Migrate Community Sheets from Qlik Sense Windows to SaaS

1 Migrate community sheets from Qlik Sense Windows to SaaS

In this tutorial you are going to use qlik-cli to identify community sheets in Qlik Sense applications, export them from client-managed, and import them to an app published to a managed space in Qlik Sense SaaS.

Note At the time of publishing this tutorial, it is not possible to change the owner of any application object in a Qlik Sense app on the SaaS platform. The owner of migrated community sheets is the user whose API key performs the commands executed in this tutorial.

1.1 Set up this tutorial

To complete this tutorial, please complete these prerequisites.

qlik-cli version 1.5.0 or higher
A licensed Qlik Sense on Windows instance with JWT virtual proxy configured
A licensed Qlik Sense SaaS tenant with a valid API key
Basic knowledge of jq using bash or working with JSON in powershell.
A Qlik Sense app migrated from client-managed to SaaS, published to a managed space.

1.2 Get community sheet objects from Qlik Sense on Windows

1.2.1 Set qlik-cli context to work with Qlik Sense on Windows

After you configure a context in qlik-cli to contact Windows, set the current context by issuing qlik context use <QSEoW context name> in the terminal prompt.

1.2.2 Get a list of community sheets for an app

Sheets in Qlik Sense apps have two boolean properties controlling the level they sit at in the visibility hierarchy: approved and published. Community sheets are set to

{
  "approved": false,
  "published": true
}

indicating that they are not private, but they are also not base sheets of the app.

Obtaining a list of community sheets from a client-managed repository uses the qlik qrs command in the cli. The qrs API in client-managed has robust filtering capabilities you can learn more about here.

Retrieve a list of community sheets in an app by specifying the app's unique Id in the filter along with the approved property set to fals and the objectType property equal to sheet.

#App Ids in Qlik Sense are GUIDs (e.g. bc594ff2-1652-4b4d-b49c-a100fa775856)
appId="<the app id>"

#Get a list of community sheets from the repository
community-sheets=$(qlik qrs app object ls --filter "app.id eq $appId and approved eq false and objectType eq 'sheet'" --insecure)

//returns an array
[
  {
    "id": "1ec2eaf5-3570-4fd3-beeb-11a7cdbfc848",
    "engineObjectType": "",
    "description": "",
    "objectType": "sheet",
    "publishTime": "2021-03-05T21:03:50.090Z",
    "published": true,
    "name": "My new sheet",
    "engineObjectId": "99069c50-d556-4ed6-a3d9-8a1be9ebcce3",
    "contentHash": "G92%5RU393W8UK&Q/+1'3->C<BR-7U`6)A5<**DX\\B!",
    "privileges": null
  }
]

1.2.3 Unbuild the app

Unbuilding a Qlik Sense app takes the standard app format - known as a qvf - and serializes it into a collection of JSON objects in JSON files. After unbuilding the app, use the community sheet list obtained in the previous step to identify the artifacts to import into SaaS. The qlik app unbuild command accepts an app argument and a directory argument for writing the JSON files to the location you specify.

#App Ids in Qlik Sense are GUIDs (e.g. bc594ff2-1652-4b4d-b49c-a100fa775856)
appId="<the app id>"
appFolder="<folder to store serialized app>"

#unbuild the app
qlik app unbuild --app $appId --dir $appFolder

#Results in a JSON serialized version of the app in the directory you specify
foobar-unbuild
├── app-properties.json
├── config.yml
├── connections.yml
├── dimensions.json
├── measures.json
├── objects
│   ├── appprops---28490d95-7238-43b2-8ed4-393a8ab75a9d.json
│   ├── binky---binky.json
│   ├── masterobject-filterpane-color-by-gduuhw.json
│   ├── masterobject-map-sales-by-state-zswlzs.json
│   ├── masterobject-pivot-table-sales-by-rep-and-customer-gujwpf.json
│   ├── masterobject-scatterplot-sales-vs-margin-by-product-sub-group-ydsxt.json
│   ├── masterobject-table-sales-reps-sales-variance-ty-vs-ly--prgzes.json
│   ├── my-list-object---22bf32a3-d406-4ed4-b6a4-2ad361a79bf9.json
│   ├── sheet--budget-analysis-gnazpy.json
│   ├── sheet--kpi-dashboard-jzjmza.json
│   ├── sheet--my-new-sheet-99069c50-d556-4ed6-a3d9-8a1be9ebcce3.json
│   ├── sheet--sales-analysis-jdspj.json
│   ├── sheet--sales-margin-analysis-duxnf.json
│   ├── sheet--sales-rep-performance-lchbs.json
│   ├── story--customer-retention-product-analysis-pjepm.json
│   └── story--sales-rep-performance-wjzwy.json
├── script.qvs
└── variables.json

1.3 Import community sheet objects to SaaS

1.3.1 Set qlik-cli context to work with Qlik Sense on SaaS

Set the current context to SaaS by issuing qlik context use <QSESaaS context name> in the terminal prompt.

1.3.2 Add the community sheet to the application

Adding a sheet object to an app uses the qlik app object set command where you specify the path to the file containing the JSON representation of the sheet and the app Id (aka GUID) to write it to. Adding the sheet makes it a private sheet of the referenced application.

#set the appid
appId="<the app id>"

appFolder="<folder to store serialized app>"
sheetName="<exported JSON file name>"

#Add the sheet to the application
qlik app object set $appFolder/objects/$sheetName --app $appId

1.3.3 Publish the sheet to the community layer

Moving the sheet from a private status to community uses the publish command within qlik app object

#set the appid
appId="<the app id>"
sheetId="<the sheet's object id>"

#publish the sheet to the community section of the app
qlik app object publish $sheetId --app $appId