What are the known limitations of the Qlik Sense Cloud connector?
Following are the known limitations of the Qlik Sense Cloud connector, related to lineage:
QVD files
Due to limitations of the Qlik APIs, Atlan does not support lineage in certain situations where Qlik internally uses QlikView Data (QVD) files. QVD files are internal cache or materialized files that a user uploads directly or Qlik auto-generates.
Lineage can be missing in the following scenarios:
- Data joins or concatenations made in the Data manager within a Qlik App.
- Calculated fields created in the Data manager within a Qlik App.
- If data is added to an app using the following pathway: Qlik Home > + Add new button > New analytics app > Create > Files and other sources > select data source > Next button to load data and create the app.
In these situations, the Qlik APIs will only provide the information that a QVD file was consumed by an unspecified app. There is no metadata included for Atlan to infer the data source for the QVD file. Hence, constructing lineage for the upstream table of that QVD file is not possible.
You can also consider upvoting this Qlik community idea for the above metadata enhancement — you may need to register with the Qlik community portal first.
Datasets loaded from Data load editor
Atlan currently does not support generating lineage for datasets loaded from the Data load editor. The Data load editor can source data from:
- local files
- data connections
If these datasets are used in sheets and charts, then Atlan will neither be able to generate upstream nor downstream lineage. This is because data source metadata is unavailable for datasets in such cases.
Cross-space references
If data sources are used across spaces, Qlik will generate QVD files and the above known limitation regarding QVD files will come into effect. In this case, the dataset will point to the user who created the space instead of the data source. Atlan will not be able to generate downstream lineage for datasets in that case.
Advanced usage
Atlan currently does not support upstream lineage for Qlik applications that use:
- other apps as sources
- datasets loaded from the file system via SMTP or RESTful web services
Due to limitations at source, Atlan does not get the requisite metadata to generate upstream lineage to data sources.
To learn more about lineage errors in general, refer to Qlik documentation.
Why is the count of charts in Atlan much higher than at source?
Atlan currently extracts all items in a sheet as charts. However, not all charts may contain fields. Atlan currently does not delineate these differences and will display them as undefined charts.