • Document CAL. It allows users to view only one specific document.
  • Session CAL. Allows multiple users to access multiple documents.
  • Usage CAL. It gives users the ability to initiate one session i.e. accessing one  document per 28-day period.

Question.8 Does the QlikView server environment always come with a publisher?

Answer: QlikView implementations can be done in QlikView Server only mode or with a QlikView
Server / publisher. Publisher license is purchased separately.
System/License tab displays the details about the Server license.

Question.9 In the absence of the QlikView publisher license, how many sub-tabs are displayed under the Documents tab in QMC?

Answer: If Publisher license is not present, only User Documents sub-tab is visible. With a publisher license, both Source document and user document are visible.

Question.10  How look and feel of Access point can be customized?

Answer: Access point is a portal where dashboards are displayed. The look and feel of the Access point can be customized by modifying the Access point files. These files are located in the web server installation path.

Question.11 What is leasing of license?

Answer: QlikView user using QlikView desktop can lease/borrow a license from the server. This license is available for a period of 30 days. Each time QlikView is launched, it tries to reconnect to the server and renew the license lease. If the client does not connect to the server for 30 days the license lease expires.
License can be leased from QlikView desktop by “Open in Server”option